Welding 1/4" steel- Mig or stick?

[greenmule]

Hounds I guess can get inbred to extreme to,but,never seen a hound[other than probably heath problems] get like these akc dogs.
People breeding hounds breed them for their ablities,and getting along with their hunting pardners is one of those,and not being stupid is another.

These people who breed akc dogs,golden retrievers,collies,etc,bred them for their looks and build,big difference.They could care less about the personality of the dog,[or the health].

 

[nunyabinis]

Any of you guys have any tips or suggestions on using the new MillerMatic 252 I picked up this afternoon?

 

[2manyrocks]

Any of you guys have any tips or suggestions on using the new MillerMatic 252 I picked up this afternoon?

Maybe somebody has some specific tips, but I'd just say take care of your leads and don't get them kinked, run over in the shop or anything like that and you'll get longer service life.

 

[johnk]

Plug it in.... Put on your gloves and helmet and go to it...... Post some pics ....

 

[greenmule]

Not fimilar with that machine[or any of the new ones],but they are about all the same,wire speed is your amps,voltage setting is the dial where you turn it up/down,gotta match voltage setting to wire speed,and visa versa,the old ones didn't have ipm.
you can set that combination up to work at different volts/amps/ipm.

Used to weld pipe all postions at about 120 amps/19 volts/.035 wire,co2 shielding,at about 25 cfh.

But,if you don't know nothing about using a mig,its going to be pretty hard setting it up[course you might have one of those videos??]

 

[nunyabinis]

But,if you don't know nothing about using a mig,its going to be pretty hard setting it up[course you might have one of those videos??]

I didn't say I've never welded with a wire welder. I just said I didn't know the "right" way to do it.


I've burned my share of wire. I started many moons ago with a 120volt Lincoln 135 MIG then sold it and bought a 230volt Lincoln 175 MIG. The difference was like night and day. I've tackled projects that the 175 just wasn't big enough for but made it work anyway.

I recently purchased the raw materials to build a Road Grader. All the metal is 1/4 inch thick. I decided to take the Nestea Plunge and get a welder that'll handle just about anything I throw at it..... hence the MillerMatic 252.


Buying the welder from National Welder was a freakin' fiasco. I'll tell you guys about it some day. Suffice it to say that no more than I know about welding I knew WAY more about the 252 and Self-shielding flux core wire welding than the guys at National Welder did. It was a disgrace.




.

 

[RobJ]

Understanding the 'how' and 'why' is almost as important as practice.

This is sort of the point I was making with me in my last post. I and many understand the how and why, but if you don't do it everyday then the dots won't connect.

I compare this to taping and floating drywall. I know exactly how to mix the mud, what trowel to use, what angle to hold it. But I suck at it!

 

[greenmule]

So you are running flux core not bare wire gas shielding? Thats a big thing if you asking for tips you know?

What specific questions you got?

gmaw stands for gas metal arc welding[mig for short]....fcaw stands for flux cored arc welding,[flux core for short].Same machine plus or minus a few parts,but different processes.

so,you gotta be more specific in your tips questions. [unless you just want to know about that model machine]??

 

[nunyabinis]

Put the MillerMatic 252 together this morning and burned my first wire.


Holy Bejesus!!! Now THAT'S a welder.


Butt welded a couple pieces of 1/8" just to get the feel. Makes a nice "buzz" with .035 Lincoln NR211-MP FCAW-S instead of the snap/crackle/pop of the Lincoln 175. Gonna take some practice with the infinite control settings though.



.

 

[greenmule]

Flux core is for heavy[thicker stuff] fab shop production,etc,you oughta put bare wire in it[you'll need different feeder drive rolls,plus a few other adjustments,] and get you some co2 or mix for it.You'll get the most out of your machine that way.

You have bare wire,you can tune it down and tune it up for thin and for thicker stuff. Does it let you store settings? Most of the top of the line models let you set it up and you store that info in a program,you can store many settings by just pressing a button you can go from sheet metal to 1/2 inch plate,down hill to up,etc.