My mig welds look like a collection of splatter. High amperage yields popcorn size globules. Low amperage yields tiny littly spatter balls. I have a couple of burn throughs. I'm a rookie mig welder and am committed to learning it. Education is expensive.

Material: steel trunk pan in an old firebird-lap joint

Machine: New Lincoln pro-mig 135
Gas: CO2 Argon mix
Wire: Lincoln L56 .035

I've ground to bright metal but I just can't seem to get a good bead. Anyone run into this before? I'm a rookie with Mig and I'm satisfied the problem is me, not the machine. It feeds wire well. It has good gas flow and a clean tip.

 

sandfeet53,

A couple of things to check.

1. The most important thing that I think you should change is your wire size.
The proper wire to use would be .023 for thin guage autobody work, maybe .030 but for sure you would have burn through problems with .035 because you will have to turn the heat up higher to melt that wire.

2. Start your initial settings for the gas, wire type and material thickness according to your manual. Practice a bit with those settings and change them slightly to fine tune it.

3.Make sure you have the polarity set correctly for solid core wire.

4. Make sure you are doing your welding indoors. The gas will blow away if there is even the faintest of breeze. Turn the flow rate up a bit if outdoors and try to shield the weld.

5. Make sure your ground connection to the vehicle is good.

5. Read the manual. I'm sure Lincoln has some tips on proper technique.

 

Greg hit most of it on the head, remember, with Mig the power or heat control is the wire feed, the voltage is essentially the arc intensity. For light sheet turn the wire speed down and the voltage up intil you have a nice crisp arc.

 

Thanks Greg and sberry. I got better. You were a help. Here's what I learned:

1. Get it very, very clean. After grinding, I blew dust off with compressed air and then wiped it down with alchohol (it was available. It makes the day go faster-seriously, I used isopropyl).
2. Early on I had a couple of burn throughs. I read that rookie welders may try too go to fast. I started managing my travel speed better and slowing down and was able to watch the puddle a little better. This resulted in better adhesion and less splattering.
3. I fiddled with the amperage, gas pressure and wire feed speed while practicing on some scrap. 15 scfm gas, 'B' on amperage (Lincoln pro-mig 135), and '3' on wire feed seem to work best.

I bought some .025 wire and will change to it when I go back out.
Thanks again.
Mike

 

Sounds like you've almost got it- I've got a little 135 as well. For what you're doing I'd use the same settings with the exception of .035 flux core rather than solid + gas as that's the size wire I have and gas is expensive- I only turn it on when I'm trying to do aluminum.
I've found I suck at aluminum, at least so far.

 

Stand Tall campers... I just searched google for "pro mig 135 accessories" and this thread was the first hit.
Suprise huh?

I myself have been having a few problems with aluminium... Lotsa bb's and no penetration, one thinks I need alot more practice and fiddilin' before I do any "mission critical" work.

 

The most challenging aspect of welding aluminum is that it dissipates heat a lot faster than most metals, thus making it harder to concentrate heat on the weld joint. My experience is to weld at about half the speed at which you can weld mild steel. TIG welding is SO much easier than MIG on aluminum.