[TheForge] welds on ironwork

[Cindy and James]

What size wire do you guys do most of your welds on your ironwork?  I 
mean things like staircases where you are welding balusters to bottom & 
top rails, scrolls to scrolls, etc. etc.

I have always used .035 w/ 92/8 mix gas and found it to be a good all 
purpose wire.  But for finer welds on high-end ironwork ("finer" being 
defined as joins that will be visible or touched by the client and have 
to be ground smooth) I find the .035 puts out a little too much metal.  
This may be compounded by my training years ago which was in structural 
welding and those concepts are completely different from artistic or 
ornamental work.

I have tried a few rolls of .030 in the past but only found it about 
like .035.

I tried .023 in my welder once and could not get it to feed.  It kept 
balling up after the rollers.  My main shop welder is a Lincoln 215.  I 
changed the liner for the .023 wire, perhaps I should just have left the 
.035 liner in place and only changed the tip for the .023.   The Lincoln 
has a 15' wire cable/stinger.

I have a TIG setup and use it a lot, but much of this welding is in 1/2" 
segments and NEVER is easy to get to once I get off the ground level.  
Many times I wind up holding the workpiece in place with one hand and 
sticking it with the other - that doesn't work well w/ TIG, esp. if 
there happens to be a very large gap to fill.  Also, as you know, much 
of this work is done out of position, usually on a ladder, and at least 
1/2 of all welding is overhead.

I seem to run in to this problem of too much metal on the piece that has 
to be removed all the time.  However, when I get finished it looks 
great, but the grinding/finishing is a real pain.  I'd like to simplify 
my life.

Any ideas?

James
Paris, TX