Question about Welding

[maradcliff]

I have a stick welder. Just your basic AC welder that does a good job on thicker metals and always burns holes in thin metal.

Anyhow, I have never had any other type of welder, and have done a lot of experimentation with different rods. But, I had to do some welding on some thinner metal (fix the rust holes on my old pickup truck). I came to the conclusion that no matter how low I set the amps, and no matter what type of rod I use, I will end up with welds that look like swiss cheese.

A friend of mine works in a welding shop, and I asked him what it would cost me to weld the patches for me, using a wire feed welder. Well, I could not resist his offer, which was bring it over after the shop closes for the day on Friday, and bring a few 12 packs of beer, plus pay for the welding wire (or his boss will kill him). So, thats what we did, and I got an excellent job and we both got pretty loaded after the welding. So, besides the beer, it cost me $12 for the wire.

Anyhow, after I got home, I got to thinking about those wire welders. The rods for a stick welder are coated with flux. The wire for a wire welder dont have any flux on it, or none that is noticable. I was always under the impression that flux was a MUST when welding (and soldering or brazing). Without flux, how does a wire welder weld?

Does anyone know?

Thanks

Mark

["<<< Bøb >>>"]

[ds549]

you can buy the wire with flux in it, or buy plain wire and use argon gas for the sheilding flux.the gas comes out at the point the wire comes out. either way works pretty good . but gas sheilding or flux wire is a must..lucas

[Edwin Pawlowski]

There are MIG and TIG welders. They use a barrier of inert gas around the wire to replace the flux.

Welding, especially stick, is an art. I've seen guys do incredible things with it that you'd never think was welded when done. I end up with a series of globs of metal.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Perhaps you are thinking of rosin core solder. Not welding wire.

[SteveB]

MIG .... wirefeed ....... GMAW ........ FCW ....... are all names for types of wirefeed welding. The electrode is a continuous wire fed into the molten pool. There is either a shielding gas around the wire, or a flux core inside the wire. It depends on the thickness of the base material as to which one you want to use.

As with AC, different processes in wirefeeding are used for different thicknesses of metal. The right one works best. Gas shielded wirefeed works best on thin things, and the eletrode is negative. For flux core, the electrode is positive, and works better on thicker things.

That is not to say that you can't weld thin things with flux core, and thick things with shielded gas, but the processes were designed for different uses, and work best on the materials they were designed for.

Next time you see some flux core wire, take some pliers and cut it and examine it closely, and you will see the flux inside the hollow tube of metal.

Steve

[gfretwell]

You get a quantum leap simply by going to a DC welder

[James "Cubby" Culbertson]

MIG comes in two forms. One uses a shielding gas, usually CO2 or a CO2/Argon mix called C25. When using a shielding gas, the wire is solid. The second type used a hollow wire that has flux in the center. Using this will create more spatter and smoke and is generally not as "clean" of a weld but works well for windy type conditions (ie. outdoors). The solid wire will produce cleaner looking welds with less spatter but needs to be done in a pretty still environment to prevent wind from blowing the shielding gas away. Cheers, cc

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Thanks, I've never seen that setup.

[maradcliff]

I will assume the welder he used has the core in the wire. There are no gas tanks or anything like that. Now, how they manage to make a microscopic hole thru a piece of wire to put the flux must be one of the wonders of the world, or they have a very long and thin drill bit :)

Mark