Shadowing Practice: MIG Welding Basics For BEGINNERS!! How To Set Up Your Welder + Tips, Tricks & Techniques!! - Learn English Speaking with Video

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What's up everybody?

Welcome back to Make It Custom.

Thank you all for being here for this video.

Today we're going to go over the basics of MIG welding.

This is something that everybody needs to know.

It's something that could be confusing if you're just starting out.

How to set up your machine, how to listen for or look for the different things that could be wrong with your weld.

So we're going to see how, you know, your wire speed, your voltage setup, how your technique could affect your weld

and what my favorite techniques are to do mig welding on steel let's get into the video all right

so what we're going to learn about in this video is just the basics of mig welding

i'm using a lincoln electric sp 175t i bought

it on craigslist for i think 450 bucks with the cart

in the bottle just as an extra welder in case i run out of gas

or whatever somebody else is working in here it's a great little machine i've got 030 wire in it

and i've got 75 25 gas mix 75 co2 25 argon there are a couple of different gas mixes

that you can use but that's a really common one

and it's the only mixed gas i use in my mig welders this machine it's pretty basic it's got voltage

and wire speed you've got uh you know a b c d

or e for voltage

and we've got uh you know just variable wire speed these numbers don't really matter every machine is a little bit different.

My Miller has a digital readout as to, you know, feet per second or feet per minute on wire speed,

and it also has a digital readout for voltage.

So I want you to be able to understand how to

set up a MIG welder without looking for 17 volts and 200 feet per minute wire speed.

That shouldn't matter.

I want you to be able to listen to it, be able to look at it, be able to hear it, make a good weld.

That's what we're going to do today.

We're going to focus on setting up the machine, a little bit of technique, what technique I use.

Everybody's got a little bit of a different signature as to how they you know whip their welds around

when they're mig welding you're either making c's you're whipping and pausing

that sort of thing i'll show you the way

i like to do it this material is just 10 gauge steel

this is very common this is kind of what most frames are made of

if you're building a hot rod

or whatever i use this stuff a lot for brackets

but the same thing goes on all thicknesses of metal on how to hear it

and how to see it to know that you're making a good weld

so what i'm going to do is i'm going to set the machine wrong

and let you guys listen to it and look at it

and see what's wrong with it and then we'll get into setting it right okay

so what I'm gonna do first is let you listen to what it's like

if you don't have enough wire speed basically it's something

that a welding teacher told me one time

and it really sticks in my head is you want to

hear like the perfect temperature of bacon frying like you got a mint pan

you got a fresh thing of bacon and you drop it in there

and it's like that's what you're looking for with MIG welding

a less scientific way of trying to figure out your correct settings.

So I'm going to have not enough wire speed.

Basically, you're going to hear a little bit of like a slower sizzle, and that indicates that you don't have enough wire speed.

I'm going to put it on C right in the middle, have not enough wire speed.

It might burn back on our tip a little bit.

That's another sign.

If your wire ever burns back and damages the tip, then you don't have enough wire speed,

or your drive rollers inside your machine may not be tight enough to be pushing out your wire.

Okay, well, actually, I'm going to tack it properly first.

This is going to be not enough wire speed.

So you hear that sizzle, sizzle, pop, sizzle, sizzle, sizzle, pop.

That's because the wire is going and touching the puddle, and then it's burning back because it's not feeding it at a fast enough rate.

What you want to hear in slow motion, basically, is the wire is coming down.

It touches your puddle.

It burns back, touches your puddle, burns back, touches your puddle, burns back.

And it just keeps going like zap, zap, zap, zap, zap, zap, zap, zap.

That's what makes that bacon frying sound.

So you can see this weld.

I mean, it doesn't look terrible, but it is definitely not enough wire speed.

So I'm going to turn the wire up a little here and let you listen to that.

this still may not be the perfect setting but you'll be able to hear the difference

see it's a much better sounding weld i would say this weld is a little bit on the cold side

and what i mean by that is

that the weld itself has not wet out on the edges

it has not float out a little bit flatter than what this is it's a little bit too convex

so you want your weld to be able to flatten out

or wet out and be nice

and consistent this one is a little bit on the cold side

so what i'd like to do is i'd like to hit another notch on here this is my voltage

and then proportionately you need a little bit more wire speed if you increase your voltage so

Let's give this another try.

Okay, so this one here is a much hotter weld.

You can tell that it's a little bit flatter looking.

I can tell it's a lot hotter.

You can see that the heat has gone a little bit wider there.

I think it's pretty decent, but we could probably still get it a little bit better.

What I'd like to do is I'd like to do a little bit longer weld

and just fine tune it

and I want you to really listen as to what it sounds like when you've got proper settings.

It's already sounding pretty good but I'm going to do a little bit longer weld here

and we'll really be able to see what it's like.

okay so it is pretty decently set up i don't think there's a ton of improvement

that we can make with the settings on this machine

but i want you to hear now what it sounds like

if you have too much wire speed okay

so we're going to jack this up

and it's going to kind of sound like a bit of a machine gun basically what's going to happen is

that the wire is going to be feeding faster than it can burn at the voltage

that it's set at so right now you're going to hear what it's like to have too much wire speed.

Okay, so this right here just has way too much metal now,

and you can hear that it was just trying to shove way too much metal in for how hot the voltage was,

so it couldn't burn it as fast as it was depositing it.

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I mean, even more extreme, you'll hear it now.

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I'll show you what happens with just way too much wire speed.

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You know, there's just, there's so much spatter everywhere.

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I really wanted it to start to bird nest a little bit to show you guys because I've seen some bad welds.

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Okay, one sec.

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I'm going to try this again.

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Make it really horrible.

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There we go.

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Okay.

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Yeah.

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So you've seen that weld before.

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I've seen that weld before on many occasions on a couple of cars

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that have come in here before

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that have been previously repaired that's just way way way too much wire speed and Maybe not enough voltage as well.

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It just cannot handle it when you see terrible welds like that

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It's a setting issue like that person.

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Maybe their technique is okay

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Maybe they're the way that they're whipping the torch around is okay, but they just have the wrong settings

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So don't get discouraged by seeing horrible welds and think you're the worst welder.

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It's your setting.

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Settings are very important.

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Let's get to another coupon here.

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We're going to try this again.

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Now, I'm going to show you what the different positions are.

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So this technically is a horizontal position weld.

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If we were welding like this, that would be a flat position.

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If we were welding like this, that would be vertical.

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Vertical up and down are acceptable.

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They're both kind of for different things and then overhead welding is when you're when you're welding like this.

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With your settings correct, overhead welding isn't as scary as it sounds really.

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I mean you might get a little bit of sparks in your hair

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or whatever but it welds much the same as horizontal welding.

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So basically when you're welding with MIG, let's go over a little bit of the technique here.

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I am holding this gun pointed in the direction of travel.

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That's something that I guess it's up for debate but the way I was taught is that you always push the puddle.

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You're always pushing it in the direction you're traveling.

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The way I like to weld is that I start my puddle and I'll burn forward.

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It's called the whip and pause technique.

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I burn forward and I come back to fill a little bit.

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I burn forward and I come back to fill a little bit

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and what that almost does is it almost preheats the area

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that you're about to fill you whip it forward

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and then you come back and fill it up and now

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when i'm looking at my weld i'm able to almost see

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that when i burn forward i can come back

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and my weld will become the same size as the previous weld deposit

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so i can keep things pretty consistent

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you'll get the hang of it you'll get a little bit

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more of a signature going some guys like to do like little C's some guys like to go up

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and down some guys like to make little circles I personally like to kind of whip

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and pause for my technique to get my beads to look decent

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so that's something

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that you can play with everybody's different machine settings are the

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most important some guys just just like to make their welds you know totally smooth and not even move

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And you can do that too, and I don't think it's a bad weld.

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You just have to set your machine accordingly.

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Let's try a couple of different techniques now and just have you look at them.

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I'm going to do this.

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I'm going to show you kind of the different signatures that I just talked about.

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Oh, better change my machine settings to something that isn't going to be bird poop.

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If you've got the same machine on 10 gauge, this is the machine setting I like.

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D and 5.

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okay

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so right here I'm gonna try the totally straight technique

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I'm not gonna move around at all I'm gonna just push the puddle basically

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I'll be at the end of the puddle and and just pushing it along totally straight at a 45 degree angle

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So there you have it, totally straight, no moving around.

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Weld's okay, could be a little bit hotter maybe.

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Now I'm going to try little circles.

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little circles does actually look pretty damn nice actually maybe i should change my technique and here's the whip and pause technique.

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okay so now i just want to show you guys a couple of different ways to weld

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So one of the things that if you ask a welder who's a structural steel welder, they will laugh at you for welding vertical down.

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And vertical down is something that I guess it's controversial.

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I don't know.

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I use it.

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I have a bit of a technique of my own to weld vertical down that I know works wicked.

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The problem is that when you're welding down, it's really easy for your weld to pull up and not sink into the metal.

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It doesn't burn in, so it's not strong.

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And it could look like it's kind of strong,

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but it just isn't because it's not really getting into the metal and it is gonna sound weird

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But I push my welds down.

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I stay ahead of the puddle and I'll push my weld down

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Staying ahead of the puddle.

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So I'm not actually I guess pushing it down the puddle stays up

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I can keep the heat in the material by

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Going downhand but pushing down if you if you try and weld downhand like this

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it'll just drip and be disgusting and it'll it'll be a crappy welt

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so i'm just going to show you my technique for that

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if you feel the need to comment and tell me that i'm wrong go for it

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okay first off i'm just going to show you me trying to make a weld doing it the way

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that i I believe is wrong.

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I'm going to be holding this welder up like this.

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It's kind of natural for you to want to keep your welder pointed up

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and drag it because you know you're fighting gravity but let's first try that.

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The weld looks okay and I'm sure it did burn in some.

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I do believe that it's a bit dicey to weld that way.

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So I'm going to show you my technique now where I'm actually pushing the weld down.

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You can tell I got tons of heat in there.

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The legs of the weld wet right into the side.

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It got lots of penetration.

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I did do a little bit of whip and pause technique on that.

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But that's welding vertical down.

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Okay, now let's do an outside corner weld.

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Because we're welding on the outside corner edge,

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it will be a bit of a different heat setting as to welding on the inside of a corner

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that reason being because you're right on the edge of the metal

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and it accepts the heat a lot quicker I'm going to turn this down a little bit

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and just guess at it and see how we do.

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It's almost never that you get a weld that's perfectly flat like that.

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So I'm going to do it this way so that you can see in more of a real world scenario.

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You can see that one worked out quite well.

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I did turn down my machine for that, like I said, because the heat does get absorbed by the metal much quicker

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when you're on the edge of a piece of metal.

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So you can see that it burned the edge of this metal away and really sunk in with the penetration.

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So this is the whip and pause technique, where I burn forward and I come back to fill.

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I burn forward and I come back to fill.

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I move about an eighth of an inch

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or three sixteenths of an inch each time that I burn forward and come back to fill.

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I'm at a 45 degree angle this way and approximately a 35 degree angle this way.

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Okay so now this was our whip and pause technique.

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I'll do my next weld with a little bit of the circle technique and then we'll finish off with the C.

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So doing little circles, it works quite well still.

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You're definitely moving the heat around a lot.

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When I'm doing these little circles, I find it's a little bit more difficult to be consistent,

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but that's just me and I don't do that technique, so I find it a little bit more difficult

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so like i said whip

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and pause technique is is my favorite technique let's do another one here we'll try doing little c's

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and then we'll finish off doing one just totally straight

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and then I'll try going definitely as straight as I can

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you know that can look nice as well okay so one thing I definitely want to go over when

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your welding because it's really difficult for you to see through a camera I wish

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that I had a really dark lens so

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that we could film

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this with the video looking like through my eyes what I

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can see this is what I would like to explain to you is

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that here's our world

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and this is our puddle here this is our whip our whip our whip

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this is our puddle what I mean by pushing the weld you would think

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that you would want your wire speed behind it to push it.

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That's incorrect.

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I'm depositing my wire right here.

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That's where you want to be.

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You want to be ahead of the weld, pushing it along, but staying at the front of the puddle.

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So I might burn ahead a little bit.

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So I'll move this way and then I'll come back to fill, but I'm staying ahead of the puddle or in in the puddle

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but at the front of it and you'll see

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that your weld will just build up behind as you move along

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but you do want to stay at the front of the puddle always

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and this will keep you moving along

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and keep you putting heat into the material as you go trying to think of what else

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I can tell you guys for this quick little demo oh let's quickly talk about the machine itself

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when I was talking before about your wire speed not being enough

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and you have the wire burn back a little bit

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that may or may not be

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because of the wire speed adjustment on the machine something else

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that you can look for if you don't feel like it's changing

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when you adjust your wire speed is the tension of your drive rolls so

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if you open up the inside of your welder

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this one has to pop up little bit to be open there'll be a spring

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and a nut almost on every single welder when you load your spool

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and your wire goes in here these are the drive rollers

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that i'm talking about so i'm just going to turn the machine on

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so you can see them work these rollers are powered that's what's pushing

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so if this is too loose then those rollers might slip

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and that could give you the same symptom as not enough wire speed because it's not consistently pushing your wire out.

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So what you would need to do there is just to tighten that up a little bit.

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What else I can tell you about the inside of the machine is tip

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that off and you can pull your roller out.

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There are.. different size grooves for different thicknesses of wire.

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This is 030 wire, but you can use 023, you can use 035, you can use 045, which will be in a much larger machine,

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but those rollers must have the right groove for the size wire you're running.

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I couldn't just change this to 035 wire without changing my rollers.

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I couldn't just change this to 023 wire without changing my rollers

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but for the most part if you are a beginner

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and you're welding on your hot rod

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if you've got a little bit of sheet metal work to do

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and a little bit of structural stuff my personal suggestion is the 030 wire

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I've welded sheet metal with it as well as welded chassis with it my other suggestion is that

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if you are gonna do any welding on your chassis

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you really need a 220 welder I know people can do it

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and it can be done with a 110 volt welder my personal feeling is

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that it's a little bit too small and a little bit too dicey for a beginner to get a strong weld

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out of a small welder like that so make sure

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that you are welding as hot as you can with the welder

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that you've got for the material you're using hopefully

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i've covered the basics for you on a little bit of mig welding

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and the setup how to use it how to get it to work right what to do

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if it's set up wrong thanks everybody for watching make it custom i also just want to thank everybody

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that have supported us through our Metal Reborn premiere

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and apologize for our technical difficulties in the first little bit of the Metal Reborn online premiere.

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That was something we've never done before.

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I kind of regret doing it at the exact same time as the regular premiere,

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since we weren't on the ball enough to be able to get it fixed immediately.

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But hopefully you guys all enjoyed the movie and it's up there for seven days.

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So if you did get the premiere, go ahead and watch it as many times as you want for the next seven days and

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if you were really bummed out about the technical difficulties at

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8 p .m on Wednesday hit us up for a refund and we'll refund it.

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Thanks everybody for watching Mega Custom.

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We appreciate your support, your comments, your likes, everything so don't forget to like, click subscribe, hit notifications and we'll see you on the next video.

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Thanks a lot.

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Bye -bye.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “MIG Welding Basics For BEGINNERS!! How To Set Up Your Welder + Tips, Tricks & Techniques!!”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: weld, wire, welding, technique, speed. This video has 300 sentences and 3651 words to shadow. The speech runs for 22:03. The speaker talks at a natural 166 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. Only 81% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
wire noun	/ˈwaɪɚ/	Metal formed into a thin, even thread, now usually by being drawn through a hole in a steel die.
technique noun	/tɛkˈniːk/	The practical aspects of a given art, occupation etc.; formal requirements.
whip noun	/ˈwɪp/	A lash; a pliant, flexible instrument, such as a rod (commonly of cane or rattan) or a plaited or braided rope or thong (commonly of leather) used to create a…
voltage noun	/ˈvəʊltɪd͡ʒ/	The difference in electrostatic potential between two points in space, especially between live and neutral conductors or the earth.
pause noun	/pɔːz/	A temporary stop or rest; an intermission of action; interruption; suspension; cessation.
roller noun	/ˈɹoʊlɚ/	Any rotating cylindrical device that is part of a machine, especially one used to apply or reduce pressure.
vertical adjective	/ˈvɝ.tɪ.kəl/	Standing, pointing, or moving straight up or down; parallel to the local direction of gravity; along the direction of a plumb line; perpendicular to something…
premiere noun	/pɹəˈmɪɚ/	The first showing of a film, play or other form of entertainment, often held as a special event with celebrity guests.
consistent adjective	/kənˈsɪs.tənt/	Of a regularly occurring, dependable nature.
custom noun	/ˈkʌstəm/	Frequent repetition of the same behavior; way of behavior common to many; ordinary manner; habitual practice; method of doing, living or behaving.
angle noun	/ˈæŋ.ɡəl/	A figure formed by two rays which start from a common point (a plane angle) or by three planes that intersect (a solid angle).
signature noun	/ˈsɪɡ.nə.t͡ʃə/	A person's name, written by that person, used as identification or to signify approval of accompanying material, such as a legal contract.
deposit noun	/dɪˈpɑ.zɪt/	Sediment or rock that is not native to its present location or is different from the surrounding material. Sometimes refers to ore or gems.
bacon noun	/ˈbeɪ.kən/	Cured meat from the sides, belly, or back of a pig.
horrible adjective	/ˈhɔɹ.ɪ.bəl/	Causing horror; terrible; shocking.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
set up verb	/ˌsɛt ˈʌp/	To make ready for use.
go over verb		To look at carefully; to scrutinize; to analyze.
come back verb		To return to a place.
move along verb		To continue without being distracted; to keep going.
build up verb		To erect; to construct.
come down verb		To descend, fall down, collapse.
figure out verb		To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce.
finish off verb		To finish completely.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

That's what we're going to do today.
Let's give this another try.
I can tell it's a lot hotter.
I mean, even more extreme, you'll hear it now.
You know, there's just, there's so much spatter everywhere.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	has gone · I've seen · you've seen
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	are made · is let · have been previously repaired
Possibility with “might / may” might/may + verb — something that is possible but not certain	might burn · may not be · might get
Past continuous was/were + -ing — an action in progress at a moment in the past	was just trying · was depositing · was talking

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 140 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, you're, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: thickness /ˈθɪknəs/, smooth /smuːð/, eighth /eɪtθ/, sixteenth /ˌsɪksˈtiːnθ/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: sheet /ʃit/, suggestion /səˈd͡ʒɛst.ʃən/, structural /ˈstɹʌk(t͡)ʃəɹəl/, penetration /pɛ.nəˈtɹeɪ.ʃən/, occasion /əˈkeɪ̯ʒən/
Long words — get the stress right: difficulty /ˈdɪfɪkəlti/, horizontal /ˌhoɹəˈzɑn.təl/, penetration /pɛ.nəˈtɹeɪ.ʃən/, acceptable /əkˈsɛp.tə.bəl/, consistently /kənˈsɪstəntli/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like wire, technique, whip.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: MIG Welding Basics For BEGINNERS!! How To Set Up Your Welder + Tips, Tricks & Techniques!! - Learn English Speaking with Video

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