Hi everyone, sorry to post a new thread on an old subject but I didn't want to hijack an existing thread and my circumstances are slightly different.
I'm trying to distill the facts from some of the bulldust regarding welding gases. I'm a total beginner, so I have no experience of my own to go by and I'm relying on internet opinions and those of the guys in BOC Gas & Gear (honestly, I don't know which is worse...)
To give you a bit of background, I have just bought a decent secondhand 170A MIG welder. My plan is to bash about at a bit of everything - I am repairing a steel trailer at the moment, and I am considering building an ali canopy frame for it. However, the most exciting and probably main use of the welder for me will be stainless steel, as I am a home brewer with a bit of a stainless fetish.
Once I get the trailer body out of the way (not much left to do really), I probably won't do much mild steel work as I'm most likely to be set up with and playing with stainless, so any bits and pieces that I want to build will probably end up being stainless anyway. Obviously there will always be the odd mild steel job like fixing up a towbar etc.
Here in Australia, gas bottle rentals are pretty expensive so I would like to avoid having two bottles on hand, especially considering I'm only a newbie and welding very occasionally. I'm currently using pure Argon, courtesy of a TIG welding friend, and it seems to work OK for the mild steel work I've done but I'm not experienced enough to know if the results are sub-standard. It hasn't exploded in my face, put it that way. I'm led to believe I should use Argoshield (Argon + CO2?) for mild steel. However, I hear that Argoshield is no good for Ali or stainless work, so if Argon is in fact acceptable for the odd mild steel job it could be a good option to stick with it for all-round usefullness.
But I'm curious to know, can I actually use Argoshield on stainless? If so, maybe I should forget about the ali work (or just get Argon on a short-term basis when I want to do ali) and stick with Argoshield for mild & stainless?
Also, I do always have cylinders of beverage CO2 around - could this be an option for the mild steel work if Argon is no good?
Sorry for the long post but if anyone can offer me a bit of guidance here on what gas(es) I should focus on it would be very much appreciated. Being a beginner I don't want to make the learning experience any uglier than it has to be, but I really can't justify having hundreds of dollars of gas sitting around for occasional use.
I'm trying to distill the facts from some of the bulldust regarding welding gases. I'm a total beginner, so I have no experience of my own to go by and I'm relying on internet opinions and those of the guys in BOC Gas & Gear (honestly, I don't know which is worse...)
To give you a bit of background, I have just bought a decent secondhand 170A MIG welder. My plan is to bash about at a bit of everything - I am repairing a steel trailer at the moment, and I am considering building an ali canopy frame for it. However, the most exciting and probably main use of the welder for me will be stainless steel, as I am a home brewer with a bit of a stainless fetish.
Once I get the trailer body out of the way (not much left to do really), I probably won't do much mild steel work as I'm most likely to be set up with and playing with stainless, so any bits and pieces that I want to build will probably end up being stainless anyway. Obviously there will always be the odd mild steel job like fixing up a towbar etc.
Here in Australia, gas bottle rentals are pretty expensive so I would like to avoid having two bottles on hand, especially considering I'm only a newbie and welding very occasionally. I'm currently using pure Argon, courtesy of a TIG welding friend, and it seems to work OK for the mild steel work I've done but I'm not experienced enough to know if the results are sub-standard. It hasn't exploded in my face, put it that way. I'm led to believe I should use Argoshield (Argon + CO2?) for mild steel. However, I hear that Argoshield is no good for Ali or stainless work, so if Argon is in fact acceptable for the odd mild steel job it could be a good option to stick with it for all-round usefullness.
But I'm curious to know, can I actually use Argoshield on stainless? If so, maybe I should forget about the ali work (or just get Argon on a short-term basis when I want to do ali) and stick with Argoshield for mild & stainless?
Also, I do always have cylinders of beverage CO2 around - could this be an option for the mild steel work if Argon is no good?
Sorry for the long post but if anyone can offer me a bit of guidance here on what gas(es) I should focus on it would be very much appreciated. Being a beginner I don't want to make the learning experience any uglier than it has to be, but I really can't justify having hundreds of dollars of gas sitting around for occasional use.
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