Help is required!
I need to weld some mild steel box section. 30×30 with a thickness of 1.5mm.
I have bought a cheap arc welder and have read a couple of online guides but it’s just not happening?
I am setting the welder to approx 60A and using 1.6mm rods.
I burned through a few rods laying beads of weld onto some scrap angle iron and they seemed ok, not brilliant but ok. However I am having a real struggle getting the welds to join the box section?
A couple have held, not looked great but strong enough, but most times the bead seams to ‘stick’ to one piece rather than both. I am also a bit wary of burning through the box section.
What should I be doing that I’m not?
What are the golden rules for Arc Welding?
Thanks

I have bought a cheap arc welder

thats your problem

You are fitting the bits first aren’t you?

With 60A MMA you should really only be melting the two surfaces together with minimal addition of metal, so if you can’t be arsed to cut and grind the fit you’ll never get a nice weld.

Same as most skills, it’s all in the prep!

Assuming you have done that, go for wider strokes whilst making your pass to create a wider bead.

It takes practice, and 1.5mm thick is a bit thin to learn on with MMA. (MIG would be easier but since you have MMA, accept that it will take time.) I would practice on offcuts of the box section until it’s working well, rather than risk the real job. Once you get used to what you’re looking for, you can see the puddle of metal, and the trick is to feed the rod in just fast enough to keep the puddle full. If you blow holes, turn the current down. If you aren’t getting fusion of the parent metal, turn it up.

With small thin tube and MMA be prepared for it to distort. Things will generally bend towards the heat, so maybe plan weld runs on opposing sides so heat from your second run pulls things back (ish).

My friend runs the Singletrack of welding forum here.

http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/

Get yourself over there for hints and tips.

Assuming you are butt welding them to make some sort of framework, I take it you are welding the end of one piece to the side of another?
A bit like this?

The end (the upright of the T in that picture) will always melt quicker, while the side ( the crossbar of that T) will conduct the heat away more, so as you weave from side to side, always pause longer on the bigger piece of steel.

Arc welding is far harder to learn than mig welding and doesn’t have any advantages in general workshop use, other than the welder itself being cheaper to buy in the first place.
I’ve worked in several commercial vehicle garages and I can’t remember the last time I saw anyone arc weld or gas weld anything.
Everybody mig welds everything these days, it’s so much easier.

I’ve worked in several commercial vehicle garages and I can’t remember the last time I saw anyone arc weld or gas weld anything

Very likely but that’s just vehicle repairs in a business (where the metal isn#t that thick) that can justify spending many hundreds on a big mig machine.
I very occasionally need to weld stuff on my rather large mower (behind and agricultural tractor) – this usually involves old metal with a thickness of 9mm-20mm and working in a breezy open barn.
I don’t want to take the piece to a metalworkers to be fixed, or spend big money on a MIG that could cope but a £40 stick welder is just the job. It’s not pretty but it does the job.

Arc welding is far harder to learn than mig welding

It is, but the sticks are cheap and you don’t have to mess with a gas supply. MIG welding has been compared to drawing a line with a pencil – with I could afford a big machine!

When I was an apprentice, the only place that would allow us to use MIG was in a shipyard where I worked, everywhere else deemed it to be of too low a standard, and insisted that we use TIG and stick instead. There’s nothing more satisfying than welding a stick capping run and then pulling your screen up to see the slag peeling off on its own!

I think the main tip for the OP is match the welder to the job or the job to the welder. If welding thin material is what you need to do then stick welders aren’t generally everyone’s first choice for that. Its quite a big financial leap from stick welding to mig (and mig has a lot of ongoing consumable costs too – like bottle hire). The cheaper option is to swap the metal you’re using and design to suit that – simpler structures with fewer joints made from fewer, thicker, stronger elements. Use thick angle iron rather than thin tube for instance.

If your hiring bottles as a diyer your doing it wrong.

Buy the bottle for 120 quid with long tags and you get fills for 24 quid in the right places.

Stick is for doing as sharkbait suggests

Tell me its not an aldi buzzbox…. Even experianced welders have struggled to get a decent finish with that machine. Search your machine over at mig welding and youll see if its half decent or not, some machines just are not up to it so as a beginner your fighting a losing battle

If your hiring bottles as a diyer your doing it wrong.

Buy the bottle for 120 quid with long tags and you get fills for 24 quid in the right places.

that was just a for-instance. A bind with mig if you’re doing little odds and ends here and there (rather than doing the same kind of thing a lot) is swapping between materials, or swapping between very thick and very thin materials can mean different gasses, different rolls of wire, different wire thicknesses (which mean different tips and different rollers) – rather than just a different packet of sticks and a twiddle of a knob.

I served my time as a plater (steel fabricator) and MMA welding isn’t much cop for thin steel.
6mm is about the minimum. Anything thinner as previously stated you are better off with a MIG set.
They can be a bit temperamental at times but you will get better results.

Crikey! Wasn’t expecting as much response!
Can’t really justify the expense of Mig for DIY use, however tried again today and more of my welds are sticking, still not pretty but holding.
Hopefully I’ll get better with practice. Probably going to try a night school welding class aswell.

Have you checked to see if the rods require a positive earth (or vice versa?). Usually marked on the box (and no, I don’t know why it makes a difference) but if it’s just “not working properly” this can be the reason why.