Ive got a lincoln 180 with the Spool gun. ill be welding less that 1/4" thick aluminum with it(mostly intake piping) and I need to know what the differences are in going with straight argon Vs Helium... thanks!

 

well you guys took to long so I jsut went with the tried and true straight argon... maybe next fill ill try some tri-mix or argon/helium... just wish I knew the differences and why you would want one over the other..

 

id go 75/25 argon...trust me strait argon is nice for like aluminum, it can be done but go 75/25

 

helium will give you more penetration on your weld... i like argon for thin stuff ... argon also offers more stable arc control too....

 

Are you saying use 75/25 for aluminum??

Thanks for the info. so whats the deal with the Tri mix? is that mainly used for exotic material like titanium and chromoly?

 

im not familiar with a tri mix so i have no idea... i weld stainless, MS, CM, and aluminum... if your welding other stuff than that you better know what your doing cause more than likely its expensive stuff...

 

ive havnt used a spool gun but a few times, and I always used strait argon. I dont know anything about the tri mix either.

 

I can add the spool gun to my Lincoln. Whats the purpose of a spool gun?

 

you need it to weld aluminum. some say you can get away with just having a clean liner but I couldnt get aluminum wire to feed for ****.

On another note, I wast trying to weld some clean mild steel and has anyone ever gotten a tank of 75/25 mix and have the absolute worst welds? im talking massive amounts porosity, pinholes and pitting all the way through the weld almost like the gas is set to low. I tried the same tank through two welders, my new one and an old one that works perfectly. neither welder could lay a bead to save its life. Ive only ever seen that many pin holes when I ran a tank out and continued to weld after the tank was empty. I could feel the gas coming out of both guns and still it welded like it wasnt sheilding anything... i spent and hour trying to get it to lay a bead and finally gave up. im taking the new bottle back tomorrow and seeing if they can swap it out or give me straight CO2.

 

Yeah, sounds like bad gas.

A spool gun allows you to run small spools of wire, and only have to push it for a very short distance. Aluminum on a spool is very soft, it can have a hard time going through the 8-10 ft of regular gun line. But it works well with a spool. You can run AL in a regular gun line, but you need a teflon liner, and that line needs to be dedicated for AL (no cross contamination). The spool gun just makes it really easy to switch from steel MIG over to aluminum. The spool has its own gas hookup, so you leave the C25 mix on the MIG, and hook the new AR line to the spool gun.