Welder Advice

[Nick DV]

Having been sat in the background for ages now, soaking up, and at times being totally confused by the tons of advice that's on here, I'm finally going to take the plunge and purchase a MIG welder for a project that I'm working on. I've decided on the GYS 162 Smartmig.

Part of what I will be welding may involve stainless (I could use mild steel), so my very simple question is this. In order to weld the stainless, will I need to purchase different gas and any other hardware for the welder (other than wire)? If I do and it's not cost effective, I'll stick with using steel throughout.

Thanks in advance,

Nick.

 

[Tom Orrow L]

Having been sat in the background for ages now, soaking up, and at times being totally confused by the tons of advice that's on here, I'm finally going to take the plunge and purchase a MIG welder for a project that I'm working on. I've decided on the GYS 162 Smartmig.

Part of what I will be welding may involve stainless (I could use mild steel), so my very simple question is this. In order to weld the stainless, will I need to purchase different gas and any other hardware for the welder (other than wire)? If I do and it's not cost effective, I'll stick with using steel throughout.

Thanks in advance,

Nick.

Hey Nick, Good choice on machine, GYS are a nice quality & it'll serve you well.
For stainless steel you will need a different gas than regular argon/co2 mix, different only in the % of each gas. Regular argon mix is usually 75/25 or 80/20, stainless is maybe best being done with either an argon mix with a very small amount of Co2 or if thats unobtainable to yourself you might try pure argon, depends on which wire type you're using IIRC.

I see you're in Southampton, I'm not sure if he deals with GYS but @Jim Davey is down there, maybe he can sort out your machine with some stainless wire etc..?
Jim?

 

[Jim Davey]

I do and I can

 

[Nick DV]

Thanks for the advice Tom. I spoke to Jim about 18 months ago when I was originally going to start welding, he was really helpful and he was the one who advised getting the GYS MIG. I'll contact him

 

[Nick DV]

I do and I can

Oops, you posted whilst I was typing Jim I have pm'd you.

 

[Tom Orrow L]

Thanks for the advice Tom. I spoke to Jim about 18 months ago when I was originally going to start welding, he was really helpful and he was the one who advised getting the GYS MIG. I'll contact him

Happy to help, would've offered to help you out myself but I thought the fact that Jim being closer would be of great advantange to you if anything should go awry.

GYS are great machines, with smartmig's being very helpful because of the little "smart" chart they've got on the front where you line up your wire diameter and thickness of metal and it tells you your settings.
Pretty much 100% in house manufacturing at their place in France so you can have some confidence that you're not getting rubbish

 

[Jim Davey]

It's not.

 

[Tom Orrow L]

Aren't 75/25 or 80/20 the 'standard' mixes in the states, with lower co2 percentages common here anyway?

I thought 75/25 was the common argoshield in the UK, gas ain't my specialty whatsoever. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
BOC make a special gas for Stainless MIG too, stainshield with argon/helium/co2 in it, could be worth looking into if its going to be used on a fair bit of stainless.

 

[Nick DV]

Happy to help, would've offered to help you out myself but I thought the fact that Jim being closer would be of great advantange to you if anything should go awry.

GYS are great machines, with smartmig's being very helpful because of the little "smart" chart they've got on the front where you line up your wire diameter and thickness of metal and it tells you your settings.
Pretty much 100% in house manufacturing at their place in France so you can have some confidence that you're not getting rubbish

That's good of you Tom Not that I know much about them, but was impressed with it when Jim showed it to me at his shop, and the quality of it was much better than some of the MIGs I'd looked at before speaking to Jim.

 

[Tom Orrow L]

As far as I know the 'common' mixes are 95/5 (93/5/2) or 85/15 (86/12/2). Bracketed are BOC and some others with 2% o2.

80/20 (78/20/2) seems to be the 'heavy' option, so that and 75/25 may well be more common if you're dealing with 'industrial'?

Aye, most of the bottles I see are in local customers factories/ workshops and I think for the majority they're using 75/25. We keep the ALbee ones at work and i've never really looked at them closely so I'm not sure whats in them.

That's good of you Tom Not that I know much about them, but was impressed with it when Jim showed it to me at his shop, and the quality of it was much better than some of the MIGs I'd looked at before speaking to Jim.

They really do sell themselves, because of the price point, the quality and the ease of use.
I'm sure you'll more than enjoy using it on your projects, let us know when Jim's sorted you and we'll want plenty of pics of upcoming projects

 

[Nick DV]

They really do sell themselves, because of the price point, the quality and the ease of use.
I'm sure you'll more than enjoy using it on your projects, let us know when Jim's sorted you and we'll want plenty of pics of upcoming projects

I'm sure I'll enjoy using it and I'll let you know when I'm sorted Pictures, only if my results are good...................!