After 20 Years Of Welding, I Learn How To Weld

As a career welder/fabricator who has welded more alloys than most people have seen or heard about. Why am I watching this..? Oh right, Matt

I did a welding course and for some reason ended up talking to three different teachers there . Each one of them told me to do thing totally differently from each other , which was a bit confusing at the beginning. The coolest thing was watching them weld in completely different ways but always having amazing results.

wasn't in a class but was welding some stainless on a jobsite and this oldtimer (not even working just having a look at his friend's future office) walks up, stops me, twists my wrist to a different angle and says "now weld properly" 30% improvement to my welds. thanks, wise old timer.

“Like any good welder, I blame the equipment”. Classic line and this guy is great. Laid back and self-effacing during his video which covered a lot of great info for the laymen.

Excellent video, Matt. I love your low-key and (sometimes) self-deprecating humor - mixed with, good, solid technical information. You clearly hit the points that most beginning welders struggle with.

Okay frenchman speaking, Chartreuse is the name of a mountain range in southeastern France. It is more famous as the name is used by a French herbal liqueur made by monks since 1737. The liquor is green as your electrodes. If you are curious, you can find some importers in the US, it's 55%ABV and already quite pricy in France where I live next to the factory.

Matt, As a gearhead and fabricator I've been enjoying your exploits for some time now. A comment about the laser cut steel parts. As a part of my 30 years as a certified aerospace welder, I"ve worked directly with the engineers in the material engineering depts. We've found that what appears to be a clean cut at the edge of laser cut parts there is a thin oxidized layer left over from the laser. If welded as cut, there is a narrow band of a porous and brittle weld left behind. Verified via x rays of finished welds. There are some SAE studies verifying the same under high powered electronic microscopes. Up close, that narrow band looks like a sponge!!! Just a few moments dressing those laser cut edges results in a uniform solidly fused weldments. Just a light pass with an abrasive. Doing this you'll see some the grinding 'dust' is hard and crunchy, evidence of the oxidation and porosity. When terminating a weld, chopping the current all at once leaves the dreaded dimple or divot caused by the rapid cooling, shrinking of the weld puddle. Close microscopic inspection shows there are numerous spider web stress cracks radiating from the middle of the 'dimple/divot'. The technique to eliminate this is...at the end of the weld, slowly back off (pedal) the current but while the puddle is still molten, add just a tiny droplet of filler to cap the shrinking puddle then slowly back down the current while moving the torch in small circular motions. Don't forget to keep the inert gas flowing until the weld has totally cooled. I've seen top notch chrome moly tube race cars (top fuel dragsters) with every single weld terminated with the dimpled puddle, a disaster in the making. Even pre welded kit plane frames I've seen exhibiting the same. Everyone knows that 'big cracks' emanate from 'little cracks'. Why take the chance?? I'm surprised this issue isn't covered better in most all welding tutorials. Go figure???

Hi Matt (and whoever might be watching the tungsten preparation part)! Just one important remark on grinding tungsten. Those expensive tools are not expensive because they're fancy but because they insulate you from the tungsten particles getting grinded off the rod. Those are super harmful to your health. I remember when I studied mechanical engineering and we had welding classes the prof. was super insistent on "Guys for the love of life never grind those on a bench grinder, it's about your own health!" and it stuck with me.

It's been said that practice makes perfect, when in reality it's practicing with good technique that makes perfect. Big props for taking a class and increasing your knowledge base.

"A bad tattoo that someone traded meth for" I'm always at a loss to describe that sort of art, that's a beautiful description.

The before and after on the welds is impressive ,I took a 2 year welding course along with a welding job, learnt everything under the moon about welding and id say that you summarized the most important parts very well.

I was an industrial welder for years and your information should be very useful to many people but what made me hit like was the humorous delivery. Well done.

My favorite comment was about the 240v outlet. "In that case, this was already here". Nice.

The cooled torch will be really helpful in AC welding, too, even at relatively low current and/or duty cycle the torch will heat up much quicker in AC. It's worth the money.

"A good pilot is always learning" -I'm proud to see another Matt making the world a better place. So much good info here. I've only ever done arc welding so far, but this makes me more excited about trying these fancier welding methods and materials.

I built my own water cooler for my water cooled tig torch using a 1 gal gas tank as a reservoir, an on demand diaphragm pump that I had laying around and a automatic transmission cooler as the heat exchanger. And the cooling fluid is a 50/50 mix of distilled water and antifreeze, because my garage is unheated, and the antifreeze provides a degree of corrosion protection in the cooling system. I like the water cooled torch because it stays cooler and I can hold the torch a little closer to the tip without getting burned. I'd been mig welding for 30 years before I tried tig. Tig is a different animal, so I watched everything on youtube about tig that I could and got more confused and in my head about tig welding. In this regard a teacher will give you the "on the fly" tutelage that can lessen the learning curve substantially. Then you can spend more time practicing and applying what you learned rather than trouble shooting your issues. But alas, I'm stubborn and continue to teach myself the wrong way of doing things. This video has a ton of useful info in it as to the importance of certain things and the unimportant parts. Being able to see the actual weld puddle is paramount. Clean lenses and blocking out the light from behind you was something I learned on my own and I fabricated a hood for my helmet to keep the light from behind me reflecting into the inside of my lenses, makin it very difficult to see. I also wear prescription glasses which tends to compound the problem. You want the inside of that helmet to be as dark as possible, with no exterior light coming in while your welding area should be well lit. It's a PITA to have to learn this stuff on your own. If I'd taken a class, I would have shortened my learning time and saved myself lots of frustration.

Started welding last year and it is like programming. Only very few get perfect on it, for the most of us it is about becoming less worse.

Never thought Welding Class would be this entertaining

Your honest failures are more helpful to society than you might know - whether they are something you have made and since regret or something you have bought/adapted and wish you had done it differently.

Boilermaker here. 30 years experience welding pressure vessels. Good video. Having your welds x-rayd is great incentive to get it right.