from arc to mig

[Shedendman]

Hi,just joined today,i've had an old trusty arc welder a sureweld 140 for the last 7 years bought from a boot sale for £5 which has done me well.
For years i kept saying i'd love a mig but never had the dosh to get one untill yesterday,again at a jumble/boot sale for £20,wow,its nothing like stick welding theres me thinking it was a peice of cake,i know now its not,anyway the unit i bought is a kende mig-105/f,looking around i find out its some ****** model,so my 1st question is "has any body else got one of these"?
if so tell me i've bought a pile of rubbish or not,also how did you master it etc
etc etc
cheers

 

[madkayaker]

hello and welcome a picture would be good

 

[irondarren]

Mig is the easiset of welding forms, but what is hard with MIG is getting it set up right, once you mastered that its quite easy. You have to match the wire speed to the power setting, to little wire and it just burns back all the time, to much wire and the wire wont melt in the weld pool properly.
It might be a good idea to post a few pictures of weld runs here on the forum, nice focused ones are good. For an experienced welder its reasonably easy to see if you have to much wire , to little wire etc. It might help you with your set up

 

[andypocock]

And read through the tutorials here. They give as clear instruction on setting up as I have seen anywhere.

 

[Wozzaaah]

Hi stalwart_hmlc, welcome to the forum .
Those Kende migs have a ridiculously high lowest setting of 60 amps so will be absolutely useless on thin stuff like bodywork but it should be ok for sticking things together. £20 is not a lot anyway so if it doesn't do what you want then it's no great loss.

 

[Shedendman]

Good afternoon all,i've spent nearly all day cleaning and tidying up my little workshop,my lungs are full of dust(now being washed with beer)i've found tools i thought i lost ages ago(just bought a set of punches thursday)and i've not see or heard of the other half all day ,i hope this is a good enough reason for not getting back sooner.
Anyway heres a few photos of the unit i bought,i had a little practice this morning and things weren't going to good at all i did run through the tutorial over a few times still couldn't see why nothing was going my way,then as if it was stareing me the face if this is a gasless model why is there no slag on my welds,yer you guessed it i had gas wire in,seems to me that why the last person who had it got rid of it
I wont be really using it for bodywork as such but for more light fab work,anything heavy i'll use my stick.
So,if anyone else has the same model as mine i'd be very greatfull to hear form you,oh btw,the best and cheapest gasless wire info
right,more beer

 

[madkayaker]

I have a role of gasless if you want it

 

[Shedendman]

Thats mighty kind of you sir,cost?

 

[Tigman]

If you can Arc weld , you`ll find the mig a lot easier process , as mentioned its all in the setting of the machine , never used flux cored wire but the speed of wire should be the same as with gas, good luck !

 

[madkayaker]

postage I will never use it my welder is duel use

 

[Shedendman]

madkayaker,i seem to have probs posting a message back to you,cool you go to the GPO find out the costs then get back to me,i'll try and post this reply later through private

 

[madkayaker]

no worries should be much as there blister pack ones not 5KG