[TheForge] Welding advice needed pronto

[Woolley]

Ralph,

It is possible that we used a mix, but I think not.  I may be wrong.  Alot
of times when you are welding in a crew working on a refinery shutdown or
the like they want you in the hole welding and leave changing out bottles
etc to the mechanics on the job.  I used what I know was strait Ar to clad
parts of boiler tubing and  pipe in trash to steam units but that would make
sense since it is just a layer on top, not meant to penetrate.  But I seem
to remember using strait Ar to Mig weld rings that were going to support new
tray levels on the inside of towers in oil refineries.  Like I said , I
could be wrong.  To be honest, we didn't do alot of Mig welding in the
field.  Whenever we did it was a PITA trying to move around these suitcase
units without destroying them.  I got the feeling that  most guys would
prefer to stick weld in the field.

Regards,
Bill Woolley

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ralph Sproul" <brhlbsmt at mcttelecom.com>
To: "Sponsored by ABANA" <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, February 25, 2005 7:34 AM
Subject: Re: [TheForge] Welding advice needed pronto


> "In field construction whenever we
> Mig welded carbon or stainless steel we always used strait argon."
>
> Regards,
> Bill Woolley
>
> Hi Bill, That's pretty much a direct contradiction from what I've found.
> You need CO2 to make wire bite into steel.  Argon alone will not weld
steel
> with any strength at all.
>
> I just went thru this two weeks ago when I put a 25 ton hitch on 10
wheeler
> and the gas company had mislabeled my bottle of gas.  The top label said
> 75/25 which is supposed to be an argon/C02 mix, and under that was a label
> that was argon helium.......that gas would weld, but it had absolutely no
> penetration and created this weird soot like material ahead of my welds
> (using dual shield - so the soot was from the flux core).   BUT, Long
story
> short is I had to air arc out all the welds and do them over........and
when
> I did there were pockets and voids in the weld and black soot deposits
under
> the weld.  I always use a C02 mix for steel.
>
> (I haven't tried straight argon on Stainless yet).  I might do so this
week
> when I get a chance.
>
> Ralph
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Woolley" <wjec at verizon.net>
> To: "Sponsored by ABANA" <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2005 9:25 PM
> Subject: Re: [TheForge] Welding advice needed pronto
>
>
> >
> > >
> > >     With TIG I use straight argon all the time with great results, but
> on
> > > Mig I find it a bit different.  With the CO2 you get more penetration
so
> > the
> > > bead is lower - but I get a lot of distortion.  Does straight argon
> allow
> > > more of a layover bead at lower temps and less distortion?  This is a
> good
> > > question I don't know the answer to, if you've got any input I'd like
to
> > > hear it before trial and error time starts in the shop.
> > >
> >
> > I don't have enough experience with Mig to give you any real insight.  I
> > went with a mix cause that is what was recommended when I bought my Mig
> > machine.  After paying what was alot more than I had been paying for
argon
> I
> > asked  some other weldors what they were using and they all said argon,
so
> I
> > never bought another bottle of the mix.  In field construction whenever
we
> > Mig welded carbon or stainless steel we always used strait argon.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Bill Woolley
> >
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