Gasless Flux Core for Beginners #1 BIG Thing

I'm setting up a MIG welder in my brother-in-law's shop and we're putting some self-shielded flux core on it so I thought I'd bring you along we'll talk about the main thing that makes all the difference and then the second main thing that makes a whole lot of difference and then all the little things that also make a difference let's do it if your self-shielded flux core has been looking like this instead of like this there's a good chance that it's one thing so we're going to talk about that today but first we're going to set the machine up and talk about a few other things that can also make a pretty big difference I'm switching over here to a 10 pound spool it is nr211 made by Lincoln I'm Weldon Lincoln wire on a Hobart machine it's o35 diameter and it's been a long time since I used this machine I posted a video a few years ago using this machine doing a repair on a friend's garage doors and I might have even used this very wire I don't really remember but anyway take a look at the wire here it's old it's been sitting out it's really rusty I don't really want to weld with it like this so I'm going to strip several layers off of it and get it down to some clean looking wire before I even get started once I do that I'll snip the wire and hook it in that hole on the spool to make sure it doesn't unspool on me I'll put the retainer nut back on and then next thing I'm going to do is remove the contact tip so that I can strip the Old Wire and I don't want it to hang up on the contact tip and bird's nest on me by the way it's handy to have a nice set of MiG pliers if you're doing flux core or bare wire Mig they're made to not only clean out the nozzle and snip the wire but they they're made to grip the contact tip so once I get the contact tip loose and out of there I'm going to go back to the machine and I'm going to make sure I don't have a burr or a kink or anything in the wire I'm going to pull it through the liner but if it's got a good bend in it or a hook or crook or something like that it's going to make it tough to pull through so I'm going to snip it and make sure there's no no Bend or Burr on it I'm going to pull it through the end until I get all that out of the gun and then I'm going to go back and start the wire feeding up inside the liner but first let's take a quick look at Drive rollers and talk about those just for a minute remember that self-shielded flux core has got flux inside the wire so it's Hollow and if you use too much Drive roll pressure you're going to crush the wire so knurled the knurled groove is going to work better because you want to use lighter pressure and you want something to grip on that flux core wire without crushing it so carefully I'm going to get it started up in there a few inches without kinking the wire and then I'll put tension on The Wire very light tension that's another thing you want to really pay attention to how much tension you put on flux core wire because it is hollow so you don't want to use as much tension as you would use on hardwire so with the contact tip removed my brother-in-law Larry is going to hold the trigger until the wire comes out the end for a few inches and that's all you need right there contact tips are a consumable and it's good to have several extra ones on hand and they're sized for the wire that you're using this is o35 wire I need the o35 tip I'm going to slip that contact tip right over the wire and thread it on and I'm going to Snug it down with the Mig pliers again the Mig pliers have a little Notch that's just made for that size of the contact tip it's got a little grip teeth on it makes it real convenient for that and also snipping The Wire you don't necessarily need a nozzle when you're doing flux core wire I stopped and got this flux core nozzle you could use the regular Mig nozzle in fact it's pretty useful if you want to prop with the nozzle and do tack welds but for the sake of the video and just being able to see better I'm going to put the flux core nozzle it'll protect all that hardware and not get sparks on it and screw it up so that lets me see better and lets us film better there are several ways you can set the tension as I mentioned earlier you want less tension than you do on Hardware there is a little bit of a leeway a little fudge Factor you don't have to have it exactly right but you don't you don't want it tight enough that it crushes the wire you don't want it loose enough where it slips so what works for me is when I pull the trigger and then hold it with a glove hand I want to be able to stop that wire but I want to also have to pinch it kind of hard in order to stop it from from going without making the drive roller slip and I can just adjust it to where it does that and that usually works out pretty well every welder is going to be a little different this machine is called a 210 MVP that stands for multi-voltage plug so with the adapter I can either run 115 or 230 volt today we're going to be going 230 volt in the future I'll run some 115 volt videos okay here is the one thing that will make all the difference if you have it wrong it'll make your welds to look like this with all those BB's extra spatter just one simple change will make it a whole lot better and here it is on the inside of the panel of the wire feeder cabinet it even tells me here which polarity I need to be on dcen for flux cord wire now dual Shield runs on dcep but self-shielded needs dcen direct current electrode negative and it'll make a huge difference taking a quick look at this machine you can see that the negative output goes to the power block there where the Mig gun plugs in that's electrode negative we're good all the main manufacturers will have a MIG settings chart on the inside of the door and they're all pretty close to get you started so I'm going to select eighth inch materials what I'm going to be welding here I'm going to follow it down making sure to select the right wire diameter and all the other appropriate things and it tells me 4 and 35 well what the heck does that mean that doesn't tell me what voltage or what wire feed speed but I'm just going to trust it I'm going to set at 4 on the voltage which is a click setting not an infinite setting but that's fine and 35 on the wire feed speed and we're going to give that a go and see how it works another important thing for any wire fed process bare wire or flux core is a ground if you clamp the ground to somewhere that's got Mill scale on it or paint or grease or whatever and you intermittently lose your ground your wire feed speed doesn't care and you're going to think it's screwed up the second thing that makes most of the difference aside from the polarity is stick out I've seen people try to use a really really long stick out and sometimes you have to on really large diameter wires you have to run it out there a good inch or more but this is o35 wire it doesn't need that long of a stick out if I use a inch or two long stick out it's got a bend in the wire from the from the curvature it's going to wander around out there it's going to it's going to give me bad results this is probably the one beginner mistake that I have seen more often than the other is just using a really really long stick out like this foreign here I'm going to tighten it up quite a bit you can see already everything is way smoother way better a lot more controllable I've got about a 5 8 to 3 4 stick out on that weld okay let's talk a little bit about how to hold the gun gun angles push versus pull and things like that fortunately a lot of that is is kind of forgiving as long as you have the stick out about like that I checked the Lincoln spec sheet really quickly for this diameter in our 211 a half to 5 8 ctwd contact tip to work distance so we're going to be in in the ballpark right here this is this is the gun angle that I've found it works kind of good just kind of 45 in there into the into the root of the joint a slight drag keeping that stick out again to about 5 8 of an inch don't get carried away this way don't get carried away the other way there's forgiveness just don't get carried away with your angle you can push but you're going to get more spatter just don't get carried away with extreme angles unless of course you have to because something's in your way because there's exceptions to every rule but as a rule try to have your gun angle about like this as far as PPE goes make sure you're wearing gloves long sleeve welding shirt good quality helmet safety glasses and a fan even helps to blow the smoke away from your breathing Zone all right let's take a look at this I didn't change any settings all the bad welds that you saw earlier were done with the exact same settings except this is using the correct polarity here and of course somewhere close to the right stick out or ctwd they're not exactly the same I often refer to them as the same thing they can be the same thing but it's splitting hairs really just how much wire is sticking out there between your puddle and your contact tip is the stick out isn't it amazing what one little change can make I mean this just a change in polarity makes a somewhat decent looking weld let's chip that off and give it a wire brushing take a look at it settings listed on the chart that I used seemed good and hot I mean it seemed like it was really penetrating but taking a look at that crater and seeing how it was just really punching in there really makes me want to do some further testing on this wire and this machine which I will do in future videos now the reason that a machine can be on the wrong polarity is a machine like this will run bare wire with shielding gas as well as self shielded flux core and so somebody may have just had it set for Bare wire and you got to check so here's how to swap it I'm going to go ahead and put it on dcep this is how you go about swapping polarity on this machine takes about a couple of minutes and once again this is this is what you get when you weld on the wrong polarity using cell shielded an awful lot of machines are sold at yard sales people buy a machine a cheaper machine and they just think the machine's no good and they sell it and all it was was the polarity need to be switched over to dcen we covered a lot of stuff but here's a really quick review all right main thing the main thing make sure that polarity is right dcen make sure to use the right size Drive rollers for your wire and use the knurled groove set your tension lower than you would for Bare wire low enough that you can stop it with your fingers but you have to pinch it kind of hard make sure to have a really good ground whatever that takes start off using the recommended settings with the Mig chart on your machine and be careful to follow the right columns for the wire size and the wire type use the recommended stick out in this case it was about 5 8 of an inch and things should go a whole lot better for you stay tuned for some different thicknesses and some vertical uphill hey I'd appreciate it if you go check out my store at weldmonger.com high quality welding gear like TIG kits tungsten gloves new products being added regularly go check out the reviews appreciate your support

Channel: weldingtipsandtricks

Views: 503,245

Keywords: flux core, flux core welding, gasless welding, harbor freight welder, vulcan welder, vulcan 220 welder, how to weld, how to weld flux core, mig welding, how to mig weld, flux core welding tips, welding with flux core, welding flux core, welding for beginners, welding projects, welding, flux core welding for beginners, how to mig weld without gas

Id: vVSBzRXWt10

Length: 11min 35sec (695 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 21 2023