Thanks for the posts!

[Horrorking]

Hi, Well I'm new to MIG welding, having bought a cheap gasless setup last week. I have been reading the board for a few weeks now and just want to say a big thanks to all the posters so far. I have learnt heaps and can actually now run a bead with the MIG thanks to a lot of the posts here.

Why gasless? Well I have a stick welder for heavy tasks, which gets used about twice a year at most. I cant weld thin stuff with it as it is simply too powerful (plus I'm a poor welder lol). I wanted something that would weld 1 to 2mm steel, but also be economical to use just every few months (i.e. no gas bottle rental), plus cheap to buy (So Mrs Horrorking would allow it)

I understand the limitations of the machine, accept the cleanup needed (darn they sure DO spatter!), and am rather happy with the purchace. All I need to do now is get an auto darkening helmet, another roll of wire, as I have used 1/2 a 450g roll already, & I'll be set.

My main welding will be for stuff for my christmas lights - frames for displays, mini-trees ets, so the MIG is well suited to the low-volume and low-current welding I'll need. Once I got the feed rate right, I can actually get a bead that looks horrible, rather than "Oh God, did you let your dog weld that?" which was what was happening to start with. Now all I have to do is practice, practice, get leather shoes as slag/molten sparks BURN!!!!, and practice.


Edit: Oh and I just fixed the poor weld look. I read in a post about poor welds because of an uneven wire feed. Well the Ozito came with 2 feed rollers - installed was a knurled roller with no groves, so I swapped it for the groved roller, and reduced the tension on the clamp on the wire feed to almost nil - darn, I CAN WELD!!!! Honestly, it made all the diffference in the world to the finished weld. The weld sounds "more powerful" when welding, its a nice even crackling sound while welding, and I actually managed to wind the wire feed speed back about 20% to get it even better, and there is no "burn back" of the wire as there was before at the same speed. Low current welds were hard to do - now they are easy. Darn, it was all so simple.

Thanks again.

Horrorking, NSW, Australia

 

[Horrorking]

Heres a poor quality pic - its cold out here in the shed, so I was shivering lol. I did not clean up the mess from the last few welds, so theres a bit of splatter about, but you can see the basic weld. Some of the mess is me starting - I still have to hold position, flip down the visor & hope that I'm still somewhere near where I wanted to be - darn, an auto darkening helmet cant be THAT dear can it... (Looks at Visa card...)

One thing I noticed is that my poor old 39yo arms and not as steady as I would have liked, but resting on something sure helps. I'll hopefully get a bit of thinner metal later this week & practice welding 2 bits together

Welds at the top are pre fixing the wire feed. The ones at the bottom are using different wire feeds and curent - not a huge diff in the pic, but enough to learn from`here. Still cant get the end looking really good, but thats OK for now.

 

[shenion]

Not bad for gasless. There are anti-spatter sprays that help cleanup.

Definitely get an auto-darkening helmet. Makes it so much easier especially on real thin stuff you have to weld in bursts. It will also work well with arc welding.

Don't know which is worse, chipping slag off arc welds or cleaning up spatter on gassless MIG

If your welder can be used for gas, then disposable gas cylinders might be an option. Then there would be no rental.

Welcome to the forums, I have learned more frm here than anywhere else.

 

[Horrorking]

The welder says it cant, but I have seen a setup with the same welder that was converted to Gas - messy looking, but it works well for the neighbour I'll probably master the gasless initially, then think about the convert to Gas.

In all honesty, if I decide to go Gas, I'll probably just upgrade to a decent welder, as this one is fine for now, but if I want to go further later, a better current control would be nice, as well as the gas. This was a budget item, with budget features, but suited what I want to do for now.

I am bidding on some anti-spatter spray, some Tip Dip to stop the tip from building up crud. Theres no welding supply place here (Hardware has gasless wire but people who used that brand said it was c**p), so its ebay or off for a 1hr drive to Sydney. I'll probably get the consumables from ebay, but go talk to someone about a decent helmet.

 

[malcolm]

Welcome to the forum. Those gasless welds look fine - so often it is a wire feed problem when welds aren't working out well.

Gasless wire has a nice arc, and so long as you can put up with the spatter I'd not bother swapping to gas.

Gasless does have it's disadvantages on thin sheet - partly it's a hotter process, and partly it's restricting on technique not being able to go over something you've just done without stopping to scrape the slag off, but that's only really a problem on sheet thinner than about 1.2mm. If you've got the Ozito 90 Mig that only goes down to 60 amps that would be tricky below 1.2mm anyway (most MIGs have a minimum of 25-30 amps).

 

[irondarren]

I got to admit the forum does seem a great place to get questions answered, and it normally doesn't take long to get an answer which is the great thing. From what i have noticed since joining about a week ago, the forum has a good mix of people with various welding experience from out right novices, who are about to purchase there first mig welder to seasoned welders who have been at it years. It also has a couple of welding distrubutors who regularly post to the forum, which is great for when things break, just means you can get free advice on fixing it and a nod in the right direction to be able to obtain the spare parts.
And of course the other great thing about the forum is you can take pictures of your latest project and share with the rest of the forum.
All in all a nice place to be

 

[loulou61]

This is a great place to learn new info on all sorts of welding..

 

[Jupitus]

This is a great place to learn new info on all sorts of welding..

I'll second that... only joined a week or so ago, but I have learned loads and already recommended it to another mini forum user

 

[firiepete]

I agree aswell i found this site a week ago and joined fantastic site for information thanks to all

 

[pedrobedro]

I am bidding on some anti-spatter spray, some Tip Dip to stop the tip from building up crud.

If it's bothering you that the tip gobs up you can get a gasless cover for the end of some guns. It doesn't need a shroud if you are not running gas.

 

[Wozzaaah]

Expect he's sorted now Pedro, check the date of the thread.

 

[Iain Westland]

bug ger, I wanted to say that, and point out the near two years since last log on...

damn mods get all the fun

 

[pedrobedro]

Ooops, damn those links at the bottom of the page

Should have gone to specsavers