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Author: Subject: welding in the cold?
dmottaway

posted on 5/12/05 at 06:13 AM Reply With Quote
welding in the cold?

now that the season is upon us, my workspace is getting very cold - by my standards anyway.

should any special steps be taken when welding? that is, should the steel be warmed first?

I would imagine that warpage is a greater concern now?

dave





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suparuss

posted on 5/12/05 at 06:23 AM Reply With Quote
to be safe- id move all the tools into the living room and continue the build there!
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skint scotsman

posted on 5/12/05 at 07:35 AM Reply With Quote
to be safe- id move all the tools into the living room and continue the build there!

doesn't sound safe to me!!!






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JAG

posted on 5/12/05 at 08:55 AM Reply With Quote
If you consider the temperature difference between welding in the cold and welding in the warm and then compare that to the heat rise during the actual welding - the difference is negligible.

On a warm day the workshop and workpiece might be 25 Celsius and on a cold day may be 5 Celsius. So a 20 degree difference.

That's NOTHING compared to the increase during welding. The temperature increases from room temperature to melting point of steel, around 1000-1300 Celsius.....


....so the difference in room temperature of 20 degrees is insignificant - IMHO.





Justin


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James

posted on 5/12/05 at 09:14 AM Reply With Quote
Agree with JAG.

Unless you are using a really underpowered welder and it's only just reaching the melting point- then it might be an issue!

Cheers,
James





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joolsmi16

posted on 5/12/05 at 10:16 AM Reply With Quote
welding in the cold

The only thing I would add is with cold you usually find damp so a light spray of primmer after welding by be an idea.

When I built my chassis all I did was remove surface rust because by workplace was damp.

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derf

posted on 5/12/05 at 05:59 PM Reply With Quote
If you use farenheight its a bigger difference, on a warm day it's 80 on a cold day its 20 thats a 60 degree difference.

60 is alot bigger than 20.

also the melting point of a human body is 236F so be careful when you do weld

[Edited on 5/12/05 by derf]

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Fred W B

posted on 5/12/05 at 06:41 PM Reply With Quote
HA HA HA HA HA HA

Fred WB

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britishtrident

posted on 5/12/05 at 06:42 PM Reply With Quote
On thin section steel it makes no difference.
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Peteff

posted on 5/12/05 at 07:00 PM Reply With Quote
They still build ships outside in cold weather, don't worry about it. Try to keep the important stuff warm i.e. the one doing the welding





yours, Pete

I went into the RSPCA office the other day. It was so small you could hardly swing a cat in there.

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Arthur Dent

posted on 5/12/05 at 07:23 PM Reply With Quote
that is good to know - I'm about to start welding and its -20C.





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kipper

posted on 5/12/05 at 07:47 PM Reply With Quote
Cold

If your garage is cold I guess it will be damp, these conditions are ripe for rusting your MIG wire.
Try to make sure you mig is kept dry.

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britishtrident

posted on 5/12/05 at 08:10 PM Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by kipper
If your garage is cold I guess it will be damp, these conditions are ripe for rusting your MIG wire.
Try to make sure you mig is kept dry.



Should be no dampness at -20 at that kind of temp any welder would have a waiting list of brass monkeys looking to get some brazing done.

[Edited on 5/12/05 by britishtrident]

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britishtrident

posted on 5/12/05 at 08:18 PM Reply With Quote
Applies mainly when dealing with thicker steel but one thing to be aware of some steels can become very brittle at low temperatures with unexpected results -- if your interested worth doing a Google on "Liberty ship T2 tanker brittle failure"
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Mark Allanson

posted on 5/12/05 at 08:51 PM Reply With Quote
With cold weather you tend to get higher barometric pressure so you may need to increase the Argon pressure to match





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Johnathan

posted on 7/12/05 at 06:46 PM Reply With Quote
i agree with the last comment made by Mark, but because its cold should not make too much difference.

I am about to start welding mine very shorty, and its freezing. Done a lot of welding in the cold, and everything has always seemed okay. Well apart from the boat which sank ....

If in doubt, crack up an Arc welder, and have done with it ..





www.LogicalTuning.com

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Peteff

posted on 8/12/05 at 11:00 AM Reply With Quote
Liberty ship T2 tanker brittle failure

These were atributed to the conditions the ships were operating in, not the ones they were built in.





yours, Pete

I went into the RSPCA office the other day. It was so small you could hardly swing a cat in there.

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JoelP

posted on 8/12/05 at 01:08 PM Reply With Quote
heating it does help quick tacks, but wont really affect longer welds. Thats my opinion after a few days of cold welding.

Think in terms of the amount of energy transfered in a second (ie a small spot weld), turn this into a volume of melted metal from the specific heat and latent heat capacity of steel, and the 20 degrees of room temperature difference (or maybe a few hunderd degrees if you blowtorch it for a while) might have a significant affect on the volume of metal that ends up liquid, which is of course what determines if it sticks or not.






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