another new starter

[londonsean69]

Welcome.

It's good fun, and a good forum with some very knowledgeable people.

Get a GAS mig They are much nicer, you can see a decent weld pool!! And if at all possible, use the big bottles of gas. the tiny Machine Mart/Halfrauds gas bottles last about 6 minutes.

As an aside, if you are also new to welding, check out http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/ There is a forum there as well, and they are, once again , friendly and knowledgeable.

Good luck with the build

Sean

[Spikehaus]

The main problem of the machine mart gas was not lasting six min's, just simply not being able to get enough heat into the component. I have refillable bottle of gas that is new an unused. It holds 4 x the disposables. If you need one I will ask South West Welding Supplies to get you one. I paid £40. on let 60 I think? Hope it helps

[andyuk697]

ive been looking around and i wish i could afford a gas mig and to run it but unfortunatly i cant so ive at least gone a step up from arc and got myself a nice little gasless set from screw fix that was on offer from £170 i think down to £117

cheers Andy.

[londonsean69]

Originally Posted by Spikehaus

The main problem of the machine mart gas was not lasting six min's, just simply not being able to get enough heat into the component. I have refillable bottle of gas that is new an unused. It holds 4 x the disposables. If you need one I will ask South West Welding Supplies to get you one. I paid £40. on let 60 I think? Hope it helps

A lot of the small disposable bottles of gas only hold 60L of gas. CO2 is measured in grams, but CO2/AR mix and Ar are measured in litres. The "big" bottles they sell hold 110 litres.

At a flow rate of 10L/min the small bottles will last 6 minutes or so. Which is, scarily enough, about a metre of weld.

I'm not sure the MM gas gives problems getting heat into a weld, I have welded plenty of stuff with disposible bottles, it's just they are VERY uneconomical.

And I have used a gasless MIG as well. The weld pool is pants but at least gasless meant I was able to weld some gates outside, in Lanzarote (very breezy).

If I were to weld outside now I would still use my gas mig, just crank up the flow rate (20l/min is cool when you have a 47L bottle)

Sean

[andyuk697]

well i ordered the kende welder from screwfix marked down to clear from £169.99 to £117.44 and it arrived today and so far im very impressed it looks very well built its quite a large welder really and it can be switched from gasless wire to gas wire it has a sturdy shelf on the rear for a bottle and comes with heavy duty castors the only downside it didnt come with any wire so now ive got to order some either gasless wire or some wire and a gas bottle and now i dont know what to go for to weld my chassis up

[HandyAndy]

as you,ve got the option then go for GAS welding,

andy

[andyuk697]

gas welding does seem to be they way to go i like the easier to weld part as you can see the weld pool lol
any clue on cost of gasless and gas welding ie gas, wire, bottle, regulator type of gas type and thickness of wire etc

cheers Andy

[HandyAndy]

i pay £7 for a large(3ft ) tall bottle of co2, the reg cost me £44, .6mm gas wire is approx £20 for a large reel.

tell you what, if you are happy to collect then i have a spare large gas bottle that you can "borrow" for long term

cheers
andy