Got a few little jobs coming up involving 1.6mm steel tube, and thought it's time for a MIG - I've got an old (but good) stick welder, but thin tube is not the place (for me) to use it 
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Looked into a bit, noting pros and cons of Gas vs Gasless, and the ability to weld other metals, eg, aluminium. I usually get something of reasonable quality and hope it serves me well. Interestingly, on this AF forum, the only discussions were around 2005, so I guess things have changed since then. Firstly there was quite a jump in price to get one to weld aluminium, and I thought, never done it before and really no intention, so give that a miss. Then I thought what about Gas/Gasless, and not wanting to bother with gas bottles unless I really had to, I've bought one that has both, try the gasless and if it's no good, can always go for gas. I have used MIG before, about 50 years ago, using a professional, quite large machine, so have a slight memory of how it operates.
So I've bought a Unimig Viper 120 Kit, runs off 10amp AC and is both gas & gasless. Total Tools (and same elsewhere) - $319, $20 more than the basic welder. The "kit" contains a good helmet, gloves, and a starter tool kit containing spare nozzle ends and decent welding pliers, good value. The welder comes with a roll of 0.8mm gasless wire. The last time I saw gasless wire, it was like a very fine stick welding rod, with a grey flux coating - not any more, the wire still looks shiny silver colour, must be very fine layer of flux, or it is in the core? Also I was amazed at the small size of welding machines now, really easy to carry around.
I actually did read the instructions, set it up and had a go. My one small beef with it is that it has a wire dia selector which defaults back to 0.9mm (the max size) when turned off, so although I had set it to 0.8 previously, it reverted to 0.9 when I went to use it, and maybe that gave a bit more current because I did burn a hole pretty quickly on my test piece. Also I probably had it set to 6mm metal thickness, I think the dial (they call the Synergic dial) is direct reading of material thickness, I know that NOW. But after a quick practice, and realising I needed to steady my right hand with my left hand, I got a pretty good result, for me. The raw weld photo below is basically after 5 minutes of practice, it has only been wire brushed, there is virtually no slag build-up. Also you can see I am welding over a slight gap, up to 1mm, and calling on past experience, I tended to do it in short bursts of spot welding letting it cool for a few seconds before continuing. I think it will be quite smooth on a continuous run without a gap to worry about.
Anyway, at this stage it performed better than expected with gasless wire, but the connection is there for gas if required later. I think the gasless process has been improved since comments in this forum in 2005 claimed that gasless was pretty rubbish.
So this may be helpful to anyone looking for a reasonable DIY MIG welder, and feel free to make any comments in this thread.
Just touched up a bit on the bench grinder before painting.
.Looked into a bit, noting pros and cons of Gas vs Gasless, and the ability to weld other metals, eg, aluminium. I usually get something of reasonable quality and hope it serves me well. Interestingly, on this AF forum, the only discussions were around 2005, so I guess things have changed since then. Firstly there was quite a jump in price to get one to weld aluminium, and I thought, never done it before and really no intention, so give that a miss. Then I thought what about Gas/Gasless, and not wanting to bother with gas bottles unless I really had to, I've bought one that has both, try the gasless and if it's no good, can always go for gas. I have used MIG before, about 50 years ago, using a professional, quite large machine, so have a slight memory of how it operates.
So I've bought a Unimig Viper 120 Kit, runs off 10amp AC and is both gas & gasless. Total Tools (and same elsewhere) - $319, $20 more than the basic welder. The "kit" contains a good helmet, gloves, and a starter tool kit containing spare nozzle ends and decent welding pliers, good value. The welder comes with a roll of 0.8mm gasless wire. The last time I saw gasless wire, it was like a very fine stick welding rod, with a grey flux coating - not any more, the wire still looks shiny silver colour, must be very fine layer of flux, or it is in the core? Also I was amazed at the small size of welding machines now, really easy to carry around.
I actually did read the instructions, set it up and had a go. My one small beef with it is that it has a wire dia selector which defaults back to 0.9mm (the max size) when turned off, so although I had set it to 0.8 previously, it reverted to 0.9 when I went to use it, and maybe that gave a bit more current because I did burn a hole pretty quickly on my test piece. Also I probably had it set to 6mm metal thickness, I think the dial (they call the Synergic dial) is direct reading of material thickness, I know that NOW. But after a quick practice, and realising I needed to steady my right hand with my left hand, I got a pretty good result, for me. The raw weld photo below is basically after 5 minutes of practice, it has only been wire brushed, there is virtually no slag build-up. Also you can see I am welding over a slight gap, up to 1mm, and calling on past experience, I tended to do it in short bursts of spot welding letting it cool for a few seconds before continuing. I think it will be quite smooth on a continuous run without a gap to worry about.
Anyway, at this stage it performed better than expected with gasless wire, but the connection is there for gas if required later. I think the gasless process has been improved since comments in this forum in 2005 claimed that gasless was pretty rubbish.
So this may be helpful to anyone looking for a reasonable DIY MIG welder, and feel free to make any comments in this thread.
Just touched up a bit on the bench grinder before painting.
