I am almost ashamed to post this but oh well..... everyone has to start somewhere. This is a wheel of a wagon from lowes. My father gave me the wheel to find a replacement for him (no one sells one like it locally) or "fix" it for him. I have been meaning to take it to my father in laws shop and MIG it, I just keep forgetting to. So this was a great opportunity to give my new welder a go...

This is my first welds with my PA140ST and first TIG weld. I was using a 3/32 2% thoriated with a #6 cap. Amperage was around 60... sometimes up to 75. Filler rod was a 1/16 ER70S2.

The first thing I did was tried to clean the rim with my sand blaster..... FAILED. Damn that power coat!!! Of course I dont have the kind of tools here I needed so I ended up "Grinding" the power coat off with a drill press and a hole saw bit. After that I washed the parts and lined everything up. I fired up the 140, set it to 80 amps, set the argon to 15cfh, grounded the part and started to go. I was worried that starting the arc would be tricky... it was actually very easy. But I did have one problem..... I forgot to cut the argon back on!!! Yep started out right.... LOL. After saying a few words to myself I cut the gas on and tried again. Once again it was easy to start the arc but the problem this time was I started burning holes in the metal... Yea I knew this wasn't going to be as easy as everyone makes it look! After turning the amperage down to 40 I quickly realized I needed to go back up some on the amperage. 60 amps seemed to be a good setting to start with. Things got a little better until the metal heated up enough to start burning the powder coat. Then I got to enjoy the smoke coming right in my face.... I was not having fun at all..... After tacking a few spots and burning holes in other spots, I added a big washer to the mix to strengthen the wheel, in reality it was probably the only thing that saved me from totally destroying the wheel. It was a lot easier welding the thick washer to the thick metal of the wheel (center). Once I had that fairly well... "attached".... I proceeded to the back to work on the thin metal.... It was a little easier since the washer helped from cutting holes.... After a while I said... good enough.... I should have said BAD enough.....

If anything this should give everyone a good laugh.

Next time I think I am going to practice on some scrap metal first.

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