Who here is a good MIG welder?

[kvom]

Question:

The last couple of days I did a lot of Mig welding of 1" square thick-wall steel tubes.  My welder is a Lincoln 175, and had the heat at max.  .023" wire.

At the end of each weld I almost always end up with a small glowing glob of melt at the end of the wire.  Does this mean I'm doing something wrong?  I've been cutting this off between welds, which slows things down a lot.

Thoughts?

[xjcrawler]

.023 wire with a 175? Sounds like you should .035 wire.

[hox]

yeah should be runnin .035 i wouldnt worrie about the lil glob on the end of the wire

[mrmike1964]

You don't have to cut the ball off the end. But if you don't it will leave a shot pieces of wire some times. If you can pull more amps with your 175 (220amp plug in) I would go to the .035. If you have a lot of welding It would be much faster to run a weld with too. Turn you amps up as high as you can hold a bead with.

[TC4x4]

Do a test run with an extra hand an listen to the weld I set mine by sound, play with the heat and wire speed till it sounds like its a quick burning camp fire( a little popping, mine is affected by wire speed as much as it is by heat) and you should be close, also go to a .030 or .035 wire.  If none of that works I can probably swing by your place Friday and give you a hand for a bit.

[kvom]

I did get the job done mostly done, just looking for advice on better technique.  The .025 wire I'm using came with the welder.  When I bought the welder 6 years ago and the tank of gas, I figured both were a lifetime supply.  I've used over half the wire now, but mainly in little fixup jobs here and there.  This current job, the first "big" welding project, is a rolling stand for my model steam locomotive.



I'm one piece of tube short for the other rail. 

[mrmike1964]

Looks good  </ROCKIN/>