MIG questions

[Moe]

When we originally cut and shaped the padeyes, the plate was not beveled, but shaped in a concave fashion to fit up to the pipe. Our thinking was that this would give us more surface area and a better end result. That was the first wrong assumption.

The second mistake was using a higher than needed wire speed. After the first thin pass, all we did was pile up aluminum, thinking we were tying in to both the pipe and the plate.

To correct it, we beveled the padeyes into a "V" and ran a thin root pass on both sides at a lower wire speed. From there we ran 2 additional passes, one concentrating the bulk of the heat on the plate and bringing it back to the pipe. We could see the plate "melting" and forming good fusion with the weld metal. The second pass concentrated more on the pipe, then overlapping the weld from the second pass. This method built up a pretty thick finished weld, but it is definitely much stronger than the first attempt...

I still backup these points with SS cable. Being caught in the water waiting for assistance with a trawl frame stuck in the down position because of a broken weld is not my idea of a good time.

If anyone has any better suggestions or ideas in welding 1/2" Alum plate to sch 80 alum. pipe with a machine like the MM210, please let me know your technique. I take constructive critisizm very well. Thanks in advance.

[HAWK]

Moe,

What did you do different? How did you get the necessary penetration?

[Moe]

My MM210......

I purchased a MM 210 with the spoolgun package a little over a month or so, mainly for welding marine aluminum. Neither me or my son has had any experience with welding aluminum before, so we rounded up some scrap and went to practicing.

About a week ago, we cut out some padeyes from 1/2" alum. plate. I needed to weld these to sch 80 alum pipe on my trawler. We used .035 wire. The welds looked perfect, but were not. As soon as I placed some considerable stress on the welds when lifting the trawl frames, the padeye popped off of the pipe like it was attached with cheap glue. I did backup the padeye with 1/4" SS cable as I do on all of my high stress areas as an added measure of safety. This time it came in handy as the 6 lb. SS pulley did not come off of the frame and blow through the cabin. At that point it was obvious that we had a serious lack of penetration on both of these welds. The first thing I thought was that I didn't have enough machine to achieve what I needed. I assumed wrong again.

A friend of mine was there when this happened. He has experience with aluminum welding. We went to the bench and he proceeded to instruct my son on the proper way to achieve good penetration when welding aluminum pieces with different thickness. My son test welded a piece of scrap 1/2" plate to some scrap pipe using his technique. The machine was set at a wire speed of 62 and 6 on the voltage (we find that the 7 setting instantly destroyed the contact tips). We also had the argon purge at max.. I locked the plate in a huge vice and tried to knock the piece of pipe off with a 5 lb mall and couldnt do it.

This evening we'll attempt to re-weld the padeyes back on the boat. Hopefully, I'll be catching shrimp tomorrow instead of thinking about catching shrimp.....

[HAWK]

JWD,

That price on ss sounds high. I priced some this morning. It is 304 stainless, 22 guage, in a 4 feet x 8 feet sheet. I found it for 70 US dollars one place and 93 US dollars another place. Check around. Also most suppliers will sell the 4 x 8 sheets cheaper because they don't have to cut it.

[JWD]

yes im back up on the i-net! the new place is... alright to say the least! well atleast im getting my shop set up!

ya i dont whats the torch set up, well because i dont want to bother with having to rent out the big tanks! whatever...

um so just some final approval needed here, millermatic 210 with .023 drive roll, and the spectrum 375, would that be a good start to the first home shop i will have?

this is a semi derterant to my plans of using stainless steel, i found an online price quote saying $60 u.s. for a 4x2 piece of 22
guage sheet of stainless, is this right? is there a sortof base number to each cost of metal per pound?

thats about it for now i guess!

thanks

[HAWK]

JWD,

Your welcome. I hoped this information helps you. Let us know what you get. ALSO GET THE PLASMA-THE OCY-ACETYLENE TORCH WON'T WORK FOR STAINLESS.

[JWD]

ok i will probably go for making my own cones ect. out of sheet metal. im probably going to get the mm 210 with the spectrum 375 plasma cutter! maybe the plasma, bacause i dont want to get the torch set up! im shutting down my internet connection very soon so i can move to my other house so i wont be responding for a bit! so thanks alot HAWK, you really helped out!

[HAWK]

JWD,

The 210 should do fine. It is rated from 22 guage to 3/8" in a single pass. It comes with a reversable .030/.035 drive rollers. If the .030 proves to be to hot, then buy a 0.23 drive roller and use.023 wire. It will feed just fine through the gun and liner that comes with the machine. I'd go ahead and order the .023 dirve roller anyway. You'll be happer with the bead appearance on the thinner sheets. You can use a 98% argon/ 2% oxygen for the stainless wire. Your dealer may recommend some type of tri mix-it's usually more expensive. Maybe they will let you try both??? I just use the plain 98/2. It works fine. You can probably use 309 or 310 stainless filler for your sheet metal work. The 300 series stainless is pretty common. Buy the smallest spools that will fit your machine to start. Stainless filler is not cheap.

That depends on the shop. You'll probably have to order such pieces. If you find cones at a muffler shop they will probably be aluminized steel(weld with plain steel filler like ER70S-6). I have seen different fittings like you are describing at an industrial supply house for pipe welding in 304 and 316 type stainless. Ferguson Enterprises is a large supplier here in the States. You are looking for odd ball fittings-expect the cost to be high. I don't know exactly. It seems like a 2x1 reducing cone in 304ss in schedule 40 runs about 10.00 US dollars. Shop around-check the internet. Try searching with www.google.com

GOOD LUCK WITH THE MOVE
ANYBODY ON THE FORUM GOT ANY SUGGESTIONS FOR JWD?

[JWD]

well i would like to be able to do stainless steel 20 guage to 22 guage. im pretty sure that isnt even close(reletively) to paper! maybe i would even try using exhaust tubing.

ive never been to a metal supply shop, so i am wondering if its possible to get stainless steel CONES of various shapes and diameters and thicknesses? if not would an exhaust place have that type of thing? what can i expect the cost of metal to be?

ill be moving to my new house for about 4 days so i wouldnt be able to respond! then after that i can look at welders and maybe get one in a week or so! thanks again HAWK!

[HAWK]

JWD,

Thanks for the email. In the meantime here's a few answers. 1.5mm stainless sheet is roughly .059 inches. That's about the thickness of a piece of printer paper. Mig will be way too hot! I think you really need to consider the TIG process for something this thin. What are you making? As for running aluminum through you mig torch-yes it is possible with some success: Use a stiffer filler wire like 5356 in an .035 to make feeding easier. That's the problem. Aluminum filler wire is soft and flexible. It does not feed well in a standard mig torch because the drive rollers in the feeder don't push the soft metal wire very well. Feeding will likely be erratic and this will add to your frustration in the learning process. Here's the "lingo" thing. Short arc is where the filler wire actully touches the welding material and the "short" in the electrical "circuit" creates the arc causing the direct transfer of the filler wire. At the same time a portion of the base metal is cut away by this electrical current and filled in with the filler wire. This is the lowest heat input process for mig welding. Spray arc is a very high heat transfer process. The arc amps are set high enough in combination with the wire speed set slow enough to produce stream of tiny molten metal droplets from the torch nozzle to the base material being welded. These droplets being transferred across the arc create a bright spray of white metal and a hissing sound - like form a spray paint can. Hence the term spray arc. Spray arc typically uses hotter shielding gases with oxygen in them to help preheat the wire.

I am selling a Maxstar 200DX for a very reasonable price. It has built in pulse and goes from 1-200 amps. It will not do aluminum. It is the direct current cousin of the Dynasty 200. It is an excellent machine for stainless steel. It weighs less than 40 pounds an draws about 21 amps at its rated duty cycle. I am selling because my business has grown to a point where I need a Dynasty 200 on a regular basis. I'll send you more in the email.

[JWD]

well its about an extra $800 plus 7% tax! thats without the spool gun attachment. i may drop down bellow the border to get it in the states with the exchange rates and all! then sneak it over the border to escape the duty fee!

i actually dont know how much aluminum i will be doing! would i be able to try some Al with the feed from the system itself? if i end up doin Al i may just save the 600 on the spoolgun and put it towards a TIG! my projects, i dont want to learn to TIG for, i want to do now is just welding stainless steel sheet(1-1.5mm), so would the mm 210 be a good machine for that without too much warpage?

i dont know the welding lingo or techniques so what is "spray arc" or spray whatever it is and what is "short arc" mean?

thanks all, and if you want to send me anything send to

[email protected]

[JeramyK]

Hi JWD,

I am a proud owner of a MM210 and chose it over the MM175. Largly due to the very positive feedback on the MM210. Also, like HAWK mentioned, I chose to go with a slightly larger machine that what I actually need. I paid just under $1200 total shipped to my door. I've seen a package complete with the spoolgun for just over $1600 shipped. This was something I passed up for now as I don't have an immediate need for aluminum or stainless welding.

-Jeramy

[HAWK]

CONTACT

HEY JWD,

I CANNOT CONTACT YOU VIA EMAIL THROUGH THIS FORUM. YOU HAVE IT BLOCKED. EMAIL ME AT [email protected] IF YOU WANT AND MAYBE WE CAN HASH THIS THING OUT.

GOOD LUCK

HAWK

[HAWK]

JWD,

Just a note about welding machines from my personal experiences. If at all possible buy a little more than you think you need. Every time I have not followed my own advice I've been sorry. Believe me, it's no fun spending the cash and a week later knowing the machine won't do what you want. I've been there and done that-tried to save some bucks and lost bucks by having to sell and rebuy the right machine. I'D SAVE THE EXTRA BUCKS FOR THE 210 IF YOU WILL BE USING IT A LOT. THE 175 IS GREAT FOR JUST PLAYING AROUND FOR SHORT PERIOD OF TIME(3 OF 10 MINUTES) AT 130. THIS ALSO MEANS THAT AT 175 AMPS THE DUTY CYCLE IS NILL-MAYBE A MINUTE OR SO. FOOD FOR THOUGHT.

[HAWK]

JWD,

An extra 1000 is a lot. Unless there's been a price increase the 175 list is 793 and the 210 list is 1450. You may want to shop around at several dealers. You named the basic differences
1. Duty cycle: 175 130 amps at 30%
210 160 amps at 60%
2. An additional 35 amps-giving it the ability to weld 3/8" in a
single pass for the 210 compared to 1/4" with the 175.

3. If you want a spool gun, the 3035 spoolmate gun is a direct hook up to the 210. The 175 requires an SGA controller(not sure of price).
The 210 features gun on demand: pull the trigger on either the mig torch or the spoolmate and the machine knows what gun you are using.
You don't have to worry with flipping switches or changing connections

4. The 210 will weld at almost the the maximum amperage of the 175 for 6 out of 10 minutes. It has 7 taps. The 175 has one dial for infinite control. In the long run the 210 is on top for sure.

They are both good machines. If I had to choose between the 2 machines, I would pick the 210. IT HAS MORE GUTS. I KNOW THE 35 AMPS AND 60% DUTY CYCLE DON'T SOUND LIKE MUCH, BUT DO SOME MORE SOUL SEARCHING. IT REALLY MAKES A HUGE DIFFERENCE IF YOU ARE GOING TO SPEND MUCH TIME WELDING. THE 210 SHOULD SHORT ARC AND SPRAY WITH THE APPROPRIATE GAS MIXES. I DON'T THINK THE 175 WILL GO TO SPRAY. IF SO, NOT FOR LONG.

In summary: 175 high end hobby machine.
210 serious machine capable of light production.

IT'S YOUR MONEY. SPEND IT WISELY. I THINK THE 210 IS AN EXCELLENT CHOICE!!!