kool go kart help

[jrrdw]

How thick is your tubing? What amp range do you have on your welder? What size are your sticks? These are the 3 most importent questions you must have answers for! Keep your welding sticks high and dry! Or you will get poping in your arc! Poping will blow out your arc.

TECH TIPS: 1) Keep the welding area clean, (if it aint shinny, it aint clean).2) Make sure you have a good ground, (real good). 3) Strike your stick like strikeing a match to lite it, (it takes pratice to keep the arc going with out haveing the rod stick to your work piece), if the rod does stick, wiggle it back and forth while pulling. 4) Move your arc side to side from piece to piece, not along the circle of the two piece's being welded together, (this gives the fish scale apperance), also gives good penatration! Good penatration is key to strong weld's, the under side of your freshly welded piece should show slight wrinkling along your entire weld. 5) Chip off slag after welding, and then brush clean with wire brush to inspect welds, (start with a new brush, only use this brush for cleaning your welds, nothing else, or you will contanimate your work!! 6) SAFTY, WORK IN A WELL VENTED AREA, MY NIECE'S FATHERS UNCLE GOT LUNG PROBLEMS FROM WELDING, IT TOOK HIM 12 YEARS TO SUFACATE, (slow death, laid in bed the hole 12 years, weld outside if you can). WERE PROTECTIVE CLOTHING, (leather apron/gloves/hat). PRATICE MAKE PERFECT!!! Well thats it off the top of my head, if you run into any problems discribe them in detail and i'll do my best to help you out.

Good luck, you can do it.

[saladtossser]

18 gauge tubing
gonna get 5/16 rods
80 amp

when u said
"Keep your welding sticks high and dry"
i know what dry means
but what do you mean by high?

is it ok to weld on a driveway? i would think my neighbors would get sick and tired of the light, and my backyard is all wood or grass.

the damn manual is 7 pages worth of crap... filled with useless warnings (do not touch electic parts, do not use in rain or wet locations) and metric for crying out loud
thanks for the tips

[jrrdw]

High and dry, the high part is just for the folk lure part of the ryme, yea your driveway should be fine to weld on. 80 amp sounds kinda high for that gauge. Can you adjust it any? 35 to 40 amp's should be fine for 18 gauge steel. I would go with a thinner rod also, like 3/16th's. 5/16th's is for heaver gauge steel, like around 1/4" thick. 80 amp is gonna burn rite through that tubeing your useing, and the big rods problly wont even fully arc before it burns through the tubeing.

[saladtossser]

i am having hell of a lot of trouble getting the welding thing right
i practiced striking, i can drag a line but i always go too fast for any real welding, and if i slow down my electrobe sticks and/or my circuit breaker shuts off power. in time i can lay down a lot of metal on a joint but it just wont stick to the second tubing

how the hell do you aim this thing? i am thinking of having a halogen lamp shining at my target so i can see at least something.

still got a lot to learn, is it a good idea to have a circuit breaker on the power line on the welder instead of having me run into the basement everytime the lights go off? duty cycle says 10% but i cant get even 10 sec of arc before something shuts it down.

do both peices have to be grounded together? how do you clamp together a "L"?

gosh this is hard... help!

[jrrdw]

When i'm in a situation like a L shape i lay a bubbel beed down to stick them together, just in 1 spot to stickum together. As for the circuit breaker YES have it by all means!!! Are you useing a extenshen cord? That is a bad idea, make sure nothing else is running on the same circuit, like washer/dryer/hair dryer/vacum cleaner/tee vee/cumputer. The welder needs to be plugged into it's own curcuit, into the wall, or a very heavy extenshen cord, not a drop light or something like that. Remember, the welding area must be clean/bear metal. I try to keep my arc 1/8th inch long once i get it going. Check your grounding clamp, make sure it's on bear metal. I hope you got a good helmet 13 or 14 shade shield, the light is also a good idea, but have it shinning on your work, not at your face, it's easy to make that mistake. Take your time. Let me know how it goes.

[WOW!!]

Take your time, pracice makes perfect. What amp setting do you have it on? The ground goes to what ever peiece you are welding on. What shade helment are you useing? A 12 or 13 shade is fine. Try and use the light from the stick to see. I have a PDF file on SMAW welding and ill send it to ya by email, very usefull.


Josh

[saladtossser]

it came with #9 shades... not enough?

[WOW!!]

Yes since it is only 80amp it should be fine, how are your eyes arfter welding? D they hurt? And did you get my Email?


Josh

[jrrdw]

NOT FOR STICK WELDING!!! You arn't seeing black spots are you? You need at least a 12, i prefer 13 just to be safe, you don't want welders flash. Welders flash affects you later, not rite when your welding, eccept for it's hard to focus quickly, then the focus problem goes away after 5 minutes. A few hours later, everything goes black, your totaly blind for a minute or two. I had a friend growing up, his father totaled his truck because of welders flash. Nomatter what anybody tells you, stick welding is different from wire feed arc welding, and mig. You need darker shades, and way better ventalation! PROTECT YOUR EYES AND LUNGS! ALLWAYS SAFTY FIRST!!

[saladtossser]

trying to get a new helmet, the one i have now sucks, it has a handle and you have to hold it in front of your face...

no eye problems and no i didnt get any email

[jrrdw]

You can get helmets from ebay for about $10.00 + shipping brand new. Look around on there, you will find what you need, autodarkening, thats the kind i got, works great, paid like $45.00 + shipping, well worth it!

[WOW!!]

I dont really like the auto darkeing ones becasue what if something goes wrong in the electrical and it messes up your eyes?

[jrrdw]

You know rite away when it don't work rite, with the battery powered type, you push in on the top middle of the lense and they go dark for a monment, with the solar powered kind(powered by the arc light) it either works or it don't. I have the solar powered kind, and i love it, you just have to work in a lighted area, and it works great, the shade is adjustable from 9 to 14, i us a wire feed arc welder so i keep my setting on 12 1/2, only need 11 for mig and wire feed arc welding.

[urbana]

remember, if u use 6 inch rims the tires wil add about 3 inches on each side if you use penumatic tires. use 35 size chain 12 teeth on the cluch 72 on axle, thats how mine is and i reach 30 mph but i have 5inch rims, there plastic to but they are nilon renforced. I weled mine. you cant not weld it will fall apart. bolts will come lose even if u use nilon locking. my advice is pick up a frame from mfgsupply.com for 200 bucks. thats what mine is. it looks relly small but my friend who is 6.5 feet tall fits in it. By the way you have the rong engin. it will work but you need to get one made especally for go kart becuse it needs to have side blow protection. if it dosent you could shater your engine block. my friend did that with an power washer engine. you NEED to get a diferent engine.

[jrrdw]

There must have been something wrong with your friends engine, the 1 he has will work fine, he has a good clutch set up and that will take a lot of stress off the engine, easier take off's for sure.