I bought a Clarke EN120 Mk2 a couple of months ago, but it's only over the last few days that I've really been able to play with it.
The first attempt was terrible:
The wire feed was intermittent at best and I forgot to turn on the gas
The condition of the wire gave an indication of what the problem might be:
I tried to unwind the rusty bits, but it seemed to go all the way through the reel. Rather than risk having the problem again, I changed the wire. Just to be sure, I also changed the tip.
Fitting the new wire was straightforward except it seemed to jam in the torch. I ended up having to disassemble the torch and feed the wire into the neck manually.
It was worth the little bit of expense and effort though because I can now concentrate on learning how to weld without wire feed issues!
This is one of my attempts from today.
Obviously, it's far from perfect, but was making a bacon-like sound and I was starting to get a good feel for it. I'm welding on quite thick stock at the moment. I'll move onto the car-body thickness metal soon, and change to CO2/Argon mix gas instead of just C02 when this bottle runs out.
All in all, I'm quite happy. Lots more practice is needed though
The first attempt was terrible:
The wire feed was intermittent at best and I forgot to turn on the gas
The condition of the wire gave an indication of what the problem might be:
I tried to unwind the rusty bits, but it seemed to go all the way through the reel. Rather than risk having the problem again, I changed the wire. Just to be sure, I also changed the tip.
Fitting the new wire was straightforward except it seemed to jam in the torch. I ended up having to disassemble the torch and feed the wire into the neck manually.
It was worth the little bit of expense and effort though because I can now concentrate on learning how to weld without wire feed issues!
This is one of my attempts from today.
Obviously, it's far from perfect, but was making a bacon-like sound and I was starting to get a good feel for it. I'm welding on quite thick stock at the moment. I'll move onto the car-body thickness metal soon, and change to CO2/Argon mix gas instead of just C02 when this bottle runs out.
All in all, I'm quite happy. Lots more practice is needed though