Small Welding Rods

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Originally Posted by rovercare

MIG for panel work, nothing else, ARC will NOT do the job well, unless you are an excellent welder

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Worked with a pommie sheetie first class who could arc weld 20 gauge steel perfectly and have the flux curl up and fall off clean. A true artist of a tradesman. No-one else in the shop could do this. He taught me to gas weld thin aluminium which I can no longer do not still having the eyesight and steady hands required (I am 72).

Smash repairers took to mig in a flash owing to the lower skill requirement. Many workers in this industry are not qualified tradesmen and could not make a guard or door skin to save themselves. Parts replacers, like many so-called "motor mechanics".

I find wireless mig more than adrquate for all car panel welding and i have heaps heaps of it.

Most stick welders can be changed to TIG fairly easily with a gun.. Both of mine do TIG and Stick. You will of course need gas but for thin neat beads nothing beats TIG. A bit of practice and you will be laying dimes so neat you want to make them a feature :D

Does a DC Inverter welder throw out more UV than Mig or AC stick. I normally do not get burnt but doing a couple small jobs even with a full face on the DC inverter gave me a bit of a burn. Normally don't get it.

Garry

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Originally Posted by garrycol

Does a DC Inverter welder throw out more UV than Mig or AC stick. I normally do not get burnt but doing a couple small jobs even with a full face on the DC inverter gave me a bit of a burn. Normally don't get it.

Garry

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Depends on amps maybe? Everything burns the **** out of me :(

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Originally Posted by flagg

Most stick welders can be changed to TIG fairly easily with a gun.. Both of mine do TIG and Stick. You will of course need gas but for thin neat beads nothing beats TIG. A bit of practice and you will be laying dimes so neat you want to make them a feature :D

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Kinda negates the purpose of not using the MIG though:D

Even with the the 2mm rods the inverter works well on non body work on the car. When I get some smaller rods I will try it on the really light stuff and see how it goes. The light weight of the unit at a few kgs makes it easy to move around.

I have to do some rust repairs to body panels so broke out the old mig - I have a disposable bottle that I have had for a few years and hooked it up and did some test welds which came up OK. The bottle I have is straight Argon and the packaging indicates for mild steel and aluminium.

I went to buy another two bottles but most suppliers had none - there were a couple of Argon bottles but the newer packaging now only lists it suitable for aluminium and for mild steel (Tig Only) and indicated the disposable bottles containing the Argon/CO2 mix is to be used with mild steel. Off course there are none of these bottles available. So what is the preferred gas for mild steel MIG these days. When I had hire bottles I used ArgoShield and as indicated my current disposable bottle is Argon.

The difference in price is interesting - $28 at Gasweld, $32 at Total Tools, and $57 at Repco :eek:.

Garry

Has any one bought Speed Gas bottles for their Mig/Tig gas - the price seems right $320 upfront purchase for a D size bottle with gas in the bottle and then $99 for a swap and go. The only issue is that suppliers are not holding stocks at the moment and I am concerned that if I do buy one of these that stocks will not be held when I run out.

But then BOC do not even have D size bottles to rent.

I have been using the small disposable Argon bottles (no ArCo2 mix available) and they really do not last very long at all - maybe 10 minutes on min gas flow so not real good and makes small jobs a bit expensive.

Cheers

Garry

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Originally Posted by ade

I find wireless mig more than adrquate for all car panel welding and i have heaps heaps of it.

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WIRELESS!


**** me, where do I find this gem?

Argon and Argon Mix will both work with steel.
Straight argon will have less penetration than a Argon mix
Straight argon is intended for use on aluminium and its alloys.
As said before with great skill you can stick weld thin guage steel.
Going to a smaller diameter welding rod may in fact increase burn though.
Mig is the way to go because it is so much easier to weld thin metal with this system.
I also remember using oxy welding on my first cars doing rust repairs as did most car repairers before the 1960s.