Welding Advice (exhaust, Cooler Piping Etc)

[JimX]

I have done a bit of research on welding, and was all set to buy a DC Inverter TIG welder for doing my own small exhaust cooler and intake mods. However before I got one off ebay, a friend of mine told me he has one (not DC inverter though) so I am going to borrow that instead and see if it does an ok job. My friend knows how to weld and will show me the basics, however he's used to welding thicker bits of steel than on an exhaust and he said the main worry is burning a hole through the metal because it's thinner.

My main goal is to cut a new front pipe to size and weld it onto the cat, and possibly weld some bolt-on flanges onto the cat to make it easier to disassemble (it's all welded together in one piece at the moment). I don't need to touch my aluminium cooler piping yet, but it'd be good to know when and how I can modify it later. I will probably go mild rather than stainless steel for my front pipe, to make any mistakes cheaper. So far I've found I need thinner welding rods as we only have 3.2mm ones. Any recommendations for rod size, and any other hints?

[Bl4cK32]

practice makes perfect. Sorry, but with welding (ive been doing it for like 10+ years) the only way to get good is to do it over and over.

Try it out on a few scrap pieces first, so factor it in when buying material.

Its hard to give tips without seeing someone weld firsthand, saying that, you can pick defects if i see em in the welds.

[JimX]

Thanks for the advice. Yeah I was going to get a few scraps of metal first and practice welding those, then when buying the exhaust tubing buy more than I need and practice on joining bits of those together.