Ran out of Argon,.. still a decent looking weld ?,... What happened ?

Did you know that in some American industry and in particular Ford motor Co- ran wire feed welders with no gas back in 1935?
Every time that happend to me my bead looked like cinders from a coal stove or worse....
the welds I mentioned from 1935 were on vintage cars I had worked on and were definitely not flux core but solid wire

 

I thought they were "Resistance Welders",.. but unsure of there operation.

 

some were on Chrysler product cars on their frames and if you look at some of the weld beads on Ford body seams they are wire too.
I'm not saying they were good looking -in fact lots were pretty splattery looking welds...

 

What color is the wire?

 

Goldish/Copper,... looks just like every other spool I have put through that machine,.....

 

By the way have you looked closely at those beautiful welds on the full length of Ford radius rod's seams?
Harms Way- maybe your wire is a more compatable alloy than most common mig wire by chance?

 

The wishbone welds are resistance welds from what I'm told. The only explanation I can come up with is,... somehow flux core wire, ended up on the wrong spool,... but I have never had experience with flux core,... so I'm not sure how it is to weld with. A little more smoke,... no splatter,.. so I don't know.

 

Flux core wire is gray and leaves lots of splatter. It looks like 6011 when you run it. It's very brittle and you can break it with your fingers.

 

You don't have flux core wire. What likely happened is a combination of things.

1) You were welding with the nozzle close to the work.This would help capture and keep any natural occuring gases around the weld puddle.
(There is a certain amount of gases formed from the heat of the arc and the melting of the wire along with the melting of the base metal and impurities on the base metal which have to go somewhere)
2) There was very still air, no drafts at all where you were welding.
3) With these factors you were able to make an acceptable weld that was naturally shielded.

I would not count on doing it too many more times.

 

I was screwng with a friend of mine maybe 25-30 yrs ago, he was stick welding cars, had never tried mig.One night he was at my shop I was overhead welding a ch***is, he asked about how it compared to stick welding, I said here give it a try, so he started welding I decided to screw with him I turned off the bottle and was waiting for his reaction and when he stopped he had laid down a good bead, and the same thing you couldn't tell where I turned it off. I know when I run out I always get the pinholes I don't know why it happened that way but I know it did .

 

In that case there was no mystery at all. He simply was running on the gas that was left in the system, the hose and all.

 

Harms, im not going to speculate because mine which just ran out a week ago looked like diarrhea, however ill say this , if its working for you save your dollars on the gas, nah just kidding here, impressive stuff in my opinion some guys cant even do them that nice with the gas haha, in this case its definitely rocket science and you realise that you've just created a myth here harms and to most of us its like seeing bigfoot (i never have) hahaha alls good harms proud effort in my opinion
A-tub

 

The argon is just sheilding gas, If there is no air movement the argon will linger around the work piece and thus doin its job even if you run out. The wire you were using is not flux core wire but a high in silicone wire which helps shield the weld. Gotta say you did get pretty luckey to get the perfect conditions for all that to happen.

 

You know it was so long ago, and we were young, I won't swear that he welded enough to run the hose out of gas.Never really gave it much thought until I saw this story, but it is possible. I was just picturing how long you would have to hold your arm up to run the hose out of gas.I thought it was enough at the time, but it is possible, can't really say for 100% sure and I do know every time I run out I know it.

 

I haven't been smoking anything, I never had slag with flux core. The only time I ever had slag with was stick welding. The worst I ever had with flux core was a brown dust along the sides of the weld, if that is what you are calling slag, then our ideas of what slag is, are 2 very different things.

 

[QUOTE="T'RANTULA";7418919]The argon is just sheilding gas, If there is no air movement the argon will linger around the work piece and thus doin its job even if you run out. The wire you were using is not flux core wire but a high in silicone wire which helps shield the weld. Gotta say you did get pretty luckey to get the perfect conditions for all that to happen.[/QUOTE]
Argon gas is heaver than air and will sink to the lowest area it can find. The only possable solution would be that the area he was welding in was full of argon up to and above the weld area .That I could belive . ***e small area,no movement of air,room full of argon. I once welded in a tent like area with gloves attached to the tent and a window to see the weld arc. I filled the tent with argon and welded inside the tent. no matter what there is no way to mig weld without shielding gas presant other than flux core .This weld is defenitly not fluxcore.

 

I think John hit it on the head, I had a frend that built big aluminum boat hulls and he had to be carefull of this when welding inside the hulls, the argon would displace the oxygen with out ventalation.

 

thanks mike. it was part of the welding safty cl*** I took about shielding gas dangers. along with toxic fumes and other dangers asociated with welding. it is part of every proper welder training program.

 

What John said is very important info for all welders. If you are welding in a confined space and you start to feel light headed stop and get to fresh air asap. Don't ever go in after someone that is unconscious. I rember when three guys died at a shipyard. Argon and co2 will displace the oxygen very quickly. That is your safety tip for the day.