Need help "gasless" MIG welding

Keep in mind you don't have to make the cart out of metal, tho I wish I had covered the top with stainless or sheetmetal. Still might:

http://www.boyink.com/supersizedutch_comments/316_0_9_0_C/

 

Looks good Joel !!

 

Hooked it up, checked for gas flow. Didn't strke an arc yet, maybe tonight. I set it up for the .025 wire for now. I want to stop by the welding supply place and pick up some tips for the roll of .030 wire I have.

I was talking to a buddy of mine who worked at ESAB for years. He said the solid wire like ER70S6 with gas shielding (75/25) is better than the self-shielding fluc cored... but the flux-cored dual-shield, designed to be used with gas, is much better.
In fact, <cut><paste> here is his email, FWIW:
***************************
What you ran before was a self shielding flux cored wire. That crap is
garbage. If you wish to stay with flux cored and since you now have the
availability of shielding gas, you can use a good flux cored wire that needs
a shielding gas to operate correctly. Are you using argon, argon mix, or
Carbon Dioxide as your shielding gas? As far as mig wire is concerned you
will get a better weld with it than with self shielding wire. .030 mig wire
run hot will give you all the penetration that you will desire. You will
still have to put up with spatter however. It will run smoother and put
down a better weld than self shielding. Gas shielded flux cored wire will
run the smoothest, produce the best weld , and will be the cleanest.
Usually gas shielded flux cored wire handles rust a little better. You made
the right choice to get away from the self shielding wire. That stuff is
good in a pinch where you have no other options but mig and gas shielded
flux cored wires are much better. You can probably get tips, etc. at TSC
but you may be better served to go to MG or another local welding supply
distributor to get the right wire for the gas and the type of welding,
(position) you will be doing. They can make sure everything that you will
use will match making your life much easier.

JB

 

Thanks MOP...I'd love bigger casters but they'd upset the space-time continuim....

In other words..I designed the cart to just fit under my workbench height-wise with the casters that I had....

 

Joel, yes, ER70S6 comes with the kit. It's .025 diameter, I think it's Lincoln L-56.
The install of the kit took me maybe an hour and a half. It really doesn't take that long once you know what you are doing, I spent alot of time reading the manual and instructions. I could probably do one in 20 minutes today.
I installed the new liner, gas line, solenoid, etc. I read that the same liner is used for both .025 and .030 wire, all that was needed was a different tip (not included for .030) and of course the wire. My buddy had given me a 2# spool of .030 ESAB SpoolArc 86 (also ER70S6, a solid wire) sometime back... so on my way home from work last night I picked up three .030 tips for it. Spent all of $1.81
I put the new wire in, installed the tip, and fired it up for the first time since I converted it to gas. I used some scrap, clamped a 1/8" piece to a 1/4" piece and tried it out. I set the heat up to D, ran the wire feed between 4 and 4.5





If you hold the puddle long enough, this unit has sufficient drive to get decent penetration into the 1/4" stock. If you go too fast, you'll get a cold weld, not enough penetration. For the 1/8" stock, I ran it at C3, and that was good, but not quite enough when joining the 1/8 to the 1/4. I'd still run that at D4 and weave across the joint a bit being careful not to linger too long on the 1/8 stock.

The Jeep frame appears to be about 5/32 thick around the rear horns (or where they were ) I'm reconstructing the bottom of the rail, and part of the side of the rail on the drivers side with 1/8 stock. I got some 3" for the side, and 1 1/2" for the bottom. On the 3" side I'm going to weld it on the inside, along the top. Then I'll weld it along the outside at the lower portion of the side (the lower half of the side of the C channel on the drivers side is missing for about 4", it was too thin to weld to) I'll take some pics tonight to show what I mean.

Overall, I'm very pleased with what I can do with this little welder now that it's converted, at least on test welds. I hope to do some "production" welds tonight