Hello Everyone,

I already had my welding skills so I didn’t have to spend time on learning them. While reading old forum postings I noticed some people writing about wanting to, or trying to, acquire welding skills. Several of my friends and many others I know acquired their welding skills from one book. WELDER’s HANDBOOK by Richard Finch  ISBN: 978-1-55788-513-5 I bought a recent copy in the welding section at Home Depot a while back. With practice they became proficient in welding and most never read another book on welding. They simply refined what they learned from this book with the accumulation of practice. GAS, ARC, MIG, TIG, Plasma cutting. Most started with ARC and many have stayed with ARC. It takes about an hour to strike arcs effectively and about 20-hours to be able to effectively lay beads and butt weld metal joints together. Functional proficiency with the ARC welder takes about 100-hours. Many today believe you need a MIG for good welding. If you’re waiting to weld and trying to save your money for a MIG you are wasting build time. MIGs relevant advantages over ARC are increased weld speed, cleaner welding, and easier welding of sheet metal. Other than these, MIG has no other significant advantages over ARC. ARC however has several over MIG. ARC is cheap. Used Lincoln 230 amp welders sell for 100-150.oo and new for 300-350.oo. ARC with a 6011-1/8th inch rod can weld dirty, rusty, and oily metal and do it in damp high winds. Most every relevant welding task can be done with ARC. I am not downing MIG. I have an excellent Miller MIG welder. However, I am planning to do the welding on my Tumbler with a used Lincoln 225 amp welder that I bought for 130.oo. Action walks and BS talks. It’s my way to encourage those wanting to acquire relevant welding skills. Seventy percent of poor PRECISION welding project outcomes result from TOO MUCH HEAT/TOO MANY AMPS, TOO FEW TACK WELDS or TACKING IN WRONG LOCATION ORDER WITHOUT CONSIDERATION OF WELD METAL DRAWING EFFECTS, and NOT ALLOWING WELDS TO COOL BELOW 500 DEGREES before applying a second weld over the previous well. I just let mine cool down enough to touch with the hand. By the way when I say PRECISION WELDING I’m talking about welding projects that you want to build with accuracy, very square corners, and degree accurate angles, as well a high strength welds with no weld porosity or degradation of internal metallurgy.  Vertigo 

Best book I found on automotive performance welding.

Welding is an essential skill for the avid car enthusiast, car builder, and fabricator. Engines, exhaust, intake, suspensions, frames, all can be welded for repair and fabrication purposes. While many introductory or entry-level welding books are available on the market, this is the first book to comprehensively cover advanced techniques, complex joints, advanced processes, and working with a variety of materials, including aluminum, Chrome-moly, stainless steel, carbon steel, titanium, and magnesium. Using the techniques revealed in this book, you can fabricate body panels, frames, and any number of structural and functional automotive components, and perform structural repair. Welding projects found in this book include welding the tubes of roll cage for strength and safety, welding sub frame connectors for improved chassis rigidity, repairing an aluminum frame, creating a seat support on a rod, welding in a floor pan, fabricate body panels, frames, and any number of structural and functional automotive components, and perform structural repair. Welding projects found in this book include welding the tubes of roll cage for strength and safety, welding subframe connectors for improved chassis rigidity, repairing an aluminum frame. With this book, beginner to intermediate skill-level welders will be able to improve and complete more advanced projects.

ADVANCED AUTOMOTIVE WELDING by Gerald Uttrachi

ISBN-10: 1934709964

ISBN-13 978-1934709962 

vertigo

I was in my local welding shop when I saw on the counter a rack of welding books. After flipping though a copy I discovered an excellent, very well illustrated general purpose welding text with a very good weld trouble shooting section.

THE ART OF WELDING by William Galvery featuring Ryan Friedlinghaus of West Coast Customs an innovator of building custom vehicles. ISBN 978-0-8311-3488-4 published by Industrial Press Inc. 32 Haviland Street South Norwalk, Connecticut ostalCode>06854ostalCode>