Sunday, January 3, 2010

Mig Welding, The Most Common Welding Process

By Peter Smith

Mig welding, also called wire feed welding, costs less and takes less time than other techniques of welding.

Automated robots are used in manufacturing facilities to perform repetitive mig welding tasks. They are used to manufacture cars, trucks, boats and a whole other range of miscellaneous items. Because it is faster than tig or stick it makes it an ideal candidate for automation.

The fancy name for this is called Gas Metal Arc Welding or GMAW for short.

It is defined as a continuous feed of electrically charged wire into the welding arc. This constant feed of wire allows the electrical connection to heat the metal and create beads of melted wire, which turn into welds when cooled.

Here are some reasons why it is a preferred process to use:

1. Any turkey can learn how to mig weld.

2. Because it is always continuously feeding in the electrode it completes the job faster.

3. Cheaper to operate.

4. To increase productivity and throughput semi automated or fully automated devices can be fitted.

5. A shielding gas can be used in the process to create smoothly finished welds.

If you use a shielding gas you'll use what is called a solid wire, and if you don't need to use a shielding gas you'll use what is called a gasless wire. But if you compare the two welding wires the solid welding wire with the shielding gas will have a much better weld bead appearance.

Mild steel, stainless and aluminum are all easily welded using the mig welding process.

You can find a variety of machines that range in price, capabilities and size. In order for you to select the appropriate welder for your particular needs, the maximum thickness of the metal you will be working with must be determined.

I always like to say to people to buy a machine which is slightly more powerful than what they think are going to need to use right now. This way it sort of future proofs them for later on down the track when they need to tackle larger projects. I know it always happens to me, I go and buy something and then a few months later I say to myself gee I should have bought the bigger or better version.

So now that we have the power source unit selected you're going to need to stock up on some basic consumables. Your consumables are things that are consumed over time thus the name consumables. You're going to need to keep a small supply of items such as spare contact tips or contact tubes as they are called in the UK. Making sure that you use the correct size tip for the correct sized wire. Also you're going to have to have some spare nozzles or shrouds, insulators, tip holders, gas diffusers and possibly a liner.

It is possible to mig weld stainless steel, aluminum, mild steel, high tensile steel and all other sorts of metals. But the most common welded materials are mild steel, stainless steel and aluminium as using the mig welding process makes it very easy.

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