welders need advise

marty79

marty79

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 24, 2013
Location
Newton, NC
It's about that time to get Aluminum setup for my welder, tired of turning away aluminum work lol.
My welder is Lincoln 350MP
Looks like it has a Spool Gun $1400ish
also the "kickbutt?!?!" Push-Pull Gun $2800ish
What do I do? I'm not savvy at all with all the digital settings on this welder and terms and such...I've actually never even messed with anything on it lol. I have set it on one Mig setting years ago and never touched it again haha, it welds amazing with Mig and that's all I've needed it to do.
I've been reading up that the Push-Pull Gun is designed specifically for this machine and it's "digital" adjustments and such but on some forums, I read it gets complex with not only setting it up but also getting the correct parameters set in order to efficiently get the right use out of the $3000 gun for it and this is what scares me I guess.
I guess looking for advise of why go with Push-Pull vs Spool Gun!
(I like the idea of Spool Gun for not having to change wires on the machine since the Spool gun has it's own wire and would make it easy and convenient to weld both Mig and Aluminum while only switching the gas bottle)

***I'm not opposed to buying a separate welder just for Aluminum either if there is a good option. I do have a Hobart 140 brand new, been used once lol, should I get a Spool GUn for that???
Thanks a bunch
 
For what it's worth, I used a Spool Gun for the first time months ago when I welded my cover plate on my Doubler Case and I picked it up like butter...guy thought I was lying when I said I've never welded aluminum cause to me it was no different than stacking dimes on Mig so I didn't mind the Spool Gun at all as far as how people say it's hard to weld with it...
 
I'm not familiar with that exact machine, but I do love MIG welding aluminum. We do a lot of it so for us it's a great return investment. They tend to be a challenge to get dialed in. Parts are somewhat pricey, and as you know, they require Argon. Ours is a Miller 350P. We run 4043 .035 mostly.
Unless you're doing massive Al projects on a weekly basis, unfortunately a MIG aluminum outfit may not be worth it.
I'll second what @Mac5005 said and recommended an AC TIG machine. Way more versatility.
 
Mac5005 said:
tig machine
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mine is a Tig Machine too lol but the heck with Tig welding, you know me, I don't have the patience for Tig welding haha (it's hard to slow down Mig when I have to).

Would a Spool Gun for the Hobart 140amp I have totally suck?
 
marty79 said:
Would a Spool Gun for the Hobart 140amp I have totally suck?
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DO NOT buy the hobart spool gun. First off the 140 doesn't have the ass for aluminum welding. Second off the hobart spool gun is terrible. Like really terrible. It took lots of tweak's out of the box to get mine working right. Probably the worst designed spool gun I've seen.
 
NCJeeplover said:
DO NOT buy the hobart spool gun. First off the 140 doesn't have the ass for aluminum welding. Second off the hobart spool gun is terrible. Like really terrible. It took lots of tweak's out of the box to get mine working right. Probably the worst designed spool gun I've seen.
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Thanks for that.
Tonight I'll shop around for new welder with spool gun I guess
 
marty79 said:
mine is a Tig Machine too lol but the heck with Tig welding, you know me, I don't have the patience for Tig welding haha (it's hard to slow down Mig when I have to).

Would a Spool Gun for the Hobart 140amp I have totally suck?
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Tig welding aluminum isn’t very slow. If it is, you’re probably doing it wrong. No comparison between a proper TIG alum joint, and a mig alum joint. The spool gun will always have cold starts and hot ends, and is terrible to do clean or delicate work on the thinner stuff.

Yes the spool gun is faster on 1/8” and thicker stuff where you can feather overlapping ends to ensure full pen stuff, but it will never be as clean, and requires a lot of time to set it up and fine tune the settings which results in a lot of scrap before much progress can be made.

The big question is, will your tig machine do high frequency AC tig?

Second, does it have any advanced wave features to control the wave form for AC welding? This is a game changer, to be able to fine tune the arc based on the welds you are making.
 
I agree with what mac is saying, as well as to say screw migging anything less than .125" al and they are really hard to get set up right for nice welds. Unless you're building aluminum skirted flatbeds or trailers or doing some sort of thick production welding, you'd be a lot better served spending that money on a decent AC tig/torch cooler.
 
Mac5005 said:
Tig welding aluminum isn’t very slow. If it is, you’re probably doing it wrong. No comparison between a proper TIG alum joint, and a mig alum joint. The spool gun will always have cold starts and hot ends, and is terrible to do clean or delicate work on the thinner stuff.

Yes the spool gun is faster on 1/8” and thicker stuff where you can feather overlapping ends to ensure full pen stuff, but it will never be as clean, and requires a lot of time to set it up and fine tune the settings which results in a lot of scrap before much progress can be made.

The big question is, will your tig machine do high frequency AC tig?

Second, does it have any advanced wave features to control the wave form for AC welding? This is a game changer, to be able to fine tune the arc based on the welds you are making.
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well I've only heard and been told this Lincoln 350 is pretty awesome machine that is designed to do it all but I don't know...it's too much machine for me that much I do know haha.
As for welding aluminum, I just want to be able to weld onto trailers and down the road make aluminum half doors and such so that's the primary reason. As for the annoyance of the Spool gun, I can't complain since the first time I ever welded with one was on my T-case cover plate which (for me) was pretty easy and that's with it being porous and dirty....but it was easy, fast and got the job done and that's about all I care to do for now. I get a lot of trailer repair that have diamond plate aluminum or boat trailers that would be nice to not turn away when I can tell it's a simple weld job.
I don't care to TIG mainly because the few people I've watched TIG weld, it was slow, tedious and meticulous and I don't care for it...at least not right now, I got too much on my plate for anymore big learning curves haha. I really just need something to plug in and weld. Don't get me wrong, I think TIG welding is coolest thing I've ever seen with it's fancy colors and control and stuff but I just don't have the time to learn something big like that...and mind you I can't possibly see Tig welding underneath a trailer??? Upside down??? highly doubt it.
 
braxton357 said:
Unless you're building aluminum skirted flatbeds or trailers or doing some sort of thick
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that's about all I turn away lol, including that big 34ft aluminum horse trailer I rebuilt the steel frame for. That was a nice job, payed good but had to send him to someone else for the aluminum welds it had broken throughout the diamond plate floor here and there...which EVERYONE else is stupid far behind so that kinda pissed me off so now I'm ready to get at it myself.
 
marty79 said:
well I've only heard and been told this Lincoln 350 is pretty awesome machine that is designed to do it all but I don't know...it's too much machine for me that much I do know haha.
As for welding aluminum, I just want to be able to weld onto trailers and down the road make aluminum half doors and such so that's the primary reason. As for the annoyance of the Spool gun, I can't complain since the first time I ever welded with one was on my T-case cover plate which (for me) was pretty easy and that's with it being porous and dirty....but it was easy, fast and got the job done and that's about all I care to do for now. I get a lot of trailer repair that have diamond plate aluminum or boat trailers that would be nice to not turn away when I can tell it's a simple weld job.
I don't care to TIG mainly because the few people I've watched TIG weld, it was slow, tedious and meticulous and I don't care for it...at least not right now, I got too much on my plate for anymore big learning curves haha. I really just need something to plug in and weld. Don't get me wrong, I think TIG welding is coolest thing I've ever seen with it's fancy colors and control and stuff but I just don't have the time to learn something big like that...and mind you I can't possibly see Tig welding underneath a trailer??? Upside down??? highly doubt it.
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Your ignorance of tig welding is keeping you away from the better solution.

Ie: overhead spool gun work under a trailer is asking to get showered in molten aluminum, vs tig is less affected by gravity’s effect bc the welder controls the size of the puddle directly, and the amount of filler metal directly.

Overhead and even horizontal ( not flat ) spool gun work is hateful to do, and notably more difficult to achieve good results vs tig.

Out of position tig work is essentially the same as flat position, but your body is in a different position. Your position relative to the weld is always the same. Torch, filler, pedal, all the same no matter the position.

You shouldn’t have and colors on tig aluminum other than white haze around the weld showing where the oxidation has been removed.

My point: you asked for advice, we are trying to give it.

You are defending your conviction with your ignorance on the topic.

From my perspective, it looks like you only wanted advice that would reinforce your decision that you’ve already made, and not actual advice on the subject.


The other consideration of a push pull gun vs a spool gun is the size of roll of wire you can use vs having to frequently change the 1lb spool of wire in a spool gun. Both will go thru electrode tips 10x fast as mig steel.

Also, to get any kind of cleaning action while mig welding aluminum, you have to push the puddle, not drag like with short circuit mig steel. This inherently decreases penetration.

Then it’s a technique battle during the weld of Enough push angle to adequately pop the oxidation free to get adequate penetration and cleaning, vs little enough push angle to keep some of the arc pointed at the leading edge of the puddle to keep penetration high.
 
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Mac5005 said:
Your ignorance of tig welding is keeping you away from the better solution.

Ie: overhead spool gun work under a trailer is asking to get showered in molten aluminum, vs tig is less affected by gravity’s effect bc the welder controls the size of the puddle directly, and the amount of filler metal directly.

Overhead and even horizontal ( not flat ) spool gun work is hateful to do, and notably more difficult to achieve good results vs tig.

Out of position tig work is essentially the same as flat position, but your body is in a different position. Your position relative to the weld is always the same. Torch, filler, pedal, all the same no matter the position.

You shouldn’t have and colors on tig aluminum other than white haze around the weld showing where the oxidation has been removed.

My point: you asked for advice, we are trying to give it.

You are defending your conviction with your ignorance on the topic.

From my perspective, it looks like you only wanted advice that would reinforce your decision that you’ve already made, and not actual advice on the subject.
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you are totally right, I've been assuming a lot of stuff about Tig just from what I've seen but am very ignorant on the actual usability of it...and you have now taught me more than ever about it and have given me the motivation now to get setup for it, I apologize for my ignorance and seemingly argumentative wrongful perspective.
I was unaware of the Spool gun welding difficulties either of upside down/sideways and such!!
Having all this said, you wouldn't happen to know anything about my Llincoln 350MP specs as far as would it make a descent "starter" setup for Tig? Me looking at the "specifications for Tig" wouldn't help since I have no clue as to what I'm looking at. Thanks a bunch (never know, I might turn out to be descent at it and like it)
 
That machine if I’m understanding your model correctly is a power mig 350. I’ve used those for over 10 years now.

The are dc only. So you absolutely can use it for spool gun use to mig alum, and for tig welding steel and stainless. However it will not tig aluminum very well without ac output.

For what you are describing as far as usage,
You need an ac machine with high frequency, with a water cooled torch.

Better would be a machine with advance wave features comparable to an everlast 255 ext or better.

Plenty of videos showing about the advanced features and capabilities of an inverter machine for ac welding vs a transformer machine.

Comparing inverter machine vs transformer machine for aluminum ac welding is absolutely not apples to apples.
 
marty79 said:
well I've only heard and been told this Lincoln 350 is pretty awesome machine that is designed to do it all but I don't know...it's too much machine for me that much I do know haha.
As for welding aluminum, I just want to be able to weld onto trailers and down the road make aluminum half doors and such so that's the primary reason. As for the annoyance of the Spool gun, I can't complain since the first time I ever welded with one was on my T-case cover plate which (for me) was pretty easy and that's with it being porous and dirty....but it was easy, fast and got the job done and that's about all I care to do for now. I get a lot of trailer repair that have diamond plate aluminum or boat trailers that would be nice to not turn away when I can tell it's a simple weld job.
I don't care to TIG mainly because the few people I've watched TIG weld, it was slow, tedious and meticulous and I don't care for it...at least not right now, I got too much on my plate for anymore big learning curves haha. I really just need something to plug in and weld. Don't get me wrong, I think TIG welding is coolest thing I've ever seen with it's fancy colors and control and stuff but I just don't have the time to learn something big like that...and mind you I can't possibly see Tig welding underneath a trailer??? Upside down??? highly doubt it.
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Have literally done this fixing pontoons, upside down with spoolgun and with tig--it's night and day better with a watercooled tig torch. From what you're saying though, buy an argon bottle and a spool gun and see how much you end up using it, push pull guns are nice but are for production welding and can still have wire feeding issues.
 
Sorry Super busy I'll read response tonight
 
Mac5005 said:
That machine if I’m understanding your model correctly is a power mig 350. I’ve used those for over 10
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Seems right..
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Mac5005 said:
. However it will not tig aluminum very well without ac output.
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Well that's disappointing for $8k machine lol. Oh well, it has its other strengths I reckon. Thanks for the
 
Whew... $8600 for a good pulse etc etc Water cooled Torch Tig setup....hmm idk, might have to keep pushing this off and weigh my options if I think the cost of that machine will really pay off or not, that's a huge investment considering I'm still gonna be paying on my CNC table for awhile lol
 
braxton357 said:
buy an argon bottle and a spool gun and see how much you end up using it,
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I think this will be what I do so i can at the minimum just do simple aluminum stuff, maybe not crawling under a trailer in some crazy position like I would Mig but some of the normal stuff I might benefit from. At least this will only run about $1400 for a Spool gun vs almost 9k
 
marty79 said:
Whew... $8600 for a good pulse etc etc Water cooled Torch Tig setup....hmm idk, might have to keep pushing this off and weigh my options if I think the cost of that machine will really pay off or not, that's a huge investment considering I'm still gonna be paying on my CNC table for awhile lol
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Look up the AHP 201xd, less than $800 and perfect for a first time tig machine. Pretty sure they just came out with a water cooler as well.
 
Chris_Keziah said:
Look up the AHP 201xd, less than $800 and perfect for a first time tig machine. Pretty sure they just came out with a water cooler as well.
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How's that thing working? I know it's a nice machine. Fwiw, I picked up the Primeweld Tig 225 and it's basically a comparable machine to what Keziah has with his AHP. It's worked well for me so far. They offer a water cooler too. I would jump on either one of those for a first machine in a heartbeat.
 
justjeepin86 said:
How's that thing working? I know it's a nice machine. Fwiw, I picked up the Primeweld Tig 225 and it's basically a comparable machine to what Keziah has with his AHP. It's worked well for me so far. They offer a water cooler too. I would jump on either one of those for a first machine in a heartbeat.
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So far so good, going to be looking into a water cooler soon. Granted it's my first TIG machine so I have nothing to compare it to.
 
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