Flux Core Welding

 Get a mig and tig wire welder  its the bomb it cuts and welds without warping the metal.IF i could buy a new toy that would be the one  You dont need no stinki n flux!!!

I ain't a welder but I been told not to even think about trying to weld shet with the stick welder. Just burns holes through it unless you're wicked skilled. And all the wicked skilled welders know better than to stick weld on sheet.

oldyeler...what is a mig and tig wire welder ? How do they cut ? Just trying to learn here.

ME TOO!!!

Electric welders normally cannot "cut" metal....    A high power (200amp), stick welder can burn through thin cross sections, but its not pretty....   You can buy a plasma cutter for this, but that also requires a fair size air compressor....  

I do almost all (90%) my cutting with an abrasive disc, or some type of saw...   Much neater and less warpage....   

Well thanks for that, Leon but I'd like to hear it from oldyeler's mouth himself. I think he may have discovered something and he's been holding out on us for some time now. ....  :-)

Paint won't adhere well to flux, and depending on the type can also be corrosive. Just clean the weld afterwards and you should be fine for paint. Welds on visible bodywork generally get ground flush anyway prior to paint, removing all the flux in the process. Otherwise a wire brush (manual or on a grinder) or get an air-powered needle scaler to chip away the flux.

If you can get decent welds with a stick welder on sheet metal, you're a better man than I.

Miller and Snapon sell them With a mig /tig you can cut metal like a plasma cutter and weld the crack right back up with the same tool  it's a nice tool  not to hard to use. Biggest concern is setting  it correct for metal  gauge / thickness  so it peforms  well and doesnt warp the metal  it has a chart kind a like a mig to help you set the temp and wire speed for weld and a gas pressure setting for cut mode. My brother has one and i watched him use it in ENVY!!  It's not cheap  he wouldn't say how much but  he was very protective of it.. technialy its  just a monified Teg welder with a high temp setting to cut sheet metal  You would still need a plasma cutter for 1/4 or 3/8 metals  he has one of those too..  the last few years i have stopped using my mig because of my eyes I just call him over when I ready to put something together  I have a  20ft pipe railing  for some grape vines to do sometime this year  need to get it up and in the ground

there are plasma cutters that dont require a big compressor,Ive never seen a mig/tig that cuts(execpt for burning through) but i dont doubt there doing it,Ive had my mig for well over 30 years now, and it has had a few million feet of wire spooled through it, built ohsomany race cars&chassies,done sheet mettell work&everything inbetween,it's getten kinda old&finiky(like me) but when I dont get stupid it does just fine,I dont know if any parts are avalible any more for it,I used it this week.it an old lindie unit,I think union carbide bought them up&dont know who ended up with them nowadays. I would love to get one that welds aluminum(spool gun),but I dont do much so thats just a wish.

    it's been oh so many years since Ive usd a stick welder,Iwouldnt even try to weld sheetmetel with it, but yes it can be done(stich weld), but better to go to the harbenger of fright&get a cheep mig&do it you can get a small sand/meida blaster to make sure you get all the flux out ,but most of it should be ground away with the grinder.and make sure you coat the back side of weld as it will rust in a hurry,I like using cold galvonize spray for just about everything.Ive never had any thing rust when it was coated with it.I have a cast iron bench in my yard I did over 15 years ago, no rust (possiably 20 years ago),I get it at west marine, but many places have it.

I only see big multiprocess machines from Miller that can do mig/tig/stick/carbon arc gouging. But carbon arc gouging isn't quite the same as plasma cutting. And the smaller units start at $4200. Don't see any that'll do mig/tig/plasma.

I was taught to use two torches for sheet metal welding - one with a big, wide flame to massage the general area and pre-warm it to prevent warpage, and the other one focused to do the actual welding.  I also don't use fluxed rods to weld sheet metal - just bare brazing rods or steel rods (think coat hanger material - I use that a lot, too).  I was always told that the flux rods caused the paint not to stick.  I've seen my son (who is a much better welder than me) weld relatively thin sheet metal with a mig (stitch then fill) without burn-through, but I can't do that.  I've also seen some amazing welds that my brother did with his Miller TIG welder on sheet metal (and relatively thin aluminum) but doubt anything I did with the same welder would look better than bird poop.

I've never seen anyone cut sheet metal with either a MIG or TIG, but I doubt that I've seen everything out there, either.  Plasma cutter's, yes (I even have one of those) but the last time I went to the trouble of getting the Plasma cutter set up rather than using a cut-off wheel in an angle grinder was maybe 10 years ago.

wish I had a plasma cutter,my brother has atleast 1, possiably more,if I do decide to tackle changing rear quarters on my bug I will probably go steel his for a while.might take one of his mig's too, his arnt 30 years old and might do a lot beter job on sheet mettell. and no you dont want to braze any body pannels on.and preheating isant the way to go that causes more warpage in sheet mettel,keep it as cool as possiable, thus the reason for stichwelding.

I think there is a bit of confusion here but I could be wrong.

MIG welder METAL INERT GAS welders typically have a spool of fill wire and can either be set up to use an inert gas as shielding or, flux core wire.   You ground the item to be welded and set the machine then pass the torch across the seam and wire is fed through machine and creates an arc as it feeds fill wire.

TIG welder  TUNGSTEN INERT GAS welders (for the most part) don't have a spool of wire.  You have a tungsten torch in one hand and you hold the fill wire in your other hand.   Ground the item to be welded, and 'usuall' via a foot pedal, you regulate the amount of amperage through the tungsten torch to heat up the metal then you dab a bit of fill wire in the puddle of molten metal created by the torch.

Plasma Cutters create an arc and the compressor blows air to blow the molten metal out of the cut area.

Stick or Arc welding uses a 12" piece of filler metal with a flux coating.   Ground the item to be welded and clamp the stick into the handle and strike an arc.  You have to pay close attention to what you're doing as the stick acts to create the arc and also the filler material.   This requires keeping the end of the consumable stick close enough to the work to keep the arc lit and also fill the metal.  As you weld, the the stick is consumed and gets shorter and shorter thus requiring you to keep lowering your hand to maintain the arc.

I hope this didn't offend those in the know and provided some useful information to those who didn't know.

good explination you are correct for the guys that dont know , But I didnt see any confuzion.... if a company wants to say thier mig/tig will also cut than thats thier deal, you can cut with a torch&weld with a torch also with a tig and also with a mig &also a stick, it's not pretty&probably not the best thing to do but Ive seen a lot of cut stuff that wasent done with plasma. just look at a EDM system that also uses wire. Ive not seen a mig/tig/plasma al in one,but  there probably out thier, we had a mig /tig many years ago at the speed shop. I learned to tig with a tig that used a door bell button on the torch.worked great and much cheeper than keeping the mfr's switch in stock when they didnt last for squat.dam that was a long time ago.

That's the way I understood it too, Larry until oldyeler mentioned some machine that migs, tigs and cuts as well. I didn't know one existed. I've build many an airplane part welding 4130 steel with a torch and just to demonstrate how stubborn I am ( and it could just be plain old stupidity ), I learned to gas weld aluminum with some limited success. Tricky stuff to see properly. Best I've done so far is to weld simple joints on .090 5052.

there are low temp rods you can use with a propaane or map torch to weld aluminum, Ive done it it works great for thin stuff, but big stuff lets the heat be sucked away to fast, you may need to realy preheet&do it in a box to keep heet losses down.

I too have never seen a multi purpose machine as descrebed however my TIG will also ARC weld as will most TIG's.

our old mig/tig also was a dipstick machine.I think it was an arco dipstick, witch was avalible with the high freq box for tig witch is what we had.but mainly it was just used for mig.

A lot of those rods as described by marksbug really don't do a good job.  They surface weld with little or no penetration.  When TIG welding aluminum, you create a 'silver' puddle then add fill.  That penetrates the aluminum and creates a great weld.   Gas welding aluminum is how the AC bodies were made in England and then  exported to Shelby for the Cobra cars     Worked great for sheet aluminum but not so strong if you're addind that piece to a stress point.

I can honestly say that I'm a terrible Mig, TIG or stick welder.  Too jittery and far too little patience to do a good job, so my welds (in spite of my Sea-Bee Uncle who tried to teach me how) look like bird poop.

On the other hand......for some strange reason I was an ace when torch welding all sorts of stuff and once I got the hang of recognizing the look of the target metals when they were ready to be joined (they seem to come alive when the temp is right), I was all set.  The dual torch thing overcomes Marksbug's critique of warping - one torch has a BIG flame (think blow torch tip with a 12" moderate flame and around 6"-8" across at the metal) fanning the area to be welded to get everything pre-heated, then another welding torch set for the metal thickness and rod size being used to do the actual stitching.  This is an old trick used by the Lead guys back before there were MIG welders in every shop (do body shops even HAVE welders these days?  I thought they were all part replacement shops.)  

Mark may think it won't work, but I know of a Model A pickup, a '46 Ford coupe, a Healey 3000 and a '65 GTO that I made body panels for and welded them in that way (stepped seams) and they disappeared once smoothed and painted.  I guess if you really suck with a MIG you tend to learn what you CAN do and do it.

Larry:  Nice descriptions of the differences.  I recently tossed out an old Forney 250 amp arc (stick) welder when I cleaned out my Dad's place because I thought I would never use it.  It made GREAT sparks, but I tended to burn through anything I tried to weld with the thing, almost instantly.  Damn thing was almost the size of a washing machine, too, and looked like this:

 the first thing i changed on my old snap-on mig was i bumped the gas preasure up to cool the welds more  80 psi..  im more of a spot welder  couldn't lay a pretty seam if i had to but  if i take my time i have done some pretty work that is still around  I depend a lot on my cutoff wheels  and a saws all  when i get into a project  but My eyes are at a stage  that I better stick to small simple stuff from now own

marksbug...Mark, those rods you refer to are actually aluminum brazing rods. Don't ask me how I know. Get on Youtube and search Alumibond 3000 for a bit of a demo on what they can do.

brazing is with brass/bronze.hence brazing. but yes that might be them, I got some from a swap meet&some from somewhere else, the swap meet were 500degree and the others were about 700-750.you can weld beer cans togeather!! why I dont know, so you can drink 2x as fast I reckin. I used some to weld some air filter tubing/intercooler tubing and they work great.I tried an old vw head but the head sucks away the heet too fast, probably would of worked If I had preheated the head in a oven first.( I bake a lot of engine parts it wont hurt them, just dont burn your tounge or fingers.(lips too) there is also some on flebay, or was , probably still is. I also used them to make some running boards out of diamond plate for my 4 wheeler.(after I tried to tig them with my brothers tig that wasent working right(he fixed it, it was brand new about $4000. he cant leave **** alone, and I dont think it has been used in 10 years or more since new, you can always tell an idiot but you cant tell them much, sorry bro)

The word brazing has no basis on brass or bronze. It relates to the joining of dissimilar or similar metals using a filler material which joins, bonds, repairs etc. pieces of metal at a temperature lower than their melting point.

then why do you silver solder ac/refirg lines.(silverphysion)? and slodering is also brazing? yes I agree it is a broad term that covers most evrything,braze it up dude it got a hole in it. so is using epoxie the same as brazing??it would fall under that discription too. wickapeida might want to rephraze that one.

My understanding is that soldering is done at a lower temp than brazing. Why would you silver solder ac/refrig lines....to join them or prevent leaking I'm guessing.  I really should have said that ".....similar metals using a METAL  filler..." but you know that. Of course, epoxy is not the same as brazing.

yes it's at a lower temp but temp was never stated execpt for lower than the mettell your joining.,I thought you were quoting from a sorce like wikileeks all over the place or someother info site that is usely on track but has a few wheels in the dirt. I have never heard of any thing being brazed unless it was with a brassfiller. were both on track, though one of us has a loose nut behind the wheel.......cookies anybody???

FYI,  Brazing isn't exclusive to brass filler

I was brazing a roast & ribs the other day.dang they were good

It's actually 2 words,   Bra - zing.   it's what happens when a womans bra breaks the securing hooks

Here some basic with out getting into the details- plus I don't feel like writing a book - Brazing is using a filler material with a lower melting point . Brazing which is really known as gas welding via oxy-acteylene.  The object is to create a puddle with a fine pencil flame  and adding  filler material. Tig (GTAW) welding is very similar with the exception of current DC for steel - AC for aluminum.  Both process have lower heat inputs than MIG (GMAW) or Stick( SMAW) .  Flux core MIG electrode wire will have great penetration yet will have a higher heat input than MIG with inert gas shielding. Stick is for your thicker materials. Words of wisdow - good welding requires CLEAN  surfaces - means no paint, grease or rust . If you are looking for a welder be careful of the combo units . The duty cycles tend to be fairly low. You can easily burn out a low duty cycle unit.  Cheap china stuff is great for this . MIG 110AC  vs 220VAC input - 220VAC has a higher duty cycle , current response time is faster, and you can weld thicker material.

MIG wire - Thicker the wire , the more heat input = more distortion .