How To Mig Weld: The Free Mig Welding Guide For How To Use A Mig Welder

By Author: ray san
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Find out how to mig weld, quick, fast and easy? I'd like to show you how to get started using a mig welding machine and laying down some weld beads. Mig welding is really easy to do once you mig welder is set up right and feeding smoothly.

Practice, practice, practice

Yes, unfortunately like anything else you have to practice. But hopefully with a few of my pointers you won't have to do as much practice to get up and running.

Which wire to use?

Now for the home user or DIY welder you are probably better off to use what is called gasless mig wire.

As the name suggests, you do not need to use any shielding gas with this wire. So if you are welding at home, it means you do not have to spend money on renting a gas bottle.

Gasless mig wire

Every welding wire has a classification. In this case the classification that you are looking for is E71T-GS. So when you go to buy your gasless mig welding wire make sure it has that code on the box. Be careful though, because there is another code which looks very similar to that.

Solid mig wire

You can if you wish use a solid mig ...
... wire, and the code for that would be ER70S-6. This is the welding industry standard wire for general fabrication welding processes. You will also need to use a shielding gas for this wire otherwise the weld just keeps crackling and popping and nothing happens.

Welding gas choice

There are a few choices of which welding gas you can use. You can use 100% CO2, you can use 25% CO2 +75% argon (which is a very common mix), or even 100% argon.

Basically the pros and cons are the more CO2 gas you have in the bottle the deeper the penetration of the weld will be. And CO2 is much cheaper than the mixed gases. The downside is that CO2 generates the most spatter.

25% CO2 +75% argon is a good all round gas. The higher argon percentage of gas really does make a difference to the weld bead appearance compared to straight CO2.

Basically the more argon you have, the cleaner and smoother the weld will be. Your welding gas supplier will have some kind of chart so that you can see which gas mixtures are available. They even have these fancy try mixed gases now which are one part carbon dioxide, one part argon and one part oxygen.

Earth Clamp

Your earth clamp and where you clamp it to must be clean and free of any rust, mud, oil, paint or grease. Try to keep it as close to where you are welding.

Feed rolls

If you are using a gasless mig wire you need to use knurled feed rollers. For solid wire you need to use vee grooved rollers, and for aluminum mig welding use u shaped feed rollers.

Contact tips

Contact tips come in a range of styles and sizes. Make sure you use the right size contact tip for the right size wire.

Welding shrouds and nozzles

Each manufacturer of welding equipment have their own variety of welding nozzles. Some nozzles are designed for high current applications and are much larger in size. Some nozzles are tapered so that you can get them into tight spaces. You can even get special welding nozzles for spot welding with your mig welding machine.

To find out more about how to mig weld you can visit this great website where there are pictures, videos and more detailed information about mig welding.

Next you need to find out more about how to mig weld and mig welding.