MIG Welding

[pauldoubleyou]

right so for years ive ran a shitty SIP gasless welder with two settings - feather touch or lightsabre. 

 

I managed to control the higher setting with decent flux core wire and lay some decent beads, on anything over 1.5mm steel. Im doing some chassis work and some engine mount work and needed it to be neat - so i went and picked up one of these:

 

 

Now this welder is like being crippled from the neck down and then suddenly being able to run a marathon. What a breath of fresh air. It lays down great welds easily and with decent online thickness charts i managed to get it running well last night on its first try. Its running on a disposable mix cylinder at the moment. 

 

Questions are:

 

1. can i run a regulator off something like a co2 extinguisher?

 

2. when i was welding last night i was getting occasional holes in the bead, not that i think from my shit ability as the rest of the weld was fine. It just seemed to stutter every now and again. Gas delivery was smooth and the steel was clean. What could cause this? Steel not clean enough?

 

Tips and shroud are new and wire is nice and shiny and corrosion free. 

[inconsistant]

Where from and how much was it please?

[pauldoubleyou]

Gumtree £70

 

I'm sure new they're in Machine Mart for about £2-300

[DaveDorson]

There are contractless gas places all over the shop.  You can buy regulators with conversion stuff so you can migrate from a disposable to a refilliable mid bottle too, and it's not as expensive as you'd think.

Pub gas isn't great for welds, a decent argon shield is what you want, and it'll make a night and day difference compared to an extinguisher or a pub bottle.

[DaveDorson]

https://www.hobbyweld.co.uk/products/

 

Find something from that lot that's suitable.  I paid about £15.00 for a suitable regulator and use a mig bottle between my two mig welders.  One's a huge great thing, the other a smaller sensible one that gets used for car stuff.

[Eddie Honda]

https://www.hobbyweld.co.uk/products/

+1, just get a 3ft/4ft bottle of Argon/CO₂ (rebadged Cebora 130 optional)

 

DSCF5620.JPG by E Honda, on Flickr

 

and a regulator.

 

DSCF5608.JPG by E Honda, on Flickr

 

(then realise it's a fook of a long time since you had the trailer parked up inside the shed, made that gate frame and still not fitted it and still haven't fitted the headlamps to the car)

[chodweaver]

^ what they said. Get away from disposables and CO2 as soon as humanly possible.

As for the holes in the bead, that's a bit of a puzzle. Is the wire feeding steadily? Is your gas supply low? Can you post a pic?

 

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[Tickman]

As has been said Hobbyweld gas is your friend.

I used pub CO2 for years and only changed when the guy that the bottle came from didn't want to refill it.

It is another feeling of going from crippled to walking freely. 

 

The holes in the bead, was everything uniformly clean?

 

Lastly, I have envy for such little outlay!

[Alfamale]

I have the same welder and its fantastic. I use refil bottles from BOC, 2 litre as they fit on the back of the machine. £20 a refill for 5% argon mix, think it's £20 a year rental. Ok for my needs and don't have room for a big cylinder and the whole stand set up.

 

http://www.boconline.co.uk/en/health-and-safety/gas-safety/cylinder-weights-sizes/argoshield-cylinder-sizes/index.html

 

PD Size is the one I've got for mine

[somewhatfoolish]

Questions are:

 

1. can i run a regulator off something like a co2 extinguisher?

 

2. when i was welding last night i was getting occasional holes in the bead, not that i think from my shit ability as the rest of the weld was fine. It just seemed to stutter every now and again. Gas delivery was smooth and the steel was clean. What could cause this? Steel not clean enough?

1. yes, I run a bottle of pub CO2 with mine.

 

2. pix necessary for diagnosis, it could be many things.

[DodgeRover]

SGS gases better value than Hobbyweld IMO.

[Talbot]

Pure CO2 is only really appropriate on mult-run thick-as-fuck welds where you're running 1.2mm wire and a merry fucktonne of amps. Argoshield comes in several flavours: light, medium and heavy, which usually equates to 5%,10% or 15% co2 content. Light is ideal for car bodywork as it reduces blow through and you can generally keep better control of the weld pool. Medium is good for chassis work on 3mm to 5mm thick. You do not need heavy.. you need a 3-phase welder to make use of that.

[blackboilersuit]

I've used a pub gas bottle filled by the local fire extinguisher company before and yes it will work. But it's shit! I was welding the arse back into a disco outside so using lots of gas and extinguisher CO2 was cheap, plentiful and readily available. This was back before rent free welding gas was a thing. It's really splattery so not only does your work look crap you're constantly smegging the shroud and tip up with snot on the torch and having to clean or replace them. Just not worth it. Disposable CO2 is miles better than pub/extinguisher gas and argo sheild is better again. If you're only doing the odd patch then disposable bottles aren't that bad an option. 

[fordperv]

I don't know who fills the co2 bottles I get from my mates garage (when mines empty I take it back to him with £15 he gives me a full replacement) ive never had a problem welding with it

[Dave_Q]

You've got to watch out with CO2, particularly "pub gas" as the majority of cylinders are rented.

 

I used a bottle I got out the back of a pub for ages, but when it ran out nobody would fill it as apparently* it was technically stolen from air liquide.

 

I was gonna buy a big CO2 from this guy but in the end I splashed out the extra £20 or so for a bottle of argon mix from a local place (J&R gases)

 

Welding thin stuff like car bodywork is much easier with proper gas.

 

Suggestions for your wire feed:

 

1. Throw away the wire if it's old, it goes rusty quickly if stored in a shed or garage (lol) and has high friction.

2. Replace the wire liner in the torch, with a metal one if possible, this will also reduce the resistance 

3. Set the wirefeed carefully, the rollers on the wire need just enough pressure to pull it through, and the wire reel needs the minimum pressure you can get away with to stop it unravelling. I think sometimes the jerks are the wire reel catching briefly then moving - worse with a big wire reel.

4. If you're handy with the electrickery you can give the wirefeed it's own stabilised power supply by bodging in a laptop power supply like here. The problem here is that the wirefeed is powered off the main transformer, and the spikes in current/voltage as you weld change the speed of the motor.

 

 

I have pretty much the same machine, I've done 1 2 and 3 and it made a big difference, the wirefeed is still a bit stop/start at times but I've managed to weld up what I need to. On car bodywork I weld in tiny tacks rather than beads so the jerky wirefeed is less of an issue.

[somewhatfoolish]

Pub CO2 is just as effective as the CO2 BOC or AP will sell rent you, or that you might get from a fire extinguisher; it may even come from the same place, brewing is a major source of industrial CO2. Blended gas does give a better finish and makes welding frilly steel easier but you pay a premium for that. Disposable bottles are amazingly expensive per unit volume, I'd only use them if there was no alternative or the quantity needed was tiny(and have done so when I had a small amount of stainless steel welding to do, paying for a large bottle made no sense when there was only a couple of inches of welding to be done).

[pauldoubleyou]

Thanks for all the replies guys. As an amateur i fucked about with this Clarke and managed to do some stupid things - namely adding a nut to the torch so the shroud stuck out more. this bypassed the insulation and made me weld shit for a day until i worked out what i had done.

 

I cant seem to find anywhere round here that stocks bigger bottles so for now im doomed to run it off halfords disposables. £11 on trade like for argon/co2 mix, not that amazing but will do for some chassis notches.

 

Gives out a nice weld so far.

[pauldoubleyou]

 

1. yes, I run a bottle of pub CO2 with mine.

 

2. pix necessary for diagnosis, it could be many things.

 

 

Turned out to be shit on the rollers

[derskine]

We only use CO2 at FOADWERX and having used it for a long time I actually prefer it to using argon mix. Perhaps this is because I'm more experienced with controlling the heat with CO2 though.

[somewhatfoolish]

Thanks for all the replies guys. As an amateur i fucked about with this Clarke and managed to do some stupid things - namely adding a nut to the torch so the shroud stuck out more. this bypassed the insulation and made me weld shit for a day until i worked out what i had done.

 

I cant seem to find anywhere round here that stocks bigger bottles so for now im doomed to run it off halfords disposables. £11 on trade like for argon/co2 mix, not that amazing but will do for some chassis notches.

 

Gives out a nice weld so far.

Glasgow seems to be where the nearest gas suppliers are now, speedy hire used to do gas but I was told they had stopped. I think there's at least one place in glasgow that does rent-free bottles, although I've never used them. Quite a few of the rent-free vendors do delivery now so it doesn't matter where you are(as long as you're not in ulster, on an island or live north of the Tay.)

 

A google shows up Weld Tec in the east end, Weldsafe in Scotstoun, SIG in Rutherglen, Premier in Hillington, and SGS list a motor factor in Anniesland. There are also BOC and Air Products agents but unless you use a lot of gas renting cylinders sucks.

[DodgyBastard]

We use a pub wholesalers in glenrothes. Our cylinders were picked up for free at the local recycling centre and a refill is £16.50.

It's not too much of a noticeable difference in quality on car bodywork.

 

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[DodgyBastard]

We've got an old esab 3 phase welder we got for £50. It takes a euro torch and big reels of wire.

 

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[cort16]

I use hobby weld for gas as there's on near my work . The 9 litre bottle normally lasts me ages unless I leave and don't turn the tap off .

I used Adams gas before as they'll courier a bottle to you but it can get expensive .

[Exiled_Tat_Gatherer]

Can only rent over here....... they absolutely refuse to do anything else. I obtained a couple of certified Argon bottles but they wouldn't fill 'em. have to hire it... but the guy is fair enough as I'm the only englishman he sees so for a bit of 'practice' using his english I get to snatch half empties without any record of it. Comes in handy......

On the other hand, 3phase is easy here - so a decent ex-garage welder and compressor are on the santa wish-list...... fingers are crossed.

 

I'm shit at welding anyway, so am amazed if anything sticks or I don't set fire the the whole place in the process.....

[pauldoubleyou]

Glasgow seems to be where the nearest gas suppliers are now, speedy hire used to do gas but I was told they had stopped. I think there's at least one place in glasgow that does rent-free bottles, although I've never used them. Quite a few of the rent-free vendors do delivery now so it doesn't matter where you are(as long as you're not in ulster, on an island or live north of the Tay.)

 

A google shows up Weld Tec in the east end, Weldsafe in Scotstoun, SIG in Rutherglen, Premier in Hillington, and SGS list a motor factor in Anniesland. There are also BOC and Air Products agents but unless you use a lot of gas renting cylinders sucks.

That’s frustrating. I was hoping for something closer than glasgow as I’m about 45 Mins our. What’s a reasonable price for a small cylinder?

 

It’s a pisstake as I don’t have that much welding left to do.

 

 

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