Thread: Mig welding tip cleaning..

HI montiee,
Personally I don't beleive it is really worth Cleaning Mig Contact Tips. As they are not that expensive. If You You wanted to try and Clean them You could try either of the following arby Jet Drills, Oxy Tip Cleaners, Pin Vice and Small General Purpose Drills. My Method of Welding with Gasless Wire is: I use a Knurled Wire Feed Roller and I remove the Mig Nozzle. The Idea of removing the Mig Nozzle was told to Me by the Local Boilermaker. As He said You are not using Gas so You don't need the Mig Nozzle. It also makes it easier to see what You are doing.
All The Best steran50 Stewart

I only use gassless wire.

Yeah have the Oxy tip cleaners handy. After cleaning contact tips for a while have found that they get to the point where it doesnt seem to be very effective. At that point I change the tip. Occasionally I might run a small drill bit thru.

As for taking the Mig Nozzle off well yeah I have done that before at times. Need to remember of couse that u can arc out against your work without it on. Done that too. Have a nozzle I have cut a bit off the end to help in tight spots.

Knurled Wire Feed Roller: well I personally run with smooth rollers. My reasoning is that the more damage (marks) one puts on the wire the more drag that is encountered inside the liner.

At the end of the day I guess we all seem to have our own methods and reasoning for them.

Thanks fellas. Next time I go out and order some more parts for welding I'll have to remember the oxy tip cleaners. Didn't know about these. Wish I had the mind to ask this question at the start of the week when I ordered in some new tips..

One thing that may help is i increase the wire feed a smidgin as the arc may be back burning up the wire to fuse in the bellmouth.

A couple of things are happening here gents. One is the tip is bell mouthing at the point that the wire exits the tip.

If ithe bell mouthed is not too deep put the tip in a vice ( with soft jaws)
and file a couple of mm off the end .Bingo your hole problem is fixed.

No before anyone asks a shorter length does not seem to affect performance

Other problem is the knurled drive can be adjusted too tight. This will be evidenced by the pile of of shavings under the drive .

You know where some of those shavings end up ,don't you ?

Yup ,in the liner and the tip which abrades it away -result tip problem.
For this reason its also a good idea to blow out the liner on a regular basis

Drive tension -at just right- is just being able to have the wire slip (in the rolls) while you try to grasp it in thumb and forefinger and stop it going through the rotating roll.

Again as with mig ,keep the cable as staright as possible to avoid friction build up as it travels through the liner.

Less friction means less chewing at the drive rolls!!

Hope this helps

Grahame