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OK -- took the new Lincoln pro mig 140 for a cruise and was trying to put some body panels back in that I had cut out when I installed the 091 .....

I've got the power set on A (should be the lowest) as recommended on the chart and I've been playing with the wire speed B U T ,,,,, I keep blowing through the panels, even when trying to tack, forget about running a bead,,,,, what have I missed here??????????? -- --

About read to try the inner shield wire without the gas just to see if that would make a difference........ I use to be able to run a nice tight pass ...... but this is killing me -- guess the power is still too high -- any thoughts??????

Have you tried increasing your stick out? If I'm blowing through, I'll do this and pulse for like half a second with a couple seconds in between to cool. It also helps to pull the weld and open the nozzle angle some.

Wire size is critical too, on sheetmetal you should be using .023" solid wire with gas if you expect to run a bead.
.030" flux core has better penetration, which is usually not a feature on sheetmetal.

Usually best you can hope for with flux core on thin sheetmetal is a long series of tack welds.
OTOH it still works in a stiff breeze.

Note: Like everything else, you get what you pay for with welders.
I strongly suggest trying to find a good used major brand, non-bottom end model.
Not a HD model either.
(Blue/Red/Maroon or Yellow=Miller/Red=Lincoln/Maroon=Tweco/Victor/Thermal Arc/Dynamics) and Yellow=ESAB)

The Chinese are highly skilled at making parts to a spec'd cost,
and perfectly capable of good quality... A large % of the "good" stuff is actually made in China.

... but the things that are not disposable junk cost almost as much as made in the USA.

Yeah -- I had a good Lincoln 200 and gave it away to a "friend" ----- It had a really cool stitch feature on it for doing sheet metal -- I'm thinking that this unit isn't turning down like it should --- No way of telling if this is the case or not -- -- One thing I forgot about trying is holding the gun further away and at a greater angle -- was doing the pulsing thing with the trigger, but it would just hit and burn thru instantly --- No amount of grinding is going to make this look good now -- I use to have a piece of 1/4" copper that I could back something like this up and weld "to it" -- can't find that piece either -- -- Was hoping to get this all back in place today as my trans is suppose to be done late tomorrow and wanted to get it back in -- -- this is putting my tinsel in a tangle damnit

See if you can find a low mile TA 181i, seems a lot of folks bought them and ~never used them due to life getting in the way.

Has a great bottom end and top end, 10A-180A fully usable on a 100' 10 ga extension cord.

I confess I have only used my modified unit with a Firepower 250A spool gun, but the Tweco torch is an industry std and wire feed is metal:very nicely made.
(I had to change the $5 potentiometer in the spoolgun handle for remote wire speed, could have set it up for remote voltage IIRC)

Its actually a far better setup that the US spec and supports the spool gun, which the "rest of world" units do not.
The US setup will take a spoolgun too but changing the torch over takes a minute or so, still easy, but the 180A spoolgun is a toy compared to the Firepower unit.

I scored the spoolgun cheap on ebay, new/shelf wear, box was torn up. Works like a champ.

I can switch from MIG on 25' long cable spoolgun to TIG or over to a 4" or 12" internal wire spool (if I had ever bought some) in a few seconds.

I use the TIG as much as the spool gun.

I adapted the 181i and the spool gun to work together via a mix of US and "rest of world" factory parts, via a Euro connector, and TA supplied a MIG torch with a euro at no additional cost. The Firepower spool gun came with the euro connector, as it is std on the higher end Firepower MIGs.
(Firepower is also a Tweco company, not all of their gear is low end either, they still make some monster old school MIG units)

I was welding tin on a Hobart 180 or some close number. The thing has a horrible feeder. The wire was thick (030 or 035 can't recall) which kept the weld cold. I used the lowest voltage and a slow feed to repair a nasty crack in the rear side tin. It made a nice bead. No burn through, but I did not grind down the welds so I can't vouch for porosity.
Harbor Freight has a thing they call a weld spoon (I think but can't find it on their site now) that is a handy backing plate.

Run it at the end of 50 feet of cheap extension cord and it will burn through a little less. Backing plates should be something you can't weld to the work pieces - so, brass or aluminum or similar.

Stray Catalyst wrote:Run it at the end of 50 feet of cheap extension cord and it will burn through a little less. Backing plates should be something you can't weld to the work pieces - so, brass or aluminum or similar.

HF sells a nice copper backing paddle, with a handle even.
http://www.harborfreight.com/welding-spoon-66785.html

Stickout you can control on the fly, though, allows a lot of control.
Just don't leave bird poop.
The .024" solid wire with gas allows even more control and less to fix.

Make welding spoon out short length of copper water pipe....

Dale