MIG welding newbie - First attempt

[rich.]

get well soon arceyes daughter..

[jpsh120]

Almost every time the arc strikes the wire stops feeding

Mine was doing that the other week,I cleaned out the swan neck metal liner,it was clogged up with plastic shaving from the plastic liner.
I suspect jpsh120,that your mig is 2nd hand

Yes it is and not been used for some time either. I'm going to have a look at it shortly to see if I can find anything like you have suggested and then tomorrow I will get a new liner and some wire. The tip was replaced before I started using it but I have plenty of spares so I will put another new one on after changing the wire etc.

Out of interest, has anyone used the wire sold by screwfix? My wife works there and with discount a 5kg roll is around £10 which is quite a bit cheaper than anywhere else.

[rich.]

if you are using the machine a lot go with the 5 kg roll if not the small ones are ok as you will throw a lot away.... try & use .8 wire it feeds better

[tractorman]

All the best for arceye's daughter.

Just thought I'd cheer jpsg up a little:

I have been making some pins to hold a grille guard on the big tractor. Nothing clever, just a bit of 3/4" round, with a little taper at one end. The final job was to "weld" a washer on each (to stop the pins pulling through the holes).

So, as the garage was fairly full and I didn't want to move the car and little tractor, I decided to take the pins outside (no wind today and it would be a sheltered bit of the garden). The idea was to put a bit of brass on the join as the washers tend to disappear when at welding temperature. So I got the oxy kit from the shed (just beside where I was going to weld) and swapped the cutting head for the welding nozzle, set the pressures up etc and lit the acy. Then added oxy to get the right flame, moved the torch to the job and the flame went daft. Run out of oxy!

So, nothing for it - MIG. Spent ages looking for the new bottle of CO2 and eventually found it in the first place I had looked for it (after searching the rest of the shelves etc). Connected up and, because the regulator doesn't always go on properly, tested for gas at the torch. Mounted the bottle on the welder and thought I heard a hissing. Yep, the valve on the torch isn't shutting off (which explains why I shot through the last bottle of gas!). However, as I expected, as soon as I touched the end of the pin, the washers started to shrink rapidly. I managed to save enough to do the job, but I think I'll have to get some 1" (or bigger) bar and make some better pins later on!

I've been debating swapping the BOC cylinders for the Hobby-Weld ones. I hear they do acetylene as well as oxy but if they are the same size as the MIG ones, they may be a pain if I'm cutting anything. However, for the amount of MIG welding I do, the small cylinders are probably the cheap option! I'll discuss that with the agents - and ask about the Clarke MIG's torch - I seem to think it isn't an easy job to fit a euro-torch to them!

I always thought Father (a vicar) had religious reasons for not wanting me to work on Sundays - it may just have been because everything goes wrong when I do!

[Willy Eckerslyke]

if you are using the machine a lot go with the 5 kg roll if not the small ones are ok as you will throw a lot away.... try & use .8 wire it feeds better

For reasons I never could fathom, my SIP machine prefers .6 wire.
Whichever's chosen, make sure you have matching tips.

[megadethmaniac]

screwfix wire is not well regarded by the Mig Welding forum.

If you are not intending to do lots then it probably isn`t that much more to get small reels and miss out on scrapping several yards when it goes rusty. Either that or store it somewhere laking in moisture.

[jpsh120]

I went to see my local friendly welding suppliers again at lunchtime and after a few tricky questions - "does it have a euro torch?" (I guessed no and got it right) - I bought a new liner and some new wire. I opted to upsize to 0.8mm wire so also bought a few tips. Anyway, went to change the liner tonight and after reading the user manual felt quite confident. Actually trying to do the job however soon dampened my spirits, the simple instructions of "undo 3 screws to release the nozzle at the machine end (it doesn't) then remove the nozzle cover and pull the liner out" were obviously written by a comedian so if anyone can give guidance on how to actually do the job answers on a postcard please! In the meantime I will swap over to the thicker wire and see if that alone cures the problem.

[rich.]

as i recall there are a few screws that hold the feed rollers & tube etc to the machine. when you remove them the plastic clip should come away revealing the liner... i cant show you any pics my machine is at a mates house trying to be fixed...

[TerryG]

as i recall there are a few screws that hold the feed rollers & tube etc to the machine. when you remove them the plastic clip should come away revealing the liner... i cant show you any pics my machine is at a mates house trying to be fixed...

After you removed a few too many screws?

[jpsh120]

Revealing the liner at the machine end is the easy bit, releasing the torch end is where I got stuck!