c02

[bloodyB&Q]

well thanks guy, your advice about B&Q and tips was spectacularly successful, i got tips, shrouds and wire all at Halfords, enough to finish the job.

No, i notice that plain steel welding wire is a LOT cheaper, but of course you have to buy the piddly little CO2 gas bottles at exorbitant prices, and it makes it no cheaper.

Where do you get big refillable bottles of CO2 for welding?

 

[MigTig]

Good news!

Make sure you buy the 600g Co2 canisters as they last quite a while. Our forum member 'Weldequip' is and will be my supplier of gas untill I get a large bottle. He does a good deal on them.

BOC or Adams Gas would be my first two choices for gas, the second being far better value if you are near or in Kent.

 

[rtbcomp]

Look for Energas in your area too

 

[Alex]

No, i notice that plain steel welding wire is a LOT cheaper, but of course you have to buy the piddly little CO2 gas bottles at exorbitant prices, and it makes it no cheaper.

You can buy 5KG of Steel wire average around £13-14

SIP Flux wire 0.45KG for what £10-12 or maybe its £8.00

A reel of Flux will last for continuous feeding max 5 minutes before the reels gone

So flux welding costs

£8.00 for 5 minutes welding (maybe more but not much)

Gas cannister £7-8 60L

MIG wire costs about £1.00 for 5 minutes welding time add £7-8 for gas of about 10 minutes at 7L minute

Its around the same cost, and if you use 110L cylinders its cheaper still.

You could run 4L a minute of gas and produce sound welds. My reg is set for around 4L a minute and is fine.


Does anybody disagree about the figures?

 

[bloodyB&Q]

what about these big bottle of CO2 that pubs use to pump beer ?


I presume you have to pay BOC for one of those bottles ?

 

[Masked Marauder]

You could run 4L a minute of gas and produce sound welds. My reg is set for around 4L a minute and is fine.

I get good welds with CO2 on mild steel at 4-5 l/pm. When your using big bottles it is not the cost of the gas that keeps me from using as little as possible.

 

[Masked Marauder]

what about these big bottle of CO2 that pubs use to pump beer ?


I presume you have to pay BOC for one of those bottles ?

Pub CO2 is good, but more and more pubs are not using CO2, but a gas mix that is unsuitable.

Vending machines use pure CO2 and fire extinguishers are a good source too, but no knicking safety equipment. Similarly if you acquire a CO2 bottle and extinguisher filler may fill it for you.

 

[Alex]

The Krysal 5 (Argoshield light equivalent) gas costs me £20.99 + VAT.

Adams fill the 10L cylinder to about 110 Bar (a bit cheeky, but there is no better alternative)

If I used 10L/min it would be gone in 2 hours, if I run at 4L/min its over 4 hours and it works fine.

4 hours of welding for £20.99 + VAT i'm okay with.

Getting back to Flux Vs Gas regarding price, Can you tell me how much you paid for the 0.45KG reels of flux cored. I really think its quite possible that you could be using gas for less and the results of gas are worth paying more for than gasless anyway.

 

[bloodyB&Q]

well at out local Halfords:

The 445g of gasless wire are about £4.50 and the 775g reels about £7.

The bottles of gas seem to be about £11.

The 5kg reels of mild steel wire are £12

There the outlay overhead i suppose as well, id have to acquire a CO2 bottle (unknown cost) and a gas regulator (£10) first, then get it filled.

When I used to do oxy-acetylene gas welding years ago, BOC used to rent to bottles to you , i was paying like £180 a year for set of Oxygen K or J size bottles + Acetylene , then they screw me for £30 to fill them. I soon found a way round THAT one, I got a guy to make me a pair of steel adapters with the correct thread at each end, so you could screw the small bottles onto the end of the biggest size ones, then open both valves. The small bottle would fill to about 99% full, and the bigger bottle would lose about 5% pressure. Most scrap yards were quite happy to fill the pair for £10...........

 

[Alex]

Oh well thats a lot cheaper than I thought they were, it changes things a bit.

Maybe it is a little cheaper.

Still If you did try gas I think you would find it difficult to justify going back to gasless.

 

[Rusty]

well at out local Halfords:

The 445g of gasless wire are about £4.50 and the 775g reels about £7.

The bottles of gas seem to be about £11.

The 5kg reels of mild steel wire are £12

There the outlay overhead i suppose as well, id have to acquire a CO2 bottle (unknown cost) and a gas regulator (£10) first, then get it filled.

When I used to do oxy-acetylene gas welding years ago, BOC used to rent to bottles to you , i was paying like £180 a year for set of Oxygen K or J size bottles + Acetylene , then they screw me for £30 to fill them. I soon found a way round THAT one, I got a guy to make me a pair of steel adapters with the correct thread at each end, so you could screw the small bottles onto the end of the biggest size ones, then open both valves. The small bottle would fill to about 99% full, and the bigger bottle would lose about 5% pressure. Most scrap yards were quite happy to fill the pair for £10...........

Hi.
I have been renting a ' Y ' size bottle of argoshield ( i think this is half the size of the full bottle ) for years from BOC i think the rental is about £55.00 which is not much over a pound a week and i think a refill is about 30 odd quid but unless you do a LOT of welding in which case you would rent the full size bottles for pound a week it ain't worth worrying about.This much gas will last months or even longer if your an occasional welder and with the proper gauge on the bottle you can see how much gas is left in the bottle plus accurately set your gas flow rate, put a pound coin in a jar every week and your gas problems are sorted.It just ain't worth the hassle.