holding my welding

Is there anything i can do so that i can hold what i am welding? I have a 135Mig. I'm assuming that it's not smart to hold on to the metal i am welding , but if i wear rubber gloves or something.......... I dunno.....any suggestions?

 

welding

wear leather gloves.
Just make sure the ground clamp is between your hand and where you're welding.
I'd be more worried about getting burned than shocked although I have been mildly shocked by the welder a few times.
It's not the greatest thing in the world, but it's not anything to jump up and down about.

 

Wear leather welding gloves, you can buy em at any local welding supply place, should be one in your area. Even then, you usually can't hold the piece you are welding, usually it just gets too hot, it will even go through the welding gloves (you'll feel it a few secs after you pick the hot piece up). Your best bet is to clamp it down in some way so it won't move and so you can hook the ground clamp up to it easily. If you have a steel work bench like we do, it makes it pretty easy.

 

If your doing alot of welding, dont wear shorts or short sleeve shirt. Unless you like sunburns.

 

Re: welding

I have a wood workbench

hehehe buy i bet my welder can fix that

 

OOPS i meant to quote this post hehehe

 

at a lot of the tool stores you can buy magnets with different angles that will hold the metal pieces together. they have them at harbor freight also.

 

You have to watch the Harbor Freight magnets. The ones I have are made out of the plastic like stuff referigerator decorations are made out of. I got one of them too hot and it caught fire and lost magnetism. I still have a bunch of them though. I use them to tack weld then take them off before throwing the heat to it. If you watch - you can get them on sale for $1. My favorite is an assortment of different shape vice grips and a steel top table. Nice thing about a steel top table is you can weld blocks right to it and then grind them off and sand the table down smooth when you are done.

Cleaver

 

if i lay a sheet of steel over my wooden work bench will i run in to any problems?

 

As long as your work is properly grounded to the machine, You will not get shocked. Its that simple. Electricity will always take the path of least resistance. Make sure your grounding clamp and the place you clamp it to, is clean bare metal.

 

We built a whole workbench out of steel including a little cubby for the little mig welder and a bracket to put the ground clamp on. That way all we have to do is clamp the part on the top of the steel bench and it's grounded. What you can do is lay a sheet of steel on the top of your bench and weld a little bracket onto it, maybe on the back or somewhere out of the way. Make sure it's nice and clean and then you can do the same thing, just put your ground clamp on the bracket and clamp ure workpiece down to the bench with vicegripes, whatever. If you want to do it this way, I'd probalby use a thicker piece of steel, maybe 1/8"-1/4" or something to make the electricity flow a little easier.

 

speaking of welding shock....
back in HS we used to grab the tungsten (TIG welders) and turn the machine on AC lowest setting and we were able to actually strike a very faint arc from the opposite hand to the work table. That was cool to show the beginner class (but don't try it at home LOL)

there was about 5000 volts (high frequency starting) but no amperage to speak of. That's why it would do it.

 

Back in high school, we welded with torchs and stick welders. Tig wasn't around then. I wish tig was in my budget. My shop is getting a small tig set up in May. I cant wait. I'll have to bring it home on the weekends to "practice".

 

when i was in school we welded with hot irons. torches and stick welders weren't around. ...frank...:bananaman :bananaman

 

Dennis, I too had to weld with a torch or stick when I was in school.

Are we telling how old we are now!

Bossmav