WARNING - LONG, BORING REPLY - better delete it now !!
I empathize completely. I've been welding oxy-acetylene for decades, lots
of chrome-moly aircraft stuff, automotive sheet metal, etc. - even some
pretty heavy material on occasion. When in practice, I'm pretty good with a
torch, but even asleep I can weld better with any torch than I've ever been
able to MIG weld. FWIW, Kent White (the Tin Man) calls MIG a "manure
spreader" - I can see why.
To hear it told, you'd think MIG is so easy that it sounds like every
non-welder in the world can go buy a cheap MIG from Home Dipstick or
Horrible Freight and weld beautifully right out of the box, even with flux
core wire.
I bought a 220-volt Miller 175 amp MIG, a big tank of Argon/CO2, the best
flow gauge, one of the new auto-darkening welding helmets (they're great !!)
everything - all the right stuff, no junk. And I just can't make it work
well. Seems like it's always spewing out too much wire or not enough
and it's either too hot or too cold and never just right and I can't see
where I am anyway. Even my Miller AC stick welder does prettier
work, with nasty old contaminated rods (I'm cheap).
3 years later I've hardly ever used my new MIG welder. On 99% of the jobs I
need to do I still just grab the torch. Otherwise I use the old buzz-box.
Yeah, yeah, practice helps, but hey - I hate to feel like a complete idiot
while trying to make it work.
I too have tried TIG at a couple of shows, and it's just so controllable.
Even thin aluminum gives you the impression that you could just sit in one
spot all day playing with a little puddle. I think I'm gonna have to bite
the bullet and buy a decent little TIG and give up on MIG. I guess I'm just
too clumsy to be a good MIG welder - but what the heck do I have to prove
anyway? And in the mean time, I still love my torches.
Anyone want a good deal on a nice Miller Challenger 172, several sets of
different wire-size sleeves and contacts, all the different drive rollers,
wire, etc?
Karl
PS - Could it be that there's a basic incompatibility between torch welding
and MIG? Most of the really good MIG welders I know weren't ever really big
on torch welding in the first place - some never even welded before starting
MIG. In any event, it's obvious that torch-welding instincts transfer
better to TIG than MIG.
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