Gasless Or Gas Mig Welder

[Lucaas]

Well for christmas i got a Mig Welder that selects either Gas or Gasless to weld, well i had broken one of the steel supports for my bed frame that sits about half way in the middle of the bed, so i decided it was a perfect chance to text out and get a feel for the welder, well the welder at the beginning was shooting holes and from what my mates had taught me this normally means the welder is to hot , so i turned it down it kept shooting holes, and at the lowest setting it was still semi-shooting but i managed to weld it up, could this be something to do with it not being ran on gas.

By the way i am using a 15 AMP power point so its not under powered

[scotty nm35]

Gasless was designed for robot industrial welding mainly, its banned in some countries due to the toxic fumes it gives off. I haven't personally used it and don't want to try, stick to argon mixes and you shouldn't have any issues.

Im guessing the bed was made of fairly thin material, it would be a pain to weld with mig or tig. Did you clean it well first?

[samstain]

check what wire you are using...if you using normal wire and your using it without gas its going to be very messy and not work.

Even with the right wire designed for gasless welding, if the steel is less than about 1mm thick you will have to pulse it to weld it rather than just hold it on, basically just do a .5second spot every 2 seconds or so, you will get a feel for how much heat it can handle as you go.

Stick to brand name gasless wire also - I used to always run CIG stuff (shield cor-15 I think) and it was pretty good - I ran out on a sunday and went to get some more from bunnings to finish a job and they are now selling some no name crap that is useless... the bead looked like you had got a bit of bubble gum, rolled it in gravel and thrown it at the metal, had zero penitration even on the 1.2mm RHS I was welding

So I now get mine from gasweld, their stuff is ~$20 for 0.9kg and so far worked perfect in all conditions, better than the shild core actually which was twice the price, some of the welds I have done with it are as good as I have ever done with a profesional Gas-Mig setup.

As the other scott said, the fumes can be a bit nasty - especially if welding galv - my brother put himself in hospital for a few days after spending an afternoon welding. So make sure your outside in a well ventilated area, gasless wire can handle a fair bit of wind as the shielding gas is coming out of the flux in the wire, where as normal argon mig it blows away much more easy.

Edited January 7, 2011 by samstain

[The Bogan]

If you have to weld in a confined enviroment get a exhaust fan and connect some flexy duct to it, I made up a little box with the fan in it which I put outside and have the duct at the spot where Im welding, its not pretty but its better than scking fumes IMO.

Ill try and find a pic of one as mine went the way of the dinosaurs when I lent it to a mate.

[The Bogan]

Like this but POV version, LOL.

[Lucaas]

yes i cleaned the surface up perfectally and it was made of thin materials, and i was using a mild steel wire for mild steel frame, it seemed to work but it just didnt look neat it was spitting heaps

[samstain]

was it just normal mild steel wire? or gasless mild steel wire?

Excessive spitting could be non gasless wire, or bad earth - though gasless does tend to spit a bit more than proper mig setups.

Edited January 9, 2011 by samstain

[GT-RZ]

Just thought id add some info here.

The nitty gritty is very simple. flux core 'gasless' (there is also flux core 'gas') welding is negative electrode. In short it means the majority of heat is in your workpiece rather than the wire. Gas mig is positive electrode which is the opposite. Thats why generally flux core is not suited for thinner materials although is beneficial to thicker materials as the same input current can yield much better penetration.

Best way to see this taking place is if youve ever tried to TIG weld aluminium without AC, with a normal DC scratch start TIG welder it is possible to weld aluminium (using electrode positive) but to prevent the tungsten from melting you have to use an electrode 3-4 times bigger than you would for the amperage. If you try to weld aluminium with DC negative you will not see a pool form but rather the material will literally turn molten and flop apart in a matter of seconds.

Spitting could be any number of things; wire speed, amperage, stickout, wrong wire, contamined surface the list goes on. Realistically you get what you pay for and for any kind of welding on cars or sheetmetal you can forget fluxcore, get some gas and take some lessons is the best advice.

Sorry if i went on but i remember learning to weld and there is a million people who think they know how to weld when quite simply; they dont have the slightest idea.

[SNOQPY]

well i couldnt word that any better, well said