i don't know if this has to do with fabrication but i guess it could but here goes i was just wondering if anyone knew anything about welders, mig welders vs gas, types of welds, what would you use on a car. just looking to gather some info on them because im thinking of getting one, mainly for car use. so anyone know anything about them what you recommend what you would stay away from.

thanks

 

I'd recommend checking out this link at Miller Welders to give you an idea of the different types of welders available. It really boils down to what you're going to weld.

For most projects, a MIG (wire) welder will do. And of the MIG welders, if you want clean welds get a gas shielded MIG welder, if it doesn't matter, get a flux-core welder.

Stick welders work for thicker stuff, but it can get hairy using them for anything smaller (less than 1/8" thick, approx.) and they make "messy" welds (little boogers around the weld.) You also have to chip off the slag after you're done welding.

TIG welding, while expensive, can weld anything cleanly. The main problem is that TIG is pretty slow. But what you trade off in speed you get in quality.

Gas welding is pretty versitile also, but refilling gas cylinders can get expensive. One thing you can do with gas that you can't do with arc welders is cut metal.

For someone just starting out, go with MIG.

 

mig thats the one where you add the wire or heat up the wire to tacc weld and things like that.


so what would you say about either one of these

mig pak 10 wire feed welder 30A to 100 A output operates on 115v


also

ac 225 GLM stick welder
variable 40- 250 A
230v power supp

or

mig pak 15 welder

30-175 amps
230 v
max wire and electrode .0045 flux cored
0.035 mig

 

it really depends on what you want / eventually want to use it for.

I'd stay away from the buzz box (stick welder) not really that many uses on our cars.

the mig pak 15 sounds about right -- remember you'll also need to buy a bottle of CO2 or 75/25 CO2/Ar for shielding gas, unless your planning on using flux core (would not recommed)

in either case, if you have the opportunity to take a MIG class at your local CC or workshop do it ! You would not believe how helpful this has been for me just starting out. There are some things you just cannot learn from a book.

 

Mig or TIG. Don't buy a flux core POS. If you are choosing between the 10 and 15, the 15 by far!! Just make sure you have somewhere to plug it in.

 

um whats this c02 thing i havn't seen anything on that website about it, does it just hook up to the mig welder and emit it while on, or is it something you have to spray afterwards

 

first thing you ought to do is learn the correct trems and what they mean. mig is pretty worthless universal sort of term that can be taken several ways. learn GTAW, SMAW, GMAW, FCAW and that will explain a lot of differances. pick up a book and do a little bit of reading. then define what it is you might want to weld and that should point you towards the correct choice for your application.

 

mig = magnesium in gas
tig = tungsten in gas

mig is more commonly used to my knowledge, and i think tig is mainly for aluminum

id get a mig ... u can find on at home depot for around 300 that should suit you....

 

I use MIG for every thing now. It stands for Metal Inert Gas.
The Metal wire is what provides the metal for the filler and also the heat.
The gas is usaly Argon or CO2 or a mix of the 2.
What do you want to weld?
I weld mild steel, SS and Aluminium. With argon gas shield.
I could weld Titanium But I am going to learn to weld SS better.
You can get flux core steel wire and you won't need gas for steel welding.
Mig welders don't do body work that great.
Figure out what you want to weld.

 

ice man you show you lack of knowledge about welding, welding terms, and welding processes.

 

Oh, Oh, can I try? Metal inert gas.

He got the Tungsten right. Just not the inert gas part. (That would now be GTAW or the trade name.. um... Heliarc?)

 

RD wrong is still wrong isn't it? i know living so close to teddy and JK must be distracting (go red soxs). he isn't even close other than stumbbling across a correct word or two in an ancronym that has been out of use for 15-20 years. knowing and understanding the correct terms will go a long way towards understanding the process and how it's applied.

 

Hey now, they have a PLAN!! Just don't ask me what it is.

Has it been that long since they switched the ancronyms?

 

eh oh well i thought id try... havent welded a day in my life...i was told a while ago the meaning of tig and mig and i just forgot... sorry master welder guys... please tell me all about welding.., id like to know also :hail: :hail: :hail:

 

WAG is AWS went to the current system in early to mid 80s
mig= metalic inert gas
tig = tungstun inert gas

both terms are no longer used "officially" but you see or hear them a lot. AWS correct terms would be:

GTAW (tig) gas tungstun arc welding
GMAW (mig) gas metal arc welding. you should be aware that there are 3 differant transfer modes for GMAW
FCAW = flux core arc welding

 

thanx for clearing that up..... sorry bout that post.. i had just gotten up and i wasnt thinking striaght... i forgot i didnt no **** about welding... but i posted... lol

 

Flux core welds actually end up cleaner at medium and high amperages, after you chip off the slag… Flux core is definitely smoother, but is somewhat limited for thinner steel (body and exhaust work)

For light and medum welds (easily everything that you’ll be welding on a car…you’re not welding bridge reenforcments…) MIG tends to be the favorite of professional welders



there’s a lot of things that you can do with a gas welder that you can’t do with some of the others, cutting is one, heating, bending, brazing, annealing, and you can weld just about anything assuming that you’ve got the correct consumables.

Check some real welding shops, you’ll get better deals and probably find someone that can help you with future supplies and upgrades. For a small, 110V or 220V mig, you can’t go wrong with the Hobart handlers. The comparable Lincoln machines are nice but their torches and wire feeds are not as nice.

Why? 99% of welders that a home type person will have are not capable of globular or spray arc, and even if they were there isn’t much reason to get into them for the kind of work that you’d do on a car, and even then, most people will go and get the different gas mixes to do either well.

If you’re like 90% of hobbyists, get yourself a Hobart Handler 140 or 180 and you’ll be very happy.

The 140 is the 110VAC model, the biggest advantage there is that you can use it just about anywhere at lower settings (to run it full bore you need at least a 20A circuit). The 180 is the 220VAC model, which in theory will give you a little more power and duty cycle but in practice the only thing that most users will actually notice is that the lowest setting is actually lower making welding <20ga body metal easier.

Get some C25 (75% argon, 25% CO2) shielding gas (I’d recommend buying the biggest bottle that you can own in your area, usually an 80cuft)

For 99% of “car stuff” I’d recommend some .024” (.023 and .025” is the same stuff, just a different manufacturer) ER70S-6 wire. If you plan on doing a lot of stainless then you’ll probably end up keeping some of the matching stainless wire. I also go through a lot of flux core wire, it’s great for heavier welds, when you have to zip something together outside or frame work when lying upside down (shielding gas is heavier then air so overhead welding is difficult with it).

Make sure you get yourself a decent helmet and gloves… don’t fall into the habit like you see on TV of closing your eyes and pulling the trigger. Gloves are a surprisingly quick way of improving welds (it’s amazing how much better your welds get if you’re not jumping around from getting hit with hot steel…)

 

He ain't kidding on these 2 points. And if you want to see a large improvement in your welding...get an auto darkening helmet. With it you won't be fumbling around with a visor as you strike the arc or striking it blind with the visor/shield down.

 

Before I bought my torch set-up if I had thicker metal to cut, I'd buy some carbon rods, crank the arc welder upto 220 and let it eat....poor mans plasma gun

MIG=mental inert gas

For basic shop use it's hard to beat a 115V mig with gas. Flux core is nice for welding thicker metal with the 115V models but like ARC leaves slag and burns hotter so useage on thin metal is hard.

I grew out of my 115V 135 welder yrs ago but but finally able to trade upto a nice 220V 230 model. Best of both worlds, step down the voltage for thinner stuff, but gots the ballz to weld 5/16" too.

 

Although we’re on the same page WRT how to get better welds, I’m starting to strongly disagree with the autodarkening welding helmet. I’m starting to believe that they (not necessarily mine, I do enough welding that I regularly use at least 2 or 3, and they all seem to have the same effect) are the source of a rather strange vision problem that I’ve been trying to figure out for about 6 months now. I can actually see the arc flash through the lens of an auto darkening welding helmet before it darkens (even the $$$ speedlight and similar helmets), and once I see that flash I can’t focus right on anything for a couple of days. I also get it from other lights and when I’m tired. The reason that I suspect that it’s got something to do with the autodarkening helmets is if I don’t see that flash for a while I rarely have problems otherwise (but it still turns up sometimes), even if I’m doing a lot of welding using a normal flip down helmet. The reason why this is proving to be especially difficult to figure out is that even when I can’t read signs or focus on anything I can walk into the eye doctor’s office and test 20/15 or 20/10

 

I’m curious, how exactly did you grow out of your smaller welder? It’s not like I wouldn’t put the power of a larger welder to good use, but I can’t really think of anything that I couldn’t do with my little HH135 that I could do with my dream MIG, a MM251 (it can do things that I can’t now, like spray arc, but I don’t really have a reason to do them).

It’s a fairly common claim that someone has outgrown a welder or that even a good 110V mig won’t work for X, but I can’t think of any application outside of heavy duty industrial fabrication where time is money where a smaller welder won’t work in someone’s hands that knows what they’re doing.

(serious question, not an attack or criticism)

 

No offense taking and more a figure of speech than anything else.

I would've loved to have kept the smalled Miller I had and just outright bought the 230 model I have now, but started tallking tradeing and it just worked better for me trading up. When I first started welding it was mainly light sheet metal type work since I was too broke to pay for body work I had to improvise and the smaller mig works great. Then as I got older, especially starting to get into fabricating things for our cars the 135 just did'nt have the pizazz I needed when we started sectioning/narrowing
frames, building trailers, installing cages/roll bars, etc...even using the .035 flux to get a better burn the duty cycle was so short I'd easily run out of patience.

So not so much I dont like the smaller unit becasue it has it's place in the shop. But the dual heat range of the 230 allows me to use the low range for thinner material like sheet metal, but really step it up on high range for serious fabricating and good penetration on the thicker stuff. So it's a best of both worlds for me.

Guess the phrase "I out grew it" was becasue the projects I use the welder for are getting a little more serious. I would seriously love to learn the TIG and have had a crash course years ago from my drunken's girlfriends father when I was in HS, but at this time I dont have the time for the proper schooling to really grasp the concept and practice, and I only have one "buddy" that's a certified welder with a TIG at home, but he's on a "only talk to when necessary" since he cant ever stop running his mouth long enough to weld whatever you've got, much less give you pointers, not to mention I'd feel bad using his gas and rods since that stuff is'nt free-most of your buddies dont know that though!!

 

Have a through eye exam done, not just the reading of the lines, you may have other things happening. I've never seen the arc flash with my helmet, using an AC stick welder.

 

I have a cheap-*** auto-darkening helmet, and I only have the "flash" problem when I weld aluminum. Even whe n I turn up the darkness.

As for learning TIG welding... I figured the best way to learn is to get one and start messing up metal (and the table). I have a 20+ year veteran welder friend who gives me tips from time to time, but he told me the best way to learn is to practice.

Of course if you're gonna plop the cash down for a TIG setup, you'd better be serious since it's not cheap. I plan on welding up a tube chassis for my VW, after practicing on a few non-life threatening projects.

 

No doubt, this is where the 135-180 MIG machines really shine. Actually, I’ve found that the 175/180A (the smallest of the 220V) machines are actually slightly better then the 135/140A 110 machines, since for some reason their lowest tap is slightly lower then the lowest tap on the smaller machines.



huh… sounds like you’re doing a lot of the same work as I am, which was somewhat my point. To be blunt, even with a much more powerful welder if you want to get full penetration and a nice weld in anything thicker then 1/8” you need to cut a bevel anyway. A studlier welder will make the weld go faster but you’ll be able to make just as strong a weld with either.

We had a repeated debate about this on one of the welding forums and I finally welded 2 samples with my HH135 for destructive testing (bend testing). Both were done in ½” plate with a 35* bevel, one was done with .035 flux core (-11, not -GS which just sucks), and the second was done with .023” ER70-S6. Both were done in multiple passes, all except the root was done with a weave pattern, and the flux core was chipped in between passes. There was also a professional welder with a MM251 (might have actually been an older MM250) that ran the same setup with the bigger welder. Testing proved inconclusive… with both welders the weld was actually stronger then the base metal, and they all broke at about the same point.

As far as duty cycle, to be honest, I’ve never had mine cut out, even running longer/heavier woven beads like on trailer frames or roll cage reinforcement plates. The only problem that I’ve ever had with big, hot beads with a smaller welder is one time when I was welding some castings with a friend’s Lincoln SP135 I had a couple of contact tips just disappear, suddenly the tip the tip is just missing (I’m assuming that it overheated and cracked off, since it was too clean an edge to have melted off, I would assume a defect with the tips)

I’m curious, what smaller miller did you have and what did you upgrade to?

I’ve been playing a lot with TIG lately, and it definitely has it’s place, but for most car type stuff, I wouldn’t be caught dead without a MIG. Yea, I guess that there is the “you can weld anything” with a TIG, but often with car stuff you get stuck welding in strange positions, holding things… that just suck with TIG. For stuff that doesn’t have to look absolutely beautiful, I’d much rather run a bead 10x as fast (and about that cheaper) with a MIG then absolutely perfectly with a TIG. For that matter, for medium to large welds you can really make a weld that looks very similar with a MIG to that of a TIG with a little finesse. For example, this is part of a modified manifold that I did for someone, that involved welding 2 different castings and some mild steel parts together (BTW, I think that this one is flux core… I did about half the work with flux core and half with s-6 and I don’t remember, they all look about the same when you get the welder setup right):

 

I had the Miller 135. Weird thing about it, I got mine about 6 months after my grandfather bought his, both were set-up with identical wire, same CO mix and welding heavier material with his produced alot better penetration than mine ever thought of? I could never figure that one out.

You've definately got alot more experience with welding than I have, I was self taught in the garage with the ARC and MIG, but dont weld often enough to really hone any skills. When I was running a diesel repair shop and wellding/fabbing on a daily basis I was doing some kick azz stuff, but I've noticed lately since I dont weld as often as I used to, I usually grab some scrap and spend some time setting up the welder and getting my groove back before I start the actual peice.

My old neighbor is a welder by trade and I helped on a few of his projects, that guy could make a ARC weld look just as pretty as any MIG or TIG I've ever seen by just using stainless rod. Welding is definately a art form that takes alot of practice to produce truely beautiful joints that funtion better than they look.

 

Crossfire, How do you go about getting a weld like that using a mig? Are you just overlapping spot welds? I can't even come close to it looking like stacked coins. Mostly just a continuous bead. I have a MM210 in the garage and just bought a Syncrowave 180 tig to play with.

 

Duty cycles can be a PITA.
Pay the extra money and buy at lest one up form what you think you need.
When I got my plasma cutter I was looking at the miller 375 it could only cut up to 1/2'' to 5/8'' steel and 3/8'' Al at a 50%-50% duty cycle.
I got the miller 625 it can do up to 7/8'' steel and 13mm of Al, I thought I would never need to cut 7/8'' steel and I haven't but I have cut a hole lot of 1/2'' Al for a guy and made some $$.
The 625 has a 50-50 duty cycle @ full power but I don't hardly ever use full power.
I have never triped the duty cycle fault where it cuts off, the temp light comes on and the fan stays on.
I got the miller 625 to be serious over kill and thought I would never hit the duty cycle (and haven't yet) and never use full power.
I would have got the smaller 375 but the plasma cutter I used in high school (a small hobart) use to **** me off so much be cause I had to use full power to cut 3mm steel and it all ways cut off on me casue the duty cycle, that thing had a 3on 7off duty cycle and it pissed me off so much so often.
I got a miller 135sp I wanted a basic FCAW welder because I didn't know how to get shielding gas over here.
I found an Argon shealding gas source and I find my self welding steel, SS, Al and ready to weld titanium.
It is a great little welder, I have never hit the duty cycle but, I haven't had any big projects for my little 135 miller yet.
The 135 is not from aluminium at all it is only good for 2mm and 3mm Al with .030 wire useing full power all the time.
.035 Al wire should weld better on the thicker 3mm stuff.
It looks like about 1 roll of al wire uses up 1 tip, steel wire and tips last longer it looks.
I want to get a Miller Dynasty 200 Tig, other than a good way to drop $2000 that tig would do every thing I need and a give me a good degree of over kill at this point. But for how long?
The Dynasty has plenty Aero Space appications, hope fully I can out grow it some day.

 

Well, there are loads of things that can effect penetration, but I suppose that it’s also possible that you just had a bum welder… though there really isn’t that much that can go wrong with them…



hey, I’m pretty much self taught also… just bought my HH, loaded wire in it and burned it till I started making things that looked like welds. I’ve added in some reading and other good stuff, but that’s mostly because I’m interested in it and wanted to get better although I didn’t have time to take a serious class.

I don’t weld day in and day out, but I do weld somewhat regularly. There have been times that I may weld something every day a couple of times a day, even with different welders for weeks at a time (mostly because I’m good enough that I do get some side work doing it and friends ask me for stuff all the time), but there are also times that I don’t touch a welder for weeks/months (like the last month or so).

No, that’s a solid, continuous bead (I think that that one in the pic was done all in 2 trigger pulls, the one on the other side was done in one, and the bead around the inside was done in 3… not really for any other reason besides that I wanted to make sure that things stayed flat and didn’t move around, so I tried to keep from being in any one spot for too long), if you cut it open you wouldn’t be able to tell it from a normal, properly done bead from the cross section. It’s no stronger or weaker then any other weld, it just looks different. The guy that owned the car that that was going on said something along the lines of “I want something cool looking that doesn’t look like some monkey just stuck it together” so I decided that I was going to do a little showing off with a slightly different weave pattern, since everyone always seems shocked when you lay down something that looks tig like with something besides “the all mighty” tig. One of my favorites that only works on really heavier stuff looks just like a stack of interlocking coins, kinda like a zipper pattern… That weave in that picture looks awesome done in stainless, or even like that if you hit it with a wire brush so it’s shiny.

 

What gun motion are you using to get that looking so good? I guess I need to practice some more.

 

autodarkening helmets have a cumulative effect WRT the 1/10,000 of a second or so that it takes the lense to darken to the dark shade, causing eye soreness and headaches, just like standard flash burn, so if you strike a lot of arcs in a day (like a lot of tack welding) i prefer a standard helmet. I use my ADF autodarkening helmet mostly for my GTAW stuff, because I aquired the really nice one that starts off as a shade 2 instead of the usual shade 4, making my starts a little easier for me.

 

I ran into that issue installing my roll bar. The guy I borrowed the big welder from offered his auto helmet so I of course jumped at the chance. The positives out weigh the negatives with them. Only thing did'nt like was the lenses "pulsing" effect when the weld would get into some unclean areas and start to spatter casuing the lense to quickly cycle on/off. Was'nt much, but at the end of the 4 hr weld fest I had a white spot in the center of vision I could'nt shake

I did'nt get into the settings on the hemlet-which I should've-just told myself I'd breisly shut my eyes when starting the weld and close them if spatter started-obviously it did'nt work 100%

 

Auto darkening technolgy was developed in the mid 90's to protect military personal on the ground form (there own) hand held laser targeting pods used for LGB's and military piolts from ground lasers that are only ment to cause eye damage and/or blindness.
Kind of like what some freak did to a air line pilot. Some one got a hold of a green laser (maybe a CO2 laser) and pointed it at a plane coming in for a landing and burned a hole in the guys retina.
That hapened only a few weeks ago and not to many people herd about it I think.
There not ment for prolonged exposure. The bright light hits the glass and it takes a fraction of a second to activate the little light blocking doors that dim the glass.
They were made to save some ones sight not to do work like welding.
It looks like they haven't changed much.

 

At Lincolns plant here in Toronto they don't use the auto darkening shields anymore. they are not banned they just don't use them. Most of the guys were complaining of flash type effects with prolonged use.

I used to have an old Union Carbide 300 amp 100% duty cycle power source with a feeder and Mig set up. It took the 60 pound spools and I had it set up for 0.45 boy do I miss that thing it could lay out beads on 1/2 plate in seconds that were over an inch thick or you could throttle it down for about ten gauge sheet metal. It was so big and three phase power so i sold it and run a 250 amp Tig and a Lincoln SP 135 Plus but I sure do miss that big ol sucker. Great for big jobs cause of the incredible speed and 100% duty cycle whoo hoo! I am very pleased with the SP 135 though. For most anything on a car its just right. Good duty cycle and great adjustablility plus 120 volt. Only gripe is it would be nice to have a bit more umph for thicker metals. A little pre heat with the torch fixes that though

 

I just wanna throw out there for those of you who are considering flux core wire....

Flux core wire is very sensative to temperature and moisture content much like arc welding rods (I mean during non-use, not during use). Flux core wire can and will go bad quickly if not stored properly. I've had 2 rolls go bad because I stored them in my welder which was out in the garage and later in my storage unit. The weld pool fights you like trying to weld with the gas off.

Mathius