basically, clean area to be welded of paint, rust, grease, etc. spray on some antispatter and weld. some of the spatter depends on how well u have your temp and wire speed adjusted. spray does help, but doesnt cure everything. i prefer the spray.
Oh, that easy? The stuff in the tub mentioned something about applying it to the welding gun...I don't see how this would affect spatter. Am I looking at the wrong thing? The spray sounds easy enough. I will light the welder up this weekend and try it out, and test out the spray. Thanks for the help.
I got mine off of eBay, basicly the same welder, different color and name. I like it, been doing the repairs to my floorpans with it, works good spotwelding. Don't know how good it will be on outside body panels yet, I've got a couple of small holes to patch in the quarters. Should be ok, may have to do a bit more grinding to smooth the welds, but thats ok with me. One thing, throw the spool of wire that comes with it away and go to wal mart or somewhere and get the Campbell Hausfield wire or some other name brand for it. The spool of wire that came with mine was crap, kept breaking when you started to weld, was too brittle. Chinese made junk. Got a roll of the CH and have just about used it up, has only broke a couple of times.
Scott, That is the same welder I got off EBAY. I paid $35 plus $40 shipping. Mine was used though. Mine seems to work fine. If yours was new for that price, it seems like you got a good deal. I am hoping to use mine this weekend. I will let you know how it works!
Glad I am getting good feedback on this. Is the wire breaking before it enters the hose, or where? I bought 4 lbs of the Chicago Electric wire while I was there...I will be going back near a Harbor Freight today, and I will return it. It is the same numbers, etc as the stuff in the box with the welder, so I may as well put that $30 toward less headache name brand wire. So, do I just shoot some spray into the nozzle of the gun? It has the brass nozzle and then a chrome shield around it...I assume i just shoot a burst into the shielded area? Thanks for the feedback and warning on the wire. Probably saved me a bunch of cuss words later on.
Mine was breaking before it went into the hose. I don't know about the Chicago Elec brand, it may be better than mine was and it may not. I do know that I haven't had hardly any problems with the Campbell Hausfield wire, it has broke a time or two but not like the Chinese crap did. You couldn't even make a tack with it without it breaking.
I use the wire they sell at HF. No probs (other than the weld being 'dirty' through no fault of the wire - just inherent without gas IMO)
Feeds fine with th CH wire. The Chinese wire broke no matter what the tension on the feed wheel. Have to keep it tight or it won't feed at all....
Home depot wire is the Campbell Housefield. I have used it before with no problems. I took the 2 rolls of Chicago Electric (Harbor Freight brand) wire back, and actually bought the Home Depot replacements for cheaper! My welder says it can handle .030 and .035 wire (I haven't read the instructions yet, or assembled the welder, but I assume I just swap out the nozzle tip and adjust the wire-feed wheels to change the wire size...) What are the benefits of one size wire over the other? Is it harder to work with one or the other? Any extra stress on the sheet metal? Anything...?
Well, I fired it up briefly, just to verify that it works...IT WORKS!!! It SHOULD...it is BRAND NEW! Anyway, It seems to work as well as the Campbell Hausfield I rented from Home Depot for the shock towers. I am currently using the CH wire. Haven't tried the anti-spatter spray...they didn't have any at the store where I bought the wire. I will try it out next time I stop at Home Depot.
Currently, I am spraying it on the area to be welded, and it seems to make a difference. I will try to dip the tip and see what it does. Also, I bought some .035 wire, it is MUCH easier to work with. It lays a better bead and tends to work better with thinner metals. I guess it is a little cooler due to the extra metal involved absorbing the heat, or maybe just the extra metal going down dissipates the heat out...I don't know, but where I was burning through really thin scrap plate with the .030 (much thinner than our door skins and fenders, I was using scrap tin cans, etc, whatever I find in the garbage can) I can now fill in holes without much difficulty.
