welders?

[Ronnie]

Originally Posted by Old Ford Addict

There’s no need to buy a new Tig machine for welding sheet metal … I’ve been using my 300 dollar Ideal Arc at home for 15 years … there’s just no moving it around.
I have a high dollar Miller Dynasty at work and can see no advantage when it comes to welding sheet metal.

Mig’s
Use small - soft wire
Use consecutive tacks
Back any gaps with copper - brass - or even aluminum

When you blow threw
Quick pulls on the trigger you can deposit a drop on one side then the other to get a new start.

I have a dynasty 200 dx

They have a tremendous amount of settings pulse being one that are beneficial to low amperage welding and spot welding of thin sheet metal much thinner than on the average car.The disadvantage to the dynasty is the cost.A little steep for a toy in the shop.I am presuming you have your dial arc set up for scratch dc tig. That is very doable to an accomplished weldor under the correct settings just takes a little patience and knowledge.Good results have been gotten that way for years.

R

[Old Ford Addict]

Your correct im sure because in all honesty im not totally up to speed on the Dynasty they got me at work.
Most things I weld up at work are heavy plate and 6” and up pipe….w stick and mig.
The TIG gets used more for peoples personal projects ... mostly aluminum but the little I have used it on light gage steel and stainless it behaves very similar to what iv got at my home shop.

[DocJohn]

Originally Posted by Ronnie

Tig is an alternative.There will be no tradeoffs.The tig won't be cheap.You will need a machine that starts at 1 amp and goes up.The average entry level machine won't go low enough to give you a nice weld that requires little grinding.You will have blow through with a tig as well without lower amperage.Especially on the edge of a butt weld.You will need a foot pedal a good torch and more just to get you started.There will be a steep learning curve you will require to get in the groove to weld tin on a car. Yes tig is a well kept secret but you won't sit down and get picture perfect welds without a bunch of seat time.You are going to get posts that it will be a cake walk.Not in the beginning.Trying to control the haz and weld appearance will be a tougher task.I have been tig welding for 30+ years and yes you can accomplish it as a reliable process.My suggestion would be sort out your problems with your welder.The number of body shops that actually use tig in their daily routine will be few and far between as mig owns that process in body work.Ask some questions here about how other accomplished mig guy's achieve reliable results and I believe you can have all kinds of good results with mig as a repair in body work.Give some info as to your voltages and wire speed and size,gas .All of this needs to be known to troubleshoot your dilemma.Don't write off mig as it is known to have desired results with the correct parameters.I hope this helps before you condemn mig and jump into the fun world of tig.

Ronnie

Ronnie's absolutely right. I use my Lincoln V205-T tig for fabricating with new clean steel or aluminum and my ESAB Caddy C160i mig for bodywork repairs. The ESAB is brilliant as you can wind it right down and fill in the tiny pinholes that you get when you dip old panels without having to let in new metal. It's also unusual in that it is optimised for 0.8mm wire and so you set the plate thickness, down to 0.5mm, and trim it with a heat adjustment control.

[russcc]

Lots of good tips for welding sheet metal with a MIG welder. They say that 75% of welding problems are the ability to see what you are doing. Good tip about the .023 soft wire, and the pressure. My Lincoln 140 recommends Argon/CO at 25-40#s. I have good luck welding sheet metal with .023. Back it up, especially filling holes with copper plate. The tip on the soft wire is a good one, thank you Fordbarners.