Breaking down for MIG Gun

3/64" is the most common wire size for general fab of aluminum 1/8" -

Remember to buy a BIG bag of tips for whichever wire size you get. Aluminum MIG eats tips like teenagers eat french fries.

Go with Tweco for easy consumables replacement/availability. Stay with the 250 amp size(#2?), it will be a little cheaper and smaller, which translates into more comfortable to hold.

Ten feet to push aluminum wire is not impossible but you will have to be very careful not to get any sort of twist or tight turn in your lead. An eight foot lead is better but you do sacrifice your reach. Randy

I have no idea what sizes of aluminum that I will wind up welding but I would like to get some sort of general purpose gun dedicated strictly for aluminum. I have a Tweco for regular mig.

Anyway, what size wire would anyone recommend to run in a 10' gun with a nylon or Teflon liner? The gun comes in two amperage sizes and those are

I think Ernie suggested that I use 5356 aluminum wire. What would be a good, general purpose size?

Thanks.

Cass

Somebody said get tips one size bigger than your wire for aluminum too because the wire expans with heat and gets tuck in the tip. For .035, get .040 tips. I'm going to try that next, my first attempt at aluminum MIG used up all my tips without welding anything. It was frustrating but is a good way to weld aluminum to copper if you're so inclined.

-- Dan

Ernie Leimkuhler wrote:

"Dan" wrote

I'm pretty sure that the tips for .035 wire are .044. I ran a couple spools of .030 through the same sized tips last week with little to no problems.

Ok, thanks, Ernie and the rest of the folks who gave information.

Now, what size of aluminum will I be able to weld with the Millermatic 200?

Cass

Gotcha. Thanks, Ernie.

I am anxious to get the gun and try out welding aluminum.

You say that I need lots of tips. What is 'lots'. 10, 100, 1,000?

What else do I need. I am not sure that I can get a Teflon liner, besides, I think Teflon cold flows. I THINK I can get nylon, however.

I have flow guage and a 125 cu.ft. tank pure argon.

Cass

Interesting! So what I thought is a cheap way of making the gun on my old Astro Power powermig 100, is actually a good thing! It uses the same gun as the older Clarke machines. The gas valve opens, then switches on the power and wire feed.

I fixed this machine up, with a nylon liner. Over this weekend, new fittings will be machined, so that a coiled steel liner can be fitted. I will also reverse the polarity in order to use flux core wire.

What sort of contact tip life should I expect with this setup? Note, I am going to extend the steel liner all the way to the tip. The Nylon one ends at the gun body.

Steve Rayner.