Sad, I blame the reel of wire

[rkde]

The whole of this month has been spent laying under a classic mini removing rust and replacing with shiny metal and rebuilding a lot of the car.

During the time spent welding I used up my 5Kg wire spool and had to shift to a spare small real which I have on the side for this type of thing, although after opening the packaging and placing on the drive I let go of the end and so quickly half the wire was everywhere as it spooled off the real.

I was both sad because of the couple of pounds wasted as I just cut it off and also frustrated that I let it slip and it was knotted.

Take this as a warning, them wire reels are lively and left to their own devices will unwind

Also not sure why I am mentioning it on here as I feel foolish enough without everyone knowing...

 

[Sphinx]

I've done that; que lots of frantic grabbing trying to stop it as it whips around.

 

[Scamp]

Me too. Usually putting a new 15kg roll on. Doesn't take much for the end that was twisted to the side of the reel to slip out of cold fingers in the middle of winter when you cut it so that you can slide it into the wire feed.

 

[rkde]

Glad its not just me, this is my first time and I have changed many, I always try and be very careful but this time it went wrong. At the end of a job, 9pm tired, all local supplies shut, and on the last bit of wire, I thought I wouldn't be able to finish the job... but I had just enough, finished with the gas needle point to the bottom of the gauge so need to go get another one of them too...

 

[Welderpaul]

Always wise to mount the new reel, remove the previous wire out of the torch, get the wire feed rollers raised before undoing the end of the wire at the last minute.
I always hold the end of the wire, snip it where its tied to the side of the reel, and feed it straight into the end of the rolls/liner.
Lost a couple of half rolls of stainless wire before now (at 90 quid for 15kg)

 

[chunkolini]

As WP says you develop a method for doing this kind of thing, I can remember coils of wire all over the bloody place, now I use pretty much the same method.
15kg is pretty heavy when it decides it wants to escape.

Chunko'.

 

[rkde]

Yep, I normally get it without a problem until this time thank god it was only a tiny roll and not my normal 5Kg I would hate to do that to a 15Kg

 

[Hitch]

I had a spot of bother with half a roll of 309 the other week. The welds on the reel broke, it all got tangled up. Couldn't salvage it.

 

[Robotstar5]

They get really upset at work when a 475Kg marathon pack goes wrong!

 

[rkde]

I not sure to what extent you would try re-winding something that size. I did try and re-wind my small reel but gave up. I can imagine that 475Kg gets quite messy and fast

 

[pedrobedro]

I had a spot of bother with half a roll of 309 the other week. The welds on the reel broke, it all got tangled up. Couldn't salvage it.

Cut it up for tig welding I've never had one escape but I did have one with a thread overlapped and it would run for ages then just stop feeding and lock up. I unlooped it but it went again further on so I abandoned it and fitted a new one.

 

[Glyn]

Who's ever held the wire, cut it and realised you should have cut PAST the point your holding? Come on, own up. (yup, I did)

 

[Sparkey]

They get really upset at work when a 475Kg marathon pack goes wrong!

How on earth do you manage to do that????? They're not wound as tight as the small 15 kg reels?

We changed from the marathon packs to 15 kg reels...(to gain some space in the welding booths...)
But what is really bothering me we seem to have loads of trouble with them because they're badly wound! They are tangled up all the time!
Is this normal??? It is Lincoln wire btw....

 

[Robotstar5]

How on earth do you manage to do that????? They're not wound as tight as the small 15 kg reels?

We had a few problems last year, some had not been coated properly, you could see silver stripes running down the inside the stack and some were kinking coming out of the drum which would flatten and go up the conduit 'til it jammed trying to get through the feed rolls.Our supplier got ESAB in to look at them and they changed them FOC but it didn't pay for lost production!

 

[Sparkey]

We had a few problems last year, some had not been coated properly, you could see silver stripes running down the inside the stack and some were kinking coming out of the drum which would flatten and go up the conduit 'til it jammed trying to get through the feed rolls.Our supplier got ESAB in to look at them and they changed them FOC but it didn't pay for lost production!

Yeah, it's a pain! You will quickly lose 10 mins trying to get proper wire feed again... and if the welder in question isn't motivated it'll take longer!)

 

[rkde]

Used my scrapped wire last night! unwound it and laid it round the unit, the mig drew in like spaghetti happy days

 

[Sparkey]

Used my scrapped wire last night! unwound it and laid it round the unit, the mig drew in like spaghetti happy days

LOL just be careful with the meatballs Richard...