Thread: Small Welding Rods

Gasless wire is OK for doing "outside" jobs, like gates and stuff, but it can be spattery and in my experience, the resulting welds don't seem to be as clean or neat. Having said that, I have no reason to think that it's anything more than cosmetic, and penetration seems to be as good as welds done with gas.
I have tried gasless on thin section metal, and found it blew out the parent metal more easily than with gas, so I wouldn't like to use it on panels.

With gassless wire you also have to be very careful with stop/ start stuff as the slag will contaminate the weld. Because of this i would personally use other methods for structural stuff. But I generally don't like MIG unless I'm using a really good one with good fresh wire.

like any weldment you should clean it before continuing on where you left off.

yes, it is a little messier to use, but any kitchen non stick spray applied before welding helps keep clean up to a minimum. using nozzle dip helps a lot as well.

used it on everything from oil cans to 110 foot ocean going catamarans...

i prefer it over normal wire most of the time because it penetrates a little more and is more tolerant of dirty metal.

i prefer .8mm wire for vehicle work and my old cig welder copes well with everything from 18 gauge to 5mm with out to much bother.

decent quality wire always helps and is quite economical when compared to gas and plain wire.

if you know where to shop you can get welding rods down to .75mm

Theres a local supplier here that carries 1mm rods. I think I still have most of a packet left.

I have brought awhile ago a dual voltage arc welder. Forty volts for heavier welding and seventy volts for light welding. The theory is the seventy volts has a longer cycle time than the 40 volts so the metal stays cooler or some thing like that. Is a bit harder to get the weld started, but I have welded some thin sheet with out too much trouble.
Cheers Hall

Rental on my E bottle is roughly the same as a packet of smokes a month,
since I don't smoke a packet per day anymore SWMBO says its fine.

I now have used two mig disposable gas bottles and really I would not recommend them at all - even for the occasional welder - you just do not get much out of them even with the gas turned down. At between $30 to $50 a bottle is an expensive way to weld.

Today I bought a D sized bottle from Gasweld - cost of the bottle filled is $340 and exchange is $99 so the actual cost of the bottle is $240 which I think is OK.

I thought that the gas mix for mild steel was Argon and CO2 but this also has oxygen. I really don't know much about shielding gases but I was surprised it has oxygen in it as I thought the last thing you would want is oxygen. Can someone explain what this adds to the process. Also I have long lost the instructions for my regulator - can someone tell me what hose pressure is used for the shielding gas??

Cheers

Garry

garry,
Trimix as in with o2 has two purposes
The gas companies get to market a flash trimix!
They get to use up some oxygen which is cheap,

Oh and they will tell you the o2 gives extra penetration in the weld. ? ? ?

Go to weldingweb.com forum and read the pages on welding gasses good info

With regards to hose pressure. For MIg you want run hose flow rate. Something around 10l /m is a fair starting point. ? ? ?

Oh and you wont be able to spray with that trimix, i run straight Ar for ally and heavy sections running in spray


Steve