Welding settings and reference

MIG — material, thickness, and wire diameter give amperage, wire feed speed, voltage range, passes, polarity, shielding gas, and flow. The rules of thumb: about 1 A per 0.001″ of steel (×0.9 stainless, ×1.3 aluminium) up to ~¼″ per pass; wire feed ≈ amps × 2 ipm/A for 0.030″, 1.6 for 0.035″, 1 for 0.045″; voltage ≈ 14 + 0.04 × A for short-circuit steel. Self-shielded flux-core switches to DCEN and no gas.

TIG — amperage, AC or DCEN, tungsten size and type, filler rod size, cup, argon flow, post-flow, and when to back-purge. Tungsten is sized by current (e.g. 3/32″ up to ~250 A DCEN or ~170 A AC).

Stick — amperage ranges for E6010, E6011, E6013, E7018, and E7024 by diameter, what each rod is for, and a decoder for any AWS class (E-tensile-position-coating, plus suffixes such as -B2 or H4).

Filler metal — wire, rod, and electrode for any pair of common base metals, including stainless-to-carbon steel (309L), cast iron (nickel), and which aluminium filler suits which alloy.

Heat input — HI = V × A × 60 × η / (1000 × travel speed mm/min) in kJ/mm (and kJ/in), with thermal efficiency η per ISO/TR 17671: 0.8 for SMAW/GMAW/FCAW, 0.6 for GTAW, 1.0 for SAW.

Joints & symbols — the five basic joints and the common AWS A2.4 weld symbols, with how arrow side, other side, size, and length/pitch are read.