Gasless MIG

After a bit of advice.  Back in Blighty I used to do a reasonable amount of MIG welding (with gas).  Down here in Peru welders are expensive, and a bottle of argon costs as much as a cheap welder (about S/.600)..  that has set me thinking about gasless MIG.  Never used gasless MIG before, but a 130A gasless setup is about S/650, or from S/1000 up for a gas/gasless job.

I'd be looking at general welding- some household stuff, possible sumpguard, bracketry, rocksliders for the LR3, if I get an E46 the rear subframe mounts, etc.  Possibly bodywork but unlikely.

Would a gasless MIG serve ok for that sort of stuff??

The S/. 650 setup is tempting as it'd leave me some left over cash for a small compressor too..

I put my rearend together with flux core wire, as well as some of the bracketry that had to attach to 22 gauge sheetmetal.  The welds are not pretty and it's hard to see what you are doing through the smoke, but it's perfectly servicable.

I've done some flux welding, about the only thing I dont think it would work for is sheetmetal bodywork, because the slag would most likely cause problems for stitch welding. For general purpose stuff I see no reason to not use it.

A Fluxcore machine will do most of what you want except sheetmetal work.

I usually use flux core. Agree with all the earlier comments. I'll also add buy good wire. Sometimes cheap wire seems fluctuate while you weld. 

Why not just buy a stick welder?  You have roughly the same welding situation as a flux core wire, and its cheaper.  A box of 6011's and a bit of practice...

Fluxcore welds can be pretty if you get enough practice in and have the machine dialed.

Go for it.

Since I completely lack planning and foresight my gas bottle is almost always empty when I have welding to do.  I keep fluxcore wire on hand in bulk for that reason.  I have done everything from structural to sheet metal with flux.  It will require a bit of extra cleaning/grinding at the end but it is very effective

You need Crackers to chime in. 

Crackers has pretty much empirically shown that everything I believed about flux core he has shown to be wrong. I said you cant do sheet metal, he proved me wrong by a wide margin. Does not mean that I still cant weld flux core, but it does mean that I have room to learn.

Farmers love flux core because it can weld i rusty steel in a hurricane. Maybe even underwater. 

Thanks for all the comments folks, seems like it would do the job most of the time for what I need, cheers

In reply to NOHOME :

Just remembered: I fabricated and welded in some new floorpan in a friend's GLH, and all he had was flux core.  It welded beautifully, I was surprised.

Mind you, he had a $1200 Miller welder.  I have a $230 Eastwood welder.

Welder quality definitely plays a role, even for MIG but especially so with flux core.  You NEED to be able to vary wire speed and voltage (or is it current?) more than just a high/low switch.  That is why I bought the Eastwood, it's got eight or ten discrete power settings and the wire speed has a variable knob.  I'm assuming that in Peru the prices will be five times as much, but welding equipment is definitely a buy once/cry once type of deal.

Uncle Tony has a lot of good things to say about flux-core welding 

https://youtu.be/iiL8neNGJ2w

I have both and almost always use flux core. Like everything a good welder ( in my case a lincoln) and good brand name wire make a big difference.  I weld sheet metal up to 3/8 inch plate with my little unit. Yes it takes a couple passes and/or pre heating things with a small map gas rose bud tip. It is like anything else practice goes a long way to making any welder work well.  Learning where and what to add heat to and how heat will flow in to what you are welding is an important thing to learn especially when you are welding two different size things together. 

Why not try mig welding with 100% CO2?  It's a lot cheaper than pure argon or C25, and the results are a lot better than flux core.  

+1 to everything said above regarding it being messy but serviceable.

FWIW, even if you get the garbage HF welder, there are mods to improve it.  Also as mentioned above, the first recommendation for the HF welder is to get some higher quality wire for it.  I have the cheapest one I inherited from a friend.  Heavier stuff is fine, but I wouldn't want to do thin sheet metal without a lot of scrap to test on.  It can be hard to tune it really well since it only has 2 settings for amperage and I don't have the skill/experience to work around that. E46 subframe mounts would scare me.

I have a Canadian Tire 110V welder that can do fluxcore and gas. I never bothered to use the gas to do solid wire. With fluxcore you can weld outside in the wind, rusty metal, dirty metal, etc. It's like 4x4 welding 

I usually go over the welds with a wire brush and remove the splatter. I did rust repair, exhausts, a header, fixed an engine crane, etc... It works good.

I'm a pretty lousy welder and I have a cheap Harbor Freight machine, but I HATE Fluxcore.  If it was any kind of substantial job, I would have to have no other options before I even considered it.  For just putting a tack here or fixing a crack there, it can get by.

ShinnyGroove (Forum Supporter) said:

I'm a pretty lousy welder and I have a cheap Harbor Freight machine, but I HATE Fluxcore.  If it was any kind of substantial job, I would have to have no other options before I even considered it.  For just putting a tack here or fixing a crack there, it can get by.

I bet you are a much better welder than you realize you are just not using very good equipment.  Learning on bad equipment is also a problem.  I leaned on a Lincoln 250 (if I remember).  It was a fantastic machine.  I welded a lot with it at body shop next to my office many years ago.  When my boss found out I could weld he worked a deal with the body shop owner (that really could not weld) to let me use his machine and I was then doing all kinds of welding.  Because of that, I was then able to basically weld with any old POS welder because I know what good is and with practice, you figure out what to change on a less-than-great machine to improve things.  

Flux core has its place.  It is just a good tool to have around.  Oh, I just remembered.  I made a bunch of rear trailing arms??  (not sure if that is the correct name for them) for early expeditions using 3/16 steel box tube and some pieces of DOM tubing for the bushings.  Maybe 20 sets?  Sold them on Ebay back in 2010 or 2011 maybe?  All done with flux core.  Never had an issue.  A quick hit with a grinder and some BBQ paint and they were all set.  They were cheap, easy and fast to make and since ford was selling stamped steel replacements for huge $$$$ I could easily undercut them by 50%.  I made some fast $$$ that summer in my spare time.  Think I paid for the family vacation with the $$$ that year.

What about the cost of flux core? I know OP is in Peru and I can only attach American prices to this... but I had recently bought family of mine a reg, tank, fill of C25 and wire for about ~$175 after I saw name-brand Flux core wire spools were ~$80 each in my area. Wouldn't the cost of setup parts amoritize after the second spool of flux core?

dean1484 said:

ShinnyGroove (Forum Supporter) said:

I'm a pretty lousy welder and I have a cheap Harbor Freight machine, but I HATE Fluxcore.  If it was any kind of substantial job, I would have to have no other options before I even considered it.  For just putting a tack here or fixing a crack there, it can get by.

I bet you are a much better welder than you realize you are just not using very good equipment.  Learning on bad equipment is also a problem.  I leaned on a Lincoln 250 (if I remember).  It was a fantastic machine.  I welded a lot with it at body shop next to my office many years ago.  When my boss found out I could weld he worked a deal with the body shop owner (that really could not weld) to let me use his machine and I was then doing all kinds of welding.  Because of that, I was then able to basically weld with any old POS welder because I know what good is and with practice, you figure out what to change on a less-than-great machine to improve things.  

Flux core has its place.  It is just a good tool to have around.  Oh, I just remembered.  I made a bunch of rear trailing arms??  (not sure if that is the correct name for them) for early expeditions using 3/16 steel box tube and some pieces of DOM tubing for the bushings.  Maybe 20 sets?  Sold them on Ebay back in 2010 or 2011 maybe?  All done with flux core.  Never had an issue.  A quick hit with a grinder and some BBQ paint and they were all set.  They were cheap, easy and fast to make and since ford was selling stamped steel replacements for huge $$$$ I could easily undercut them by 50%.  I made some fast $$$ that summer in my spare time.  Think I paid for the family vacation with the $$$ that year.

It's a good point.  Even with my crappy HF welder, I've done some pretty decent work once I got MIG gas and a helmet where I could actually see what I was doing.  Flux core on a good machine is probably a totally different experience than flux core on a bad machine.

I have an absolute trash can harbor freight welder that only takes flux core. I glued together a rear bumper for my ranger that's taken some abuse and welded up a big frame crack near my leaf spring mount that seems to be fine. I'm not a welder but I am an engineering student and I think it's way better than no welder.

GIRTHQUAKE said:

What about the cost of flux core? I know OP is in Peru and I can only attach American prices to this... but I had recently bought family of mine a reg, tank, fill of C25 and wire for about ~$175 after I saw name-brand Flux core wire spools were ~$80 each in my area. Wouldn't the cost of setup parts amoritize after the second spool of flux core?

Good point - comparing the cost difference from a 'decent' (for here) flux wire and normal, it'd be around 6 spools to get to the cost of one bottle of gas, but then a gas MIG is nearly double a gasless, plus regulator.  Nearly everything here is imported, so it's all variable.

I need to have a good old think.  Lots of good advice here thanks folks, however for the moment I'll might have to put the whole thing on hold, as the loony lefties have just been announced as winning the election.  I need to wait and see what ministers he puts in his government, and if he goes forward on plans to abolish the constitution, ban imports, confiscate property etc..