Looking for Experience welders opinion

[Maineiac]

I have been away from welding school a very long time ago. And welding procedures have changed alot through the years,I am assuming.
Welding 1/4, 3/8, or 1/2 inch steel using MIG. Can it be as strong as stick
welding? I know how to do both. But most of the welding that I have done while I was working was stick. And I have never had any come back because of poor welding. So as you can see, I have a large amount of faith in stick welding. If mig welding laid properly, is it as good or better than stick welding? I have just purchase a Millermatic 211 but that was mostly for thin steel and also aluminum. I have always enjoyed stick welding better, but if mig welding is as strong I will be doing alot more of it.Would love to hear from you gents or ladies. Thanks

[turbo38t]

HMMMM......TOUGH QUESTION. I talked to a Lincoln rep because I wanted an "equivalent wire to replace 9018M. He told me that they didn't have a wire that met all of the specs of 9018m, especially sismick(I know spelling is horrible). Tensile strength cn be comparible as well as ductility but nothing meets all the criteria. He recommended some wire for me whoch I usedfor my articular job, but in short, I would say Sick is stronger than mig push come to pull if I needed to be the"engineer"......Dave

I have been away from welding school a very long time ago. And welding procedures have changed alot through the years,I am assuming.
Welding 1/4, 3/8, or 1/2 inch steel using MIG. Can it be as strong as stick
welding? I know how to do both. But most of the welding that I have done while I was working was stick. And I have never had any come back because of poor welding. So as you can see, I have a large amount of faith in stick welding. If mig welding laid properly, is it as good or better than stick welding? I have just purchase a Millermatic 211 but that was mostly for thin steel and also aluminum. I have always enjoyed stick welding better, but if mig welding is as strong I will be doing alot more of it.Would love to hear from you gents or ladies. Thanks

19

[griff01]

I have been away from welding school a very long time ago. And welding procedures have changed alot through the years,I am assuming.
Welding 1/4, 3/8, or 1/2 inch steel using MIG. Can it be as strong as stick
welding? I know how to do both. But most of the welding that I have done while I was working was stick. And I have never had any come back because of poor welding. So as you can see, I have a large amount of faith in stick welding. If mig welding laid properly, is it as good or better than stick welding? I have just purchase a Millermatic 211 but that was mostly for thin steel and also aluminum. I have always enjoyed stick welding better, but if mig welding is as strong I will be doing alot more of it.Would love to hear from you gents or ladies. Thanks

The short answer is yes. However, it is too easy to lay down a decent looking mig weld that is not a good weld! All too often this is found when someone is using an underpowered machine on material that is too thick.

Griff

[tanglediver]

Welding 1/4, 3/8, or 1/2 inch steel using MIG. Can it be as strong as stick

Yes, it can be. Two areas of concern, in my opinion, are depth of penetration and cold lap. You get that using mig more than with stick. Preheat is more beneficial with thicker metal and larger pieces, especially for using mig. The best example I can give is when tack welding parts together, how many times will a little mig welded tack let go? Compare that to tacks made with stick. That is in short-circuit transfer voltage ranges. Spray transfer is different!! But a MM211 is not ideal for spray transfer anyway.
Mig can be cleaner and somewhat faster, you just have to choose the best fitting process for the job.
Fluxcore is a nice option to consider over solid wire mig. No shielding gas, and a bit better penetration.
I hope I have helped.

[Maineiac]

Hi Griff01 & TangleDiver: You gents have confirmed exactly what I had been thinking right along. For the past month I have been doing a fair amount of welding with my brother. We are in the constant battle, and arguing about this mig and stick process. We have done it so much that is what lead me to question myself. Thanks to this wonderful forum I now have more positive feedback about stick. I appricate your reply gents.

[Maineiac]

I have been away from welding school a very long time ago. And welding procedures have changed alot through the years,I am assuming.
Welding 1/4, 3/8, or 1/2 inch steel using MIG. Can it be as strong as stick
welding? I know how to do both. But most of the welding that I have done while I was working was stick. And I have never had any come back because of poor welding. So as you can see, I have a large amount of faith in stick welding. If mig welding laid properly, is it as good or better than stick welding? I have just purchase a Millermatic 211 but that was mostly for thin steel and also aluminum. I have always enjoyed stick welding better, but if mig welding is as strong I will be doing alot more of it.Would love to hear from you gents or ladies. Thanks

It's nice to be important But it's much more important to be nice.

[kcstott]

Here's the deal and a few others have already covered it but i'll give you my reasoning. In the hands of equally skilled weldors with equal requirements to the weld they are completely the same. But when you get into seismic welding, structural and bridge code, Pipeline etc... they are not equal. as mentioned try to find a replacement the met all the specs for 9018 was impossible. There are a wide verity of wires available solid core, flux core, dual shield. GMAW can be made to suite just about every weld situation out there but as with any process it has it's limitations. And then there is just the pure fact the the code you are welding to may require stick when a perfectly good wire is available.

It all comes down to what you end result needs to be.

[davedarragh]

"Joint Qualification"

Welding joints "fit" into one of two broad categories: Pre-Qualified and Qualified By Testing.

Pre-Qualified are those details that have a proven history of acceptable performance.

Qualified By Test are as good as pre-qualified.

Strength of weldments are based upon their design criteria. Leg size, root, throat, face, toe and HAZ (heat affected zone) are measurements of CJP (complete joint penetration), PJP (partial joint penetration, and fillet welds.

Generally Solid MIG Wire welding isn't popular (or permitted) in structural applications due to the lower voltages in short arc transfer, creating fusion problems (cold lap, lack of root or sidewall fusion)

To achieve similar depostion rates of spray-arc, in out-of-position welds, metal-cored wires are becoming increasing popular, offering greater resistance to "cold-lapping", and permitting the use of higher currents than solid wire.

Hope this answers your question.

Dave

[urch55]

Power to be used not abused.!~!~!~!~!

Well Maineiac I think every one agrees if they said it or not. It's nice to have machines available for different applications. I would rather weld with a mig on 16 ga sheet, and use a smaw with some 7014-18 on 3/4" plate Hmm maybe a 6010 root pass. I am not saying you can't use a mig on heavy plate, because I have with out any come backs. But the multi process machine with a wire feeder was set up only to do heavy plate. You could not use it on 16ga sheet if you wanted to, because the wire size was so thick. That leads to another problem using a mig, if you turn up the mig too much the wire will just blow away so you have too know the limits your machine, because the way it's set up to perform. .. Bob

[davedarragh]

"Technically Speaking"

Sheet metal is material up to and including 3/16"

Plate is anything thicker.

1/4"+ material should be beveled for CJP or PJP groove welds.

Dave

[Vernon]

stick vs mig

Hi Maineiac,

I've been welding for about 25 years.I try many types of welds.I also
started with stick much like you and was not sure of mig welds.Heres what I learned.Stick is good for outdoors and old material,but a slow going.Mig is good for lite materials and work bench type jobs.Now you will love the next
one It's called "dual sheild" welds like a stick and lays down like nothing you
ever seen before oh its stong to.I,ve welded roller coasters with this and you
got to try it.ONLY thing must be 1/4" or better because of the heat.I have a 251 miller mig I run .045 Dual Sheild at my house.

good luck Vernon

[davedarragh]

FCAW-g

Hi Maineiac,

I've been welding for about 25 years.I try many types of welds.I also
started with stick much like you and was not sure of mig welds.Heres what I learned.Stick is good for outdoors and old material,but a slow going.Mig is good for lite materials and work bench type jobs.Now you will love the next
one It's called "dual sheild" welds like a stick and lays down like nothing you
ever seen before oh its stong to.I,ve welded roller coasters with this and you
got to try it.ONLY thing must be 1/4" or better because of the heat.I have a 251 miller mig I run .045 Dual Sheild at my house.

good luck Vernon

Vern: "Gas-Shielded Flux-Cored Wire."

Several "Ultra-Core" and "Outershield" types meet design requirements specified in AWS D1.8 and FEMA 353 for seismic applications.

Dave

[Steve]

So I reckon none of yas has made a box tube of 8in x 8in 3/4 angle iron 10 feet long with two passes of mig per sides joined? Mig 3/4 in two passes? Caution thermal protection is required.

[Rig Hand]

Sheet metal is material up to and including 3/16"

Plate is anything thicker.

1/4"+ material should be beveled for CJP or PJP groove welds.

Dave

Their is my daily dose of Dave.

[Steve]

I don't bevel 1/4. See above post of 3/4 2 pass weld.