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[Pete Ashby]

Originally Posted by gordon

I agree about the wire feed. I've been having a hard time with the repairs to my Dodge panel van, spending more time persuading the Mig to work than welding with it.
Gordon

I transformed my old Clark machine by fitting a metal liner to the wire feed, never looked back feeds as smooth as can be. Here in the UK Machine Mart sell them for just a few pounds easy to fit and would recommend it.

The other little trick is to use two old cloths pegs and clip a wad of wire wool onto the wire and a small wad of rag after it just before the feed rollers, it cleans the wire up a treat. Also in colder wetter climes its a good idea to take the roll off and keep it in the airing cupboard in between jobs.

Pete

[Phil Waterman]

Peter- You are spot on with one of the major problems with wire feed that are not used all the time, rust on the wire.

The wire wipe idea is a real good one. The rust on the wire will ruin the wire tube as it accelerates wear cause uneven or jumpy feed, wears the tips etc. I remove my wire spools when not welding and store them in a good tight container with desiccant bags. Learn this hard way when I had to throw out a large spool of wire that had gotten rusty.

The other little kooky thing is if you use your mig to weld aluminum you have to have a separate wire liner (generally plastic I think) to use with the aluminum wire or else you get cross contamination and a lot of sputter and nasty looking welds.

Thanks for the reminder as I will remember now to include that in tomorrows class.

Cheers Phil