South Bend - very nice!  You aren’t playing around! 

I will take you up on your Q and A offer if needed.  Thanks very much.

Edited February 16, 20196 yr by ConVerTT
Typo

On 2/15/2019 at 9:27 PM, Captain Obvious said:

Oh man... Wrong time for that!

If you have a TIG, don't bother trying to use the straight argon. Doesn't work well.

The straight Argon doesn't work well???

5 minutes ago, Patcon said:

The straight Argon doesn't work well???

If you surround the welded area with strong magnets, the oxygen atoms are pushed away hence no need for gas..... ?

8 minutes ago, wheee! said:

If you surround the welded area with strong magnets, the oxygen atoms are pushed away hence no need for gas..... ?

Pppfffftttt! ?

3 hours ago, Patcon said:

The straight Argon doesn't work well???

Well, it's not like it doesn't work at all, but I didn't like the results. I tried it because I had the TIG (which requires 100% argon), and my welding gas guy told me I could share a tank between the two machines and run straight up argon on both. I found the weld beads noticeably tall and lower penetration. So now I unfortunately have two bottles. One tank 100% argon for the TIG and another tank of 75% argon 25% CO2 for the MIG.

I did some digging online and the general consensus is that my results were typical. Here's a pic from someone else that describes what happens Less heat into the workpiece so you end up with a tall narrow bead and lower penetration:

Here's some web pages with some good info:
https://welditu.com/welders/mig/tips-mig/mig-welding-with-100-argon/

http://shdesigns.org/Welding/gasmix.shtml

All that said, I've read on the internets that if you surround the welded area with strong magnets, the oxygen atoms are pushed away hence no need for gas. I'm not sure that would work for 100% argon though since the argon is inert.

So you were saying the 100% Argon didn't work for MIG not TIG?

 

I'm saying that for MIG you should use the CO2 / argon blend.

For TIG you should use 100% argon.

And also just to be clear... That applies to steel welding only. When you get into the non-ferrous stuff, the rules change.

Ferrous Bueller?

Hahaha!!    

I guess cabin fever is setting in?

13 hours ago, Captain Obvious said:

I'm saying that for MIG you should use the CO2 / argon blend.

For TIG you should use 100% argon.

Agreed 100 percent.  MIG + 100% Argon = no beuno 

I never went back and gave that feedback to my gas guy. I'm thinking he just wanted to sell more argon.   

16 minutes ago, ConVerTT said:

Agreed 100 percent.  MIG + 100% Argon = no beuno 

It seems to be the way to go for Mig + Aluminum.