borrowed a mig welder from a lad a work, its a good one i know, has fan cooling etc etc, anyway, its got CO2 and 0.6mm wire, now i cannot for the life in me get the fookin thing to weld without creating spatter all over the place and that makes for a bad weld.

would i be better getting some co2/argon mix gas and 0.8mm wire or would the gas help do the job better?

and yes, i have mig welded before, but its been such a long time and have become acustomed to the gasless unit of my own for small jobs - hohum. any thoughts?

Just cos it's fan cooled don't mean it's any good......machine mart sell fan cooled welders but hey are shite! As for gasless don't bother may as well use chewing gum......go for at least 5% argon and min .8 wire and enjoy as the spatter goes up n over then straight down yer back....don't yer just luv welding!!!!!

and yes i've been practicing on offcuts lol, had another quick blast and it seems that if i am welding from the side, i can get a good weld, but from the top i cant, bugger

so tomorrow i'll be spendin a tenner on argon/co2 mix and 0.8mm wire goodo

cheers m8y

You'll get less splatter with the Argon/Co2 stuff- although possibly slightly less penetration.

As regards excessive splatter- check you gas flow is working properly. It's not possible there's a kink in the pipe is it? That might explain why it works from the side and not above!

Or maybe not!

Good Luck,

James

cheers James

will be purchasing 0.8mm wire and argon/co2 mix tomorrow - will cost less than a tenner too

Check the liner in the torch, these get clogged with crap even rust if the wire has got damp!
Has the welder got a euro torch(removable) if it's the fixed sort you will have nowt but problems unless the lead is dead straight and you don't move..'tis why they are shite!

But don't listen to me i bought my chassis!!!!

will investigate the liner tomorrow could well be a causing problem

cheers m8

I have always used 0.6mm wire

however I have used co2 and a co2 mix.

like night and day

co2 mix is the way to go - i dont recon your wire dia is an issue.

atb

steve

Without being overly technical 0.6 wire is shite....0.8 is much better...

No reason, justification or theory......it just is...

Better add......IMO

so

by using 0.6 everywhere I have been some sort of hero?

or wally that found out too late?

still, works for me!

atb

steve

Interesting AlanB.. Mark Allanson reccomended using 0.6mm wire, and it works well for me. He is kind of a welding guru it seems..

.. besides, probably helps I have the same welder as him

Well I'm certainly not a guru, but have MIG welded for nearly 25 years.....and purely in my own experience have found 0.8 better than 0.6...as I say no reason just my observation...but hey, if 0.6 works better for you go for it...

The only possible reason I could think is that thicker wire will feed slower for the same deposition rate....less wear and tear on the feed mechanism etc..in this the feed rate for 0.8 is 56% that of 0.6

I have designed and built many automated MIG welding machines (that is my expertise, rather than welding per se) and we have always found that the thicker wire we can run the more stable the process becomes....

Again, just my observations...food for thought etc. YMMV .....

Steve, you're hero anyway..

im glad you are in florida, or id be wearing two pairs of trousers

atb

steve

[Edited on 20/1/04 by stephen_gusterson]

Mild mannered engineer by day........

0.8 wire carries more current and goes on smoother for me as well Alan. I've used 0.6 or 0.8 depending on what I'm doing and if it's 16g or thicker the 0.8 definitely works better.

yours, Pete.

Need to use quality wire not that cheap poo on tiny rolls....which cost more than a 15kg reel from a real welding supplies firm rather then Halfrauds

0.6mm is not better than 0.8mm, it just different. I prefer 0.6mm for the chassis work as you can get a more accurate line of penetration in the root of the weld. the weld pool swells more slowly and is more controlable on thinner guage steel. I agree that 0.8mm is better on everything over 1.6mm, but 0.6mm will cope with up to 3.25mm plate in one pass but anything above that you really should use 0.8mm.

The largest size wire I have used is 1.2mm, while making a batch of tank carrier "indespension" units - pretty serious heat lain down there!, each single pass of about 10mm covering a MMA low hydrogen root weld.

When I did a one-day welding course at the local agricultural college I was a bit slow off the mark and ended up with the MIG that no-one else wanted to use - they had the 'normal' size ones, while I had the industrial model.

I started to get the picture when the instructor said that I can't practice on the 16swg stuff, and heaved out a couple of pieces of 1/4" plate! I did an outside corner weld, and was amazed to see the edges melt into the pool...

...I also became the centre of attention when I started it up, 'cos instead of 'frying bacon' noise I got 'load of gravel coming off a lorry' noise!

I must say though, it was the easiest MIG I've ever used, probably because it was an industrial unit, and set up properly by the instructor. I did some lovely welds with that thing - even though I was working at around 200 Amps, apparently!

rgds,

David