ducter

Hey guys,

I am going to start building a front and rear bumper once I get all the metal together but wanted to ask some of you that are knowledgeable with welders about my little harbor freight 90 amp flux welder.

I purchased it years ago for some repairs on my rider mower, never really thought I would need a bigger machine but now, thinking about bumpers I dont know if its sufficient or not so I did a little test, not very technical but all I could think of trying.

I just put a fat bobs garage bb on her and had the stock shackles left over, metal looked about the thickness of what I would use for the bumpers so I welded them together from the bottom side only thinking that would make the welds the weakest, 3 passes, didnt clean them up as its just a test. Heres what I ended up with..







Think this welder could manage the bumpers ok? I have driven over it several times and seems fine. I know thats not a real test but not sure what else to try.


Edit; not sure if this belongs in this section. If not apologies and move it to where it may belong.

Gary Briggs

If you can afford it buy a better machine.

I have used the 115v Lincoln 140 mig, with core wire can easily handle 1/4" plate and cost around 500$

Or my personal favorite the miller 211, 220v/110v which in my opinion is the ideal welder for the garage fabricator, cost about a grand! Worth every penny I absolutely love mine!

ducter

Thanks for the reply. Cant swing a bigger machine right now as I just replaced the motor. If this welder isn't big enough I will wait for work to pick up and buy one then. I wasn't sure about it but thought it might just work....but don't want questionable welds on a bumper, figured I would check with those that have done them and see.

Thanks again

Domaas

a 90amp machine would be cutting it close...and no need to buy a 1000 plus dollar machine for just one bumper, unless you foresee much more fab in your future. i personally run a miller 210 220v machine in my garage..but that is neither here nor there.

get your metal for you bumper.prob 1/4 or 3/16 bevel and prep well, lay a good root weld and stay within your duty cycle and you should be ok.If you plan on doing a bunch of fab down the road...spend wisley and buy a good machine that will handle more than you ever plan on building..that way you always have a margine of safety.

ducter

Thank you for your response as well. Think I will weld the other side up and take it to work with me, run a chain threw it and hook to our backhoe and another to my dump truck, if I can pull the dump truck I might just go with it, if I snaps at the weld I guess that would be my answer.

Daltonamorph

You're travel speed is a bit fast. Slow it down and let the puddle really pool then slowly move it. Really concentrate on keeping the wire in the puddle the whole time you're welding. Wire wheel the weld path to get rid of any contaminants and bevel the edges along the seam you'll be welding. As long as you're not planning on smashing on it super hard, you should be good.

ducter

Thank you, so with my travel speed, I want to see more definition to the welds, and not so much smooth right? If I described that right.

Gary Briggs

Practice practice practice, there are actually some decent tutorials online, but in reality you can learn how to weld by reading/research, get some scrap and start laying weld after weld on it, in high school we were givin a piece of 3/8 flat stock 4x4" and we lay pass after pass on it till it was about 2" thick, at that point the teacher would come in and start to fine tune our game! Because it take hundreds of not thousands of welds to get the feel for it

Gary Briggs

Dalt is right, prep is the most important thing, a 5,000$ machine will fail just as hard as you inexpensive welder if you don't prep your work, removing all millscale and contaminates is huge!

ducter

Alright, I appreciate the tips and advice. I think I will get the metal together and see where my finances stand. Might give it a go with my welder if I can pull my dump truck with the shackles I put together. Thanks again fellas.

xjcherokee90

I have a Lincoln pro mig 135. Works awesome. I have used it on my front bumper which there is a thread on it. New front bumper I think. Used that welder for all of it. Welded my bead locks and built my welding table. Will soon be building my rear bumper with swing out with it also and roof rack and Rock sliders. Seems to work great for me

Daltonamorph

Good luck, as long as you go slow it should be okay.

By the way, this is one of my favorite welding tutorial videos. Everyone has a different technique, but once I really started using this my welds improved a good deal. Best of luck, post up some pictures of your progress.

Dagostino480

Looks like and arc weld, which is dirty and hard as **** to weld with,. Easiest thing to do would be tougher to find the certain pattern when welding. If you are doing mig (which is using gas ) it will be cleaner and easier to use. Either way one pass it all you need for a strong weld. Practice and youtube

DualPurposeXJ

What?

And he's using a harbor freight flux core wire feed machine.

ducter

Thanks for that, I havent been doing it that way but will give it a shot. I was doing more of a stitch kinda zig zag movement.