Flux vs Shielded Flux Question

[MAC702]

...My boss who taught me a lot of what I know, basically had the attitude of "MIG solves everything". If the frame needs to be repaired... MIG. If we are building a trailer... MIG. If we build a custom barbecue pit... MIG. If I am welding vertical or overhead... MIG. I have yet to find anything he doesn't just say use the MIG....

Let me guess: he paid by the hour?

[kevin]

if you are just starting out, stay with the mig, the dual shield with co2 is great, but not really where you should be, if you are doing bigger welds it would be ok, but your machine wont keep up with it if you start pounding out the wire, plus, as mentioned, costly. dont under estimate the mig process, once you learn how to use it, you will be amazed as what you can weld with it. i reccomend that you find someone with lots of mig experience to show you the ropes. ive been welding my whole life, used both for many years, each has a place, i run a small shop, considered dual shield, from what i do, it wasnt cost efficient

[SLP82]

Let me guess: he paid by the hour?

Yes he paid by the hour, haha. Well here is the deal. A friend of mine works for a company who they do a lot of projects and time is money to them. Between these projects they rewire the machines and they don't like them to stop and have to do maintenance so they pull the spools off of the welders and discard the left over wire if it is obviously below half way full. They allow these guys to take the "leftover" spools home, which usually have somewhere between 15 lbs to 1 lbs of wire left. So he gets his hands on these left overs so often that he told me he can get any type of wire I want with lets say a average of 10 lbs on a 44 lb spool. He already brought me 5 spools the 1st day of dual shield flux, as I already have a full spool of MIG and Gasless flux. So I can basically get wire for free. So assuming you would get wire for free, would you choose to use MIG or Dual Shield Flux? Almost everything I do will either be building barbecue pits, fixing trailers, or welding up A/C security cages.

[ryanjones2150]

I'll share this with you, as I'm having some struggles here the last two days....<br />
<br />
I ran out of .045 dual shield. I got the roll given to me by a friend that works for a big fab shop. It was a demo from who knows where. I don't even know the brand. It ran fine. Not spectacular, but fine. So I run down to my LWS and get a roll of esab dual shield. I can't get it to run worth a flip. Well, I take that back, seems to run ok, but the welds turn out porous and nasty looking. I can't seem to get it dialed in and time is running out. <br />
<br />
So, free wire is awesome. Changing wires every time to you put a new roll on might cause you some problems. I'm tired of grinding welds out.