Welders

[boxhead]

Hello again to everyone, hope you all had a good weekend.
I am about to buy a welder so I have some questions.

1 = I have used a mig welder plenty of times but it has allways had a gas bottle, I have seen gasless mig welders for sale on e-bay and am wondering if the gasless ones are as easy to use as the type that use gas.

2= Is there a different type of wire that is used with gasless?

3= I have never used a tig welder but am open to the option of getting one of these, are they harder to use?

4= Are all tig welders required to use gas?

I would prefer a gasless welder as the cost to hire a bottle is approx $120.00 per year and I really wont use it much.

The only things I can think of that I will use it for are, welding headers together, welding mounts to side pipes, makeing a seat base for passengers seat, steering shaft mount.

I have a mig at my disposal at work but I am getting tired of taking it to work when I want to weld something, and I am sure the apprentices are getting sick of pushing it in and out all the time.

Any pearls of wisdom are welcomed

[jams]

No expert welder but,

I bought one of the lincoln mig welders (wire feed)it has the ability to use or not use gas. So far I have only used it without. Being a novice my welds are not that pretty but they get the job done.

Wire question:
Without gas you need a different kind of wire, I think it has a flux core to act in place of co2.

I think I bought the welder for 250.00 at lowes and it has paid for itself many times over. You don't think you will use it that often but you will be surprised. It just saved my behind yesterday. I needed a longer drill bit(not sold in stores) so I welded a piee of rod to my drill bit to get the job done.

For limited use you might be able to purchase a small co2 bottle. I think the welds are much cleaner with co2.

With co2 I believe my welder can also weld aluminum. Never tried it.

Thats all from my limited knowledge base.

[Andreas]

I have only been mig and teg welding for a few years but for what it is worth i started welding with the bottle (co2/argon mix) and when the bottle ran out i refused to lay another weld. it may be technique or lack of skill on my end but with the bottle my welds are respectable and without i wouldn't claim them as my own work. tig welding can be hard enough by itself and i wouldn't subtract the crutch from the equation. oh and tig welding is a lot more difficult than mig welding. mig welding is walking and chewing gum. tig welding is hopping on one foot, rubbing your stomach and patting your head. hope that helps.
over hear the bottles are like $100 and once you own the bottle i think that refills are only like $40.

[Chuck Nickloy]

Not much of a welder myself, however been around welding for ever. Have both tig and mig in our shop. A while ago we purchased a pulse mig welder. WOW

Shortly ther after I had the pleasure of spending some time with my wifes cousin, Steve Dersksen. He is VP for Vance and Hines. Quote: " A pulse welder turns an average welder into a magician" They weld all their pipes with the pulse mig.

We bought a Miller unit with a Viper push pull gun. You can do unbelivable stuff with alum wire.
Regards
Chuck

[Cobrabill]

Spend the money on a good unit.I have a Miller-Matic 185.220voltw/gas.THe push pull gun is my next purchase but it is pricy.

[David Hodgson]

Boxhead
1. Gas is friendlier to use, see 2. below

2. The difference between gas and gasless is the wire for gasless is hollow with flux in the core, and the result is similar to a stick welder, ie you get a layer of slag you need to chip off, whereas the gas acts as the flux (excludes oxygen and contaminants) and you get a clean weld

3. I don't think TIG will do the bigger stuff for you, but very usefull on alloy bits

4. Yes needs gas

Mig welding alloy needs straight Argon or special blends where as steel has an Argon CO2 mix. I have heard you can get away with just CO2 but I have not tried it.

I'm sure those more knowledgeable on the subject can clarify/confirm this, but overall your likely to get more use from a MIG.

[Aussie Mike]

Hi David,

In my experience gasless MIGs don't produce as clean a looking weld with a lot more weld spatter.

You might find that some of the small/medium MIG welders support both gas and gasless wire. I think it's only a change of polarity to go gasless. There are also some disposable gas canisters available which might work out cheaper if you don't use it much.

One thing I will say is once you have a welder you will always be finding jobs for it. You may only plan on a few jobs initially but new jobs always pop up. ie welding up gates, trailers, general repairs etc, you would be surprised.

I have a 200A MIG and a 125A TIG and run a bottle of Argon and a bottle of Migshield gas with rentals for the two "E" size bottles. I use the Argon with the TIG and with the MIG when I do aluminium. The Migshield is just for welding steel with the MIG. I use maybe 1 refill of each per year so the rental costs me more than the gas. However I pay it because I like the performance of the MIG running gas. The TIG has to run Argon no matter what you weld.

Straight CO2 is fine for mild steel only but i don't think it performs as well as a mixed argon CO2 gas like migshield. The carbon in the CO2 has some effect on the metalurgy of the weld. It's not worth the smalll saving as the cost of the gas is the least of your wories when you are paying $120 a year for the bottle rental. I've been looking into using straight argon for everything and getting rid of one bottle. Unfortunately I can't get a straight answer from any of the gas or welding companies on what kind of weld performance it give with mild steel. When I get some spare time I'll do a bit of experimenting and compare the two in some controlled tests.

I would buy a MIG over a TIG because there's a lot more you can do with a MIG for general purpose welding. It's a lot faster too. If you want to weld aluminium with a TIG you will need to spend a fair bit of cash to get a unit that does AC since most of the smaller units are DC only. DC is fine for steel and stainless but it makes a mess of aluminium.

Give me a call if you have any questions or if I can give you any pointers.

Cheers