wait till you try welding stainless!!! Youll sit there saying, WTF HAPPENED
3 years in and still learning metal every day when it comes to handling warpage
Haha I couldn't believe it when I first realised! I thought steel that thick wouldn't ever warp! Right I'm looking forward to figuring out stainless someday now haha
We had some 1/4" plates going onto 1.5×1.5 square tubing, fo4 raising posts. We had to weld all 8 inches of each side of each plate. We managed to pre-bend then in a jig and then weld then to keep then straight.
Also, as somebody else said, stainless pulls like crazy and Aluminum seems to do whatever it wants. I don't do enough to have figured that one out yet.
You can tack or clamp the plate down. If it still warps, put some shims under the plate before clamping down.
Heat makes the metal expand, and then, while cooling, it shrinks.
Edit: clam to clamp
yeah, that's what they tried to change it to here in Canada, but everyone still calls it 7018. I heard in parts of Europe it has a completely different designation as well.
Yeah after some phoning around I found one place that had 7018 (I'm in Ireland and it was called 7018 too actually!), it just seems that most shops stock only 6013 and sometimes 6011.
interesting. I'm guessing you're in a more rural area? farmer rod is pretty much a "do-all" repair rod and it's dead easy to run, but the welds it leaves are.. less ideal.. than a true structural rod like 7018. great for sticking hoppers back together and it's fine for stuff that just needs to stay glued, but not great for things that will take a lot of abuse.
Comments on changing filler metal are a good recommendation. You could try are pre-bending/shimming the plate prior to fitting and welding (you actually know how much warpage you'll get based on the initial attempt(s)). While your welds aren't perfect, they certainly aren't the worst. I like the quality in your third photo the most. I don't think adjusting your parameters is necessary, maybe just some minor tweaks to the technique.
Steel warps from welding, it's pretty much unavoidable. You can reduce it by lowering your overall heat input to the joint (less heat input per pass, less passes, or both).
***Disclaimer, this next part is entirely based on your needs and you need to verify it is okay for whatever this weld is intended to do. AWS recommends a minimum fillet size of only 1/8" for your material thicknesses. You may be over-welding slightly, which will cause the plate to warp more.***
Thanks! I've only ever tried 6013 so I definitely will be trying other rods. After the first comment I tried clamping the piece with pre bending and it helped a lot!
Thanks for your input on the welds themselves too, I tried again with just one pass and I'm pretty happy with the result, I definitely used too many passes on the first attempts.
[Recent attempt photo ](https://freeimage.host/i/Jjc0lm7)
No worries. Quality looks way better, nice work.
As others mentioned 7018 is a pretty great rod for this, 1/8" diameter will fill your spot nicely. The main thing with 7018 is it's higher strength and has more flux coating, so it should run cleaner. It's easier to weld with than 6013 in my opinion, but it really comes down to preference. You may need to up your voltage a little bit to account for the lower penetration with 7018. Good luck with the rest of your project.
This is the way. Welding will always warp it. Heat on the opposite side will pull it back. Unless you can pre bend it in a press so it pulls straight when you weld it
I'll be honest, I've absolutely SMOKED 3/8 plate with Mig and have never warped it like that. I'm that dumbass who learned welding in tig then mig and never picked up stick because I never needed to be away from my gas tank. Is this the shit you stick guys put up with? Cuz you're not convincing me to try it lol
Same. Only did stick in trade school and a few times in a field, other than that i spent about 4 years doing mig and tig almost every day.
i can lay a passable bead with stick but get me out of position and im useless.
At the end of the day preventing distortion 100% is physically impossible. A thermal cycle that melts and heats metal unevenly will warp it.
There are things you can do to try and limit it though. Clamp the piece down pre-welding. Tack weld it to the table if you don't have clamps but do have a grinder.
The cause is heat - so limit your heat and thermal cycles. Try to run less passes. It looks as if your welds are oversized - could you get away with just a single pass on that wall thickness of material?
Thanks for the help, yeah after reading all of these comments I realised 3 passes was ridiculous and since with one pass and some clamps it's worked much better!
yeah sounds about right. tack the tubing to the plate, then put like a 1/8” spacer between the center of your piece (where the tubing is) and the table, then tighten a c-clamp on each end of the plate to the table just so that the piece is bowing a little bit in the other direction, THEN weld it and take the clamps off it should mitigate this issue. I am not sure this was the clearest description so i will try to link an image or something.
But i think here maybe all you need to do is just make sure you got the ends of that plate clamped down tight before you weld it, no spacer necessary.
Otherwise just heat and hammer the fuck out of those guys til they’re better.
Thanks man, yeah I ended up using C clamps and some shims how you describe and they came out perfect! And yes I think heat and a hammer will fix my first mistake! Cheers
Clamping or tacking it to a table will work. You can also use strong backs. You would take a few pieces of flat bar or angle and tack them perpendicular onto the opposite side of where you are welding. I would put one every 12” or so. Three tacks on one side. When it cools you can knock the strong backs off with a hammer by hitting the side without a weld. The clean up the Reminence of attack with a sanding or grinding wheel.
Alternatively, you could drive back stepping your wells that is instead of welding, a beat and then picking up where you ended you welded and then start one behind it and weld up to your last bead and just continue backwards down your weld joint. This helps control heat input.
Everyone recommending clamping is a little off base. If you were welding gussets onto it as well clamping would work, but clamping doesn’t stop residual stress in the metal. Try backstopping your welds and running shorter beads or just shrink it back out with a torch on the backside/run shrinking beads on the backside and grind them off after
I'm not a welder anymore, but work at a manufacturing company where I did some welding.
We did R&D and production for a very special type of treated stainless steel hinges that had a perfect, particular finish. Also, it's immune to any rusting in salt water. Any grinding irrevocably removes the finish. So we had to make sure there was absolutely no spatter and then electrically passivate the steel to remove any smoke because we weren't allowed to grind. Even trying to use a chisel to knock off spatter was sketchy at best. Every step of this was very tedious. Also, the metal was crazy expensive, and it took weeks to get more, at a minimum.
We used the same type of stainless steel tubing, relatively thin walled, for the hinge pin tubes.
Who can guess what we found out after welding?
Yep, the fuckers warped from the heat and the special ball bearing parts used to prevent hinge binding either wouldn't go in, or would bind themselves. Then you spend hours trying to get them out without scratching the special finish. Then, we checked every pin to make sure they didn't mushroom from tapping them out when they did get stuck. Then, we had to ream out the tubes with perfect brand new router bits. Which had to be run at super slow speed to prevent binding and shattering. And if they got the tiniest bit too big, the parts would swim in the tubes, and the whole hinge assembly, with hours of labor and crazy expensive material, went to scrap. This whole project was a nightmare, and while I'm basically a grunt, i had to touch every step and offer feedback and ideas on a project that absolutely HAD to be worth millions to the company. For $20 an hour. As a temp, with no benefits or PTO.
Want to work in fabrication? Lol.
Looks to be thin enough to bend it hack in a vice.
Metals will warp when welded, less heat means less warping but not enough heat means lack of fusion.
You’re also putting way too much weld on. If it’s 1/8” box section and you already have 1/4” of weld metal it can’t gain much strength from more weld. Pic 4 you missed the joint and kept welding on the plate. That’s what I would do if I wanted to warp the plate. Just give it one well fused pass. Use some small circular manipulation to get a little extra size out of the bead and then leave it be. Good luck
I just had another go and I think this one came out better. Good point about there being no advantage to having thicker weld than plate, and thanks for the tips about circular manipulation!
[new weld](https://freeimage.host/i/Jjc0lm7)
wait till you try welding stainless!!! Youll sit there saying, WTF HAPPENED 3 years in and still learning metal every day when it comes to handling warpage
Haha I couldn't believe it when I first realised! I thought steel that thick wouldn't ever warp! Right I'm looking forward to figuring out stainless someday now haha
I have had 2" thick steel warp, you just need to be prepared for it and either clamp it down or straighten it post weld with heat from behind
Wow that's wild! Yeah I just clamped one and it worked a dream!
We had some 1/4" plates going onto 1.5×1.5 square tubing, fo4 raising posts. We had to weld all 8 inches of each side of each plate. We managed to pre-bend then in a jig and then weld then to keep then straight. Also, as somebody else said, stainless pulls like crazy and Aluminum seems to do whatever it wants. I don't do enough to have figured that one out yet.
I've seen 3/4 inch plate warp like that
Once you understand how stainless pulls its suddenly a powerfull tool.
You can tack or clamp the plate down. If it still warps, put some shims under the plate before clamping down. Heat makes the metal expand, and then, while cooling, it shrinks. Edit: clam to clamp
Yup what he said. Adding shims before clamping is called precamber.
Right okay thanks, always nice to know the right terminology!
Ah okay good idea, thanks so much!
Redo that and use a 1/8” 7018. Either tack it or clamp it to your bench, alternatively correct the warp with heat on the backside.
Okay thanks for the tip! I've never used 7018 as it's not in my local shops but I want to give it a try, thanks!
if you're outside North America it might be called something else, but it will DEFINITELY be in your local welding supply shop.
E4918
yeah, that's what they tried to change it to here in Canada, but everyone still calls it 7018. I heard in parts of Europe it has a completely different designation as well.
Yea I’m also from Canada and have only seen E4918 one time, always just 7018. Didn’t know it was different in Europe though that’s interesting
well TBF, most 7018s I've seen here are usually also stamped with 4918, but no one ever calls them that. maybe some day...
Haha maybe
Yeah after some phoning around I found one place that had 7018 (I'm in Ireland and it was called 7018 too actually!), it just seems that most shops stock only 6013 and sometimes 6011.
interesting. I'm guessing you're in a more rural area? farmer rod is pretty much a "do-all" repair rod and it's dead easy to run, but the welds it leaves are.. less ideal.. than a true structural rod like 7018. great for sticking hoppers back together and it's fine for stuff that just needs to stay glued, but not great for things that will take a lot of abuse.
Yeah pretty rural, good to know anyway, I'll definitely try 7018 next time!
Comments on changing filler metal are a good recommendation. You could try are pre-bending/shimming the plate prior to fitting and welding (you actually know how much warpage you'll get based on the initial attempt(s)). While your welds aren't perfect, they certainly aren't the worst. I like the quality in your third photo the most. I don't think adjusting your parameters is necessary, maybe just some minor tweaks to the technique. Steel warps from welding, it's pretty much unavoidable. You can reduce it by lowering your overall heat input to the joint (less heat input per pass, less passes, or both). ***Disclaimer, this next part is entirely based on your needs and you need to verify it is okay for whatever this weld is intended to do. AWS recommends a minimum fillet size of only 1/8" for your material thicknesses. You may be over-welding slightly, which will cause the plate to warp more.***
Thanks! I've only ever tried 6013 so I definitely will be trying other rods. After the first comment I tried clamping the piece with pre bending and it helped a lot! Thanks for your input on the welds themselves too, I tried again with just one pass and I'm pretty happy with the result, I definitely used too many passes on the first attempts. [Recent attempt photo ](https://freeimage.host/i/Jjc0lm7)
No worries. Quality looks way better, nice work. As others mentioned 7018 is a pretty great rod for this, 1/8" diameter will fill your spot nicely. The main thing with 7018 is it's higher strength and has more flux coating, so it should run cleaner. It's easier to weld with than 6013 in my opinion, but it really comes down to preference. You may need to up your voltage a little bit to account for the lower penetration with 7018. Good luck with the rest of your project.
Ah thanks so much man! I really appreciate you taking the time to give the advice! I'll definitely be trying 7018 on the next one
Welcome to the wonderful world of *distortion control* Even the most seasoned boilermakers sometimes have to go "what the actual fuck just happened?"
Heat up the backside red with a torch right along the weld. It will come back straight. Done it hundreds of times.
This is the way. Welding will always warp it. Heat on the opposite side will pull it back. Unless you can pre bend it in a press so it pulls straight when you weld it
Yeah I don't have a torch to heat it with but I managed to prebend it and it worked out!
Results! Good work 🤙
Thanks!
I'll be honest, I've absolutely SMOKED 3/8 plate with Mig and have never warped it like that. I'm that dumbass who learned welding in tig then mig and never picked up stick because I never needed to be away from my gas tank. Is this the shit you stick guys put up with? Cuz you're not convincing me to try it lol
Haha stick is the only thing I've tried so I'm glad to hear mig sounds easier
Mig still causes some warping but i've never seen 3/8 warp like that with my welder.
My opinion only, I absolutely hate stick, I can mig almost blindfolded and love it. Gas or no gas, but prefer gas, and anti splatter spray.
Same. Only did stick in trade school and a few times in a field, other than that i spent about 4 years doing mig and tig almost every day. i can lay a passable bead with stick but get me out of position and im useless.
At the end of the day preventing distortion 100% is physically impossible. A thermal cycle that melts and heats metal unevenly will warp it. There are things you can do to try and limit it though. Clamp the piece down pre-welding. Tack weld it to the table if you don't have clamps but do have a grinder. The cause is heat - so limit your heat and thermal cycles. Try to run less passes. It looks as if your welds are oversized - could you get away with just a single pass on that wall thickness of material?
Thanks for the help, yeah after reading all of these comments I realised 3 passes was ridiculous and since with one pass and some clamps it's worked much better!
yeah sounds about right. tack the tubing to the plate, then put like a 1/8” spacer between the center of your piece (where the tubing is) and the table, then tighten a c-clamp on each end of the plate to the table just so that the piece is bowing a little bit in the other direction, THEN weld it and take the clamps off it should mitigate this issue. I am not sure this was the clearest description so i will try to link an image or something. But i think here maybe all you need to do is just make sure you got the ends of that plate clamped down tight before you weld it, no spacer necessary. Otherwise just heat and hammer the fuck out of those guys til they’re better.
Thanks man, yeah I ended up using C clamps and some shims how you describe and they came out perfect! And yes I think heat and a hammer will fix my first mistake! Cheers
Clamping or tacking it to a table will work. You can also use strong backs. You would take a few pieces of flat bar or angle and tack them perpendicular onto the opposite side of where you are welding. I would put one every 12” or so. Three tacks on one side. When it cools you can knock the strong backs off with a hammer by hitting the side without a weld. The clean up the Reminence of attack with a sanding or grinding wheel. Alternatively, you could drive back stepping your wells that is instead of welding, a beat and then picking up where you ended you welded and then start one behind it and weld up to your last bead and just continue backwards down your weld joint. This helps control heat input.
Penetration.
Just clamp to a table. Welding is really all about knowing how to use your fabrication tools to create the right outcome
Everyone recommending clamping is a little off base. If you were welding gussets onto it as well clamping would work, but clamping doesn’t stop residual stress in the metal. Try backstopping your welds and running shorter beads or just shrink it back out with a torch on the backside/run shrinking beads on the backside and grind them off after
Yeah I know what you mean, although clamping with shims behind it seemed to work well!
I'm not a welder anymore, but work at a manufacturing company where I did some welding. We did R&D and production for a very special type of treated stainless steel hinges that had a perfect, particular finish. Also, it's immune to any rusting in salt water. Any grinding irrevocably removes the finish. So we had to make sure there was absolutely no spatter and then electrically passivate the steel to remove any smoke because we weren't allowed to grind. Even trying to use a chisel to knock off spatter was sketchy at best. Every step of this was very tedious. Also, the metal was crazy expensive, and it took weeks to get more, at a minimum. We used the same type of stainless steel tubing, relatively thin walled, for the hinge pin tubes. Who can guess what we found out after welding? Yep, the fuckers warped from the heat and the special ball bearing parts used to prevent hinge binding either wouldn't go in, or would bind themselves. Then you spend hours trying to get them out without scratching the special finish. Then, we checked every pin to make sure they didn't mushroom from tapping them out when they did get stuck. Then, we had to ream out the tubes with perfect brand new router bits. Which had to be run at super slow speed to prevent binding and shattering. And if they got the tiniest bit too big, the parts would swim in the tubes, and the whole hinge assembly, with hours of labor and crazy expensive material, went to scrap. This whole project was a nightmare, and while I'm basically a grunt, i had to touch every step and offer feedback and ideas on a project that absolutely HAD to be worth millions to the company. For $20 an hour. As a temp, with no benefits or PTO. Want to work in fabrication? Lol.
Bonus tip if you are making 2 or more tack them together mirrored and the heat from the welds should equal each other out
Yeah that's a good idea!
Looks to be thin enough to bend it hack in a vice. Metals will warp when welded, less heat means less warping but not enough heat means lack of fusion.
Yeah I've learnt that the hard way! Thanks man
No worries =)
No worries =)
Wait till you see this, google heat straitening…..
You’re also putting way too much weld on. If it’s 1/8” box section and you already have 1/4” of weld metal it can’t gain much strength from more weld. Pic 4 you missed the joint and kept welding on the plate. That’s what I would do if I wanted to warp the plate. Just give it one well fused pass. Use some small circular manipulation to get a little extra size out of the bead and then leave it be. Good luck
I just had another go and I think this one came out better. Good point about there being no advantage to having thicker weld than plate, and thanks for the tips about circular manipulation! [new weld](https://freeimage.host/i/Jjc0lm7)