Welding Tips and Tricks

I have done aluminum with a 220 unit with spool gun ...but at home I have a millermatic 110 I bought the argon alum wire and now liner for my stinger went to weld some holes that are starting in the floor of the horse trailer but I cant seam to get penetration ..it just seams to ball up and I can knock the weld out ....any thoughts on this ????...and I have good clean power I have a cord made to go from a 220 plug wired 110

MIG on a 110 unit is iffy above about 11 ga. on clean fresh material. The horse trailer likely has 1/4" floors, and the material will be a bit hard to clean good enough for a high-power unit to weld.

I doubt it's an alloy issue, as it's unlikely the trailer is made from something 4043 or 5356 won't weld (the two most common filler alloys). I think you just don't have enough power in that machine. Do you have an oxy/acetylene torch? Try seriously preheating the weld area, and see what effect that has. Hell, even a hand-help propane torch or propane weed-burner might do, to get the weld area up to 3-400 degrees.

Worth a shot, before you look for other options.

Steve S

I've done a fair bit of livestock trailer repairs & I doubt you will get a good weld on a floor that has been absorbing " waste products ! " for years - even if you had enough amps it's likely on the first pass so much will boil out the weld will be awefull - I agree that pre-heat is the way to go - do it several times & give the area a good scub with a stainless wire brush inbetween - then you may have to accept laying down some weld - no matter how bad it looks then grind most of it back to leave a clean base & layer more weld on top of that.
What diameter wire are you using ? ally conducts far more power than steel mig wire so drags more amps causing the voltage to drop - any given wire size has a minimum voltage that it runs well at & in the past I've tried to use wire that was too big because I had it in stock - it maybe a problem feeding wire small enough for your power souce but try the smallest wire you can find - ally does not like short circuit transfer. There are some very cheap import spool guns on Ebay - they won't handle more than about 150 amps & have a fairly low duty cycle - but they will feed 0.6mm wire OK - this could be the cheapest way out of not having sufficient power to run thicker wire. ( £59 free shipping in the UK )
Hope this helps & good luck with the project.

NCCowboy.

How are you cleaning the base metal with holes before welding on it?

Alexa

thanks yall...I am using .030 wire with a .035 tip I do know I can get a spool gun for around 220 bucks and I forgot about the preheating fact (duhhh) ...we acid washed the floor first and then I use windex and a stainless steel brush ..I use to do all the welding anf fab at a trailer sales and service but I used 220 eq. and never run into this but then never tried it with a 110

Just a quick thought.
I'm sure you checked - BUT! you do have the polarity right ? those little sets tend to have easy change over faciltiy for flux core wire - it's kinda easy to overlook when in a hurry.

noddybrian wrote:Just a quick thought.
I'm sure you checked - BUT! you do have the polarity right ? those little sets tend to have easy change over faciltiy for flux core wire - it's kinda easy to overlook when in a hurry.

I am not using flux core wire I am running with argon and I started with norm polarity and then reversed to see if it would help pull the weld in

Try pre-heating your aluminum. (Your base metal is drawing too much heat away from the weld zone.)
If you don't want to use a gas torch in the trailer, try resistance heating it with a DC electrical power source.

rednckcowboy wrote:I have done aluminum with a 220 unit with spool gun ...but at home I have a millermatic 110 I bought the argon alum wire and now liner for my stinger went to weld some holes that are starting in the floor of the horse trailer but I cant seam to get penetration ..it just seams to ball up and I can knock the weld out ....any thoughts on this ????...and I have good clean power I have a cord made to go from a 220 plug wired 110