Thread: Gas Vs Gasless

The other day my gas bottle ran out, so I swapped in some gassless wire so I could finish the job. The most significant difference I noticed was that the gassless was far less tolerant of contaminants - ie. paint or other muck leading to porosity in the weld, whereas with CO2 gas I'd get a much cleaner-looking weld despite the same contaminants being there.

When I cleaned up the metal properly and ran the bead more carefully, I got quite decent results with gassless.

Originally Posted by Scott's

Probabaly opening a can of worms here which has probabaly been covered numerous times before. I have been trying gasless mig for some time with mixed results. A bit like my golf, some shots are really bad but now and then you get that good one. Is it easier to achieve a good weld using gas?

Yes it is, Gas is good, Gasless works but is a compromise most of the time and I don't enjoy welding with it and would rather stick weld than use flux cored wire actually.

My experience is yes, it is much easier using gas.
When I moved from gasless to gas, it was like day and night the difference in appearance (Still an amateur, so I have no idea as to the structural quality)

Sorry for stupid question, but it is sort of in line with this thread.
Can you use gasless wire with gas? My mig will use gas but I haven't tried it yet and am looking at the small disposable bottles for the small amount of work I do.
So I have gasless wire will I have to get different wire with the gas???
Thanks
Lyle.

you will want to get gas wire, otherwise you're pretty much just wasting the gas, and you will still get all the flux on the top of the weld.
wire for gas welding is solid wire, where fluxcore / gasless wire contains flux inside the wire, kind of like the coating on an arc electrode.

I hope thats helpful.
Cheers.

ta.

Originally Posted by Scott's

Probabaly opening a can of worms here which has probabaly been covered numerous times before. I have been trying gasless mig for some time with mixed results. A bit like my golf, some shots are really bad but now and then you get that good one. Is it easier to achieve a good weld using gas?

Gas is always better but I find many claims are biased against gasless wire by incorrect setup. Always run gasless wire electrode negative and always set the voltage to a level that leaves a yellow powder residue on the surface, a bit like sulfur looking stuff. If it is black then you are burning the flux away.

Cheers
Pete (Tokentools Welding)

I have an OXY/LPG set and one bottle rental is enough for me at todays prices so I have only used gasless since I bought my Mig about 2 years ago. I am quite happy with the results I am getting and now find I am using this for small quick jobs rather than the stick welder.

The flux I get is grey and hard to see on the steel. A quick run over after with the cup brush on the angle grinder and it is gone. I also don't know about the structural side. I have had a lot of issues with the feed and the liner which have been resolved now so maybe this gave me the practice to perfect the welds, but I prefer the mig for small jobs because it is easier to get a good weld.

Dean

Fluxcore core wire is intolerant of anything less than the correct voltage setting.
This means you will have to bugger around getting the voltage to within 1 or 2 volts.

I found this out by setting up a Cigweld 175I Stick/mig/tig unit for someone.

The wire from memory was around .8 or .9 and was tuned in to run well at 21 volts by the machine's digital read out. Move more than 1 volts away from that sweet spot and the deposit would degrade.This person paid nearly $90 for a 5Kg roll of wire.That sounds expensive to me, but hey I am out of touch with pricing.

You will likely be around that figure with same size wire ,but no guarantees here ,ok! Do the tuning

Fluxcore wire ( or gasless to the DIY fraternity) is good gear for industrial size machines but a bit of of an expensive joke on smaller sized wires.


Remember what Pete said about changing polarity around and also to pull not push the torch.

Before anyone asks, no it is not good for welding car panels. Leave one miniscule bit of the acidic flux in the panel metal and it will likely eat its way out sometime after your super paint job has been applied. That 's not saving money is it?

Grahame

I would have to dig out the invoice to get the exact price, but buying a 15 Kg roll of 0.9 gasless (now this was a good couple of years ago) worked out to be the equivalent of getting a free 5 Kg roll.

Back when I was using the shop mig more regularly the shop was buying 5 Kg,so I convinced the boss to buy the 15.

I only run a 5 in the portable inverter cause it wont take the bigger roll.

If we used them flat out in the shop, then I could con the boss into going the other way and run with gas.

Thanks Guys

These posts have answered questions about my POS 135 amp welder with only 4 volt settings and what seems like a 10 second duty cycle.
Now that i'm poor,I had to dehire the bottle and go to gasless which i have never been happy with,from what i've learnt here i will change the way i set up and maybe improve.

Thanks Again
Paul

Originally Posted by whitey56

Now that i'm poor,I had to dehire the bottle and go to gasless which i have never been happy with,from what i've learnt here i will change the way i set up and maybe improve.
Paul

Have you thought of going with the disposable bottles? A 950cc bottle will set you back around $40 from Bunnings, The regulators are about $35.

Originally Posted by Grahame Collins

This person paid nearly $90 for a 5Kg roll of wire.That sounds expensive to me, but hey I am out of touch with pricing.

By the time you burn two rolls of wire at this price, you can hire a full E of Superargon (Supagas - I have found to be the cheapest) and pay for a 25kg roll of solid wire. I worked this out early in the piece not long after scrimping up the money for my first welder - a Transmig 135. Yes, a little bit more expensive to start with but will work out cheaper in the long run. That's if you don't leave the valve on the bottle open overnight, which proves to be an expensive lesson. I learnt that early in the piece as well

Originally Posted by Gerbilsquasher

By the time you burn two rolls of wire at this price, you can hire a full E of Superargon (Supagas - I have found to be the cheapest) and pay for a 25kg roll of solid wire. I worked this out early in the piece not long after scrimping up the money for my first welder - a Transmig 135. Yes, a little bit more expensive to start with but will work out cheaper in the long run. That's if you don't leave the valve on the bottle open overnight, which proves to be an expensive lesson. I learnt that early in the piece as well

Unfortunately the maths is not quite that simple. I pay around $150 a year to rent my (Oxy) cylinder. Assuming this was a mig gas cylinder, I have still got the first 5kg roll of gassless wire on my welder. I have also used up a reduced sized starter roll < 1kg.

That amounts to less than $90 worth of flux wire over 2 years which does not cover the cost of a cylinder by a long way. One has to include the rate of use when calculating overall costs.

Have you thought of going with the disposable bottles? A 950cc bottle will set you back around $40 from Bunnings, The regulators are about $35.

If you add up how many 950cc cylinders will fit in an E size it is easy to see that at $40 a hit it very soon becomes a very expensive exercise to use disposable.

Dean