gasless wire - identifying

[siteteam]

Hi,

I've bought a shed load of gasless wire or at least the cardboard box is marked gasless welding wire.

When I opened the box the wire was copper coloured. The wire which came with my gasless welder was silver. Just wanted to check that I've been sold the right stuff.


Regards

 

[Wozzaaah]

Sounds like normal solid wire to me. What's written on the reels?

 

[Drains]

Is gasless wire cored or fluxed on the outside? Whichever, you should be able to see that the wire's not solid.

 

[TechnicAl]

The flux is on the inside. Usually FCW has a seam so coppering isnt possible as its a wet process involving strong acid. The acid would get in through the seam with obvious consequences. However, there are a few manufacturers who produce seamless FCW which is coppered on the outside. Having said that I cant recall a gasless seamless FCW but one could exist.
The specification should be on a label somewhere. You can tell from that.

 

[siteteam]

the reels....

Nothings written on the reel, it's only on the box that states it's gasless. The other strange thing is that the reel itself has a paper covering which covers the wire. I thought maybe the company put this on the wire becuase it's flux cored prolong it's life.

 

[Jackson]

Gas wire is like spring steel, it is stiff and it is hard to bend. Gasless wire is tubular like a straw that has flux in it and when you bend it the wire will collapse or break.

 

[Frosty]

Take some wire cutters and cut it. You would be able to see if its solid or hollow with flux inside.

All my solid wire comes with the paper around it and all of my ESAB gasless doesn't.

 

[keith19]

Jackson is spot on.
Gasless fluxcore wire can be broken easily with the fingers when bent at a sharp angle.
Gasless wire can be bent into all sorts of intricate shapes and will not break as it is very springy.

 

[siteteam]

yes it's standard wire

yes it's not flux core wire but standard gas. The test welds had no penetration and I could knock the weld off the metal with a hammer.

And also like the posts have said flux core you can snap with your hands this stuff you could cheerfully strangle someone with without fear of it snapping


Thanks for your advice everyone

 

[mirafioriman]

A friend of mine had this problem. He bought a gasless welder and got on pretty good with it (he was a newbie) and then had problems which he thought was a fault with his welder. Turned out (we found out much later) that the new 'gasless' wire he had bought (from toolstation I think) was actually standard gas MIG wire. As soon as he got some gassless wire the welder worked fine again. Caused us loads of head scratching (and use of my welder) until we cottoned on to the cause of the problem