Also new to spool guns, and having the same problem. Obviously to much heat input for the part. If I dial down the wfs or volts I get bird poop, or a crowned bead, up and it melts the part 2/3 of the way through the bead run. Cant seem to get a nice bead (compared to steel mig) Was at a buddies toda...

I made 3 similar burners for my forge setup, but have them on separate lines, and a valve on each one. Used the same kind of brick, and made a forge on a platform that has 2 chambers, one is about 32" long, and about 4" x 5". I can insert the burners at 3 different points along it fro...

Does that machine have high frequency?

K, you have some information mixed up. On older machines, like mine, you swap leads at the machine terminals to change polarity. On your bobcat you dont do that. Always connect the work lead to the piece of metal you are welding. The post labeled electrode goes to your stinger if you are stick weldi...

Yea, from that view...looks pretty bad. My connectors look like pic 4. Wonder how they let them out like that.
Is the suitcase itself in good order?

Uh, they're right on the connector end. It's not a dinse type with a tang,it's tweco/lenco type. It is grooved at the end, with a flat cut out to key into the female socket, with a twist when it sockets in. Yea, the cut off looks a bit (a little bit) rough, but it should work fine if you have the sa...

Your ground cable stays the same, what connector do you use for your stick stinger? I believe the 12vs comes with a tweco 4 type connector, I use 2 type so I changed the plug out on my 8vs to that. I have various lengths of cables I put the connectors on each end on, and made short whips for the gro...

I know some will say "oh, you cant mix gasses accurately that way", but here's what I do. I have a 150 bottle of argon, and a 20 lb bottle of C02. Each has a flowmeter (both are 50 psi, in scfh). Then a valved "Y" on the argon line. One line from it goes to my tig setup, the othe...

I have an 8vs and have had good luck welding aluminum with it. My LWS guy has a few 12" rolls of .035, he let me spool some off onto a 8" roll to play with. When I got a hobart beta mig 200 that I "chopped" down, to use as a CV power supply for my miller legend it had the old 10'...

Not sure which one, but Jody has a vid explaining distortion in thin pieces. The gist of it was that slower welds have a wider heat affected zone, hotter, faster welds have a narrower heat affected zone. I think you need to crank it up a bit and go in hot and fast, dont dally around. Do short hot fa...

Another option would be to go to 80/20 gas mix and use spray transfer when you can (flat and horizontal only). I gather that mix will work for either spray or short circuit. I've looked into fcaw-g but man that wire is spendy compared to e70s6, and with .035 wire spooled up you can do either process...

Check your owners manual, see if you can wire it for 200/208 vac. Running a higher voltage (somewhat) wont cause as much problem as too low. Usually 10% either way is acceptable, so you "should" be good up to the 228 volt level. But even if it is an option, do some checking, dont base a de...

Put some heat to it and you might be surprised how soft steel gets when its red hot, and how easy it is to get it there, weather with a oxy torch, or throwing it in a wood fire for a few minutes. Both of my grandfathers in montana shod horses, and worked iron with little more than a fire made of cow...

The "door chart" on my 8vs only lists values for flux core and dual shield at over .045 wires, in Trimark triple7 wire, and Fabshield@ 21B. (???)... pretty useless for me, running it in cc off my miller aead, or off the hobart beta mig I got cheap to use as a power source. Guess I'm just s...

Slacken drive roller tension so you get no wire feed - pull the trigger with a volt meter ( set on DC with a range that will show accurate readings up to say 40volts ) between any hot part of the torch / wire feed & earth - simple's ! I think that only gives OCV - open circuit voltage. I've bee...

The problem with the "dimmer switch" is that you would be decreasing the current available and reducing the power as well as the speed. It would be like taking your foot off the gas pedal instead of gearing down climbing a hill under load in a truck.

If the welder was a 115 volt, and ya had a good 2500 watt inverter, 4 golf cart batteries and say 500 watts of solar, You could weld with it. Probably even keep up with small-moderate welding projects in the summer, including some grinder time.

Kinda late to this thread, but here's my 2 cents worth. A lot of the welding I've done I cant see squat after the hood goes down. just gotta take a look and go. When you need to turn on your bedlamp at night, you dont have to paw around, after a while your hand goes right to the switch, same with th...

I would suppose inert gasses like argon and helium readily mix, people have been doing the Y connection for them for a long time, as does jody in one vid. Even argon Co2. I dont think an exact ratio is that important, to make C25 at exactly a 25-75 percent ratio is so important, if doing non code wo...

Just Y them together. I use this setup all the time, works fine. Since the pressure from the regulators are so far below that of the tanks, I dont see how gas can back flow into a tank. I use a valved Y after my argon flowmeter that I can choose to send argon straight to my tig, or turn that off and...

A- What welding machine(s) do you have now?
B- How much can you afford to upgrade?

One point in favor of propane, if you run out of propane for yer BBQ, you got gas! Or vice versa.

School me if I'm wrong, it seemed to me, no actual numbers, that it took a lot more oxy for cutting with propane than acet when I was using it. Granted, propane is way cheaper than acet, but I got a drive to town, then hopefully my lws (Valley hitch and Muffler!) has the oxy bottle I need (he will g...

Tho I agree with dave that oxy/propane would fill 90% of shop needs, I think it would benefit you to start with oxy/acet. A bit hotter, and you can learn to weld with it, and have an easier time brazing. Even if there's a mig, tig, stick, and plasma box, no shop is complete without a basic oxy torch...

I'd say silver solder them with an OA torch, or braze and finish. You are a welder, all processes should be at your fingertips, oxy welding, brazing, or soldering should be choices you can make as well as welding.