Miller Or Lincoln Mig For Thin Sheet Metal

Tig welding sheet metal.

Miller or lincoln mig for thin sheet metal.

If you are using mig it s best to weld vertically down. Best pulse mig for thin sheet metal. The hobart handler 140 mig is the best affordable mig welder for sheet metal. Once you have the the welder set then the trick is to keep a steady a arc.

When welding sheet metal you re going to want to tack your joints every 1 5 to 2 inches. That will keep your joint from spreading on you while welding. To weld sheet metal with solid wires use electrode positive ep or reverse polarity. Forget the larger 1 8 inch tungsten electrode and use a smaller one.

I would just pick up a good 110v unit from lincoln or miller with your 220v for the bigger stuff it should be all youll need and your only looking around 500 for a brand new machine. This article is more a general guideline to help the novice welder understand how the various settings will affect your results. Keep the stick out short stickout of your mig wire is important when welding any type of metal but especially sheet metal. For thinner gauge sheet metal like 18 or 20 gauge we suggest 023 6mm wire in your mig welder.

Holding the tip too far from the surface will cause the wire to have to come out too far to touch the metal. While sheet metal is primarily a tig welding job there are times when it s handy to have an available mig welder to fuse sheet metal. Use a hammer to tap all the spots that aren t tacked together. The majority of the sheet metal welding i ve done was with a 90 amp 110 volt welder.

Don t attempt to weld thin materials like sheet metal with flux cored wires which put more heat into the base metal. It s one of the highest quality machines available and comes incredibly low priced.