Easy grind wire... and welding inside out?

hey,

Try a auto body supply outlet for "easy grind" wire. Some welding
supply counter guys may look at ya funny. It was formulated for
auto body work.

It does not hammerweld as the gas rod would, but is a might bit
better than standard mig wire, and yes, the grinding is easier, as
the name mentions.

S****ey Devils c.C.

 

Here's a place that sells it:

https://weldingsupply.securesites.com/cgi-bin/einstein.pl?Next::1:UNDEF:OR:130TF43\s\s\s


But I just get it at the local welding supply place where you don't have to pay shipping.

 

i use easy grind 023 for welding sheet metal smaller wire less heat and you can grind it with a flapper wheel what i spend extra on wire i save in time and grinding wheels

 

The guy I learned of this from, Balow at Muscle Car Restorations, followed up my story with another on how to do lead body work. There are going to be minute pits and fractures in a weld seam. He spreads the lead on it from the front side, which wicks into the small pores and voids, filling them completely through the weld joint. This seals the weld completely, eliminating problems with future cracks, paint work getting moisture behind it, and rust forming.
With bondo spread on from the outside, the bores and minute pinholes going through the panel can still absorb moisture from the back side of the weld, causing plastic filler to eventually lift, or rust to form under it.

Just one reason his shop is so expensive...but you get what you pay for!

I'm fortunate--I learned from one of the best. Now I just have to put it into practice.

-Brad

 

the Lincoln .30 they sell at home depot grinds great !
and hammer welds very nice, after you knock the bead down.

 

Kevin,

The welder I bought from CurtSix had the remians of a two pound spool in it.

PM me your address and I'll send it to you. Then you can try it and see if you like it before you go buy a spool.

You have to let me know what you think about it though cuz I haven't used it myself.

it's .034...

 

http://products.esabna.com/EN/home/...olid_wire_carbon_low_alloy_steel_carbon_steel

It's a non AWS rated wire. I am going to see where I can get a roll here in ATL and try it out on the Bomb.

 

Yup, that addresses the concerns I mentioned, great way to deal with it!

 

I ended up with a roll of Harris "twenty gauge" but haven't had a chance to play with it yet.

 

Rustybolts
Thanks for the lead. I just ordered a spool online. I just got a 31 Chevy 3 window for my 40th birthday. I will have to replace a lot of wood.

 

Based on this thread, I bought some "easy grind" wire. My experience so far is really ****py welds, lots of spatter, and cratering, difficult to keep an arc. My Lincoln is very adjustable, but I cannot find a sweet spot to make this wire work. Also, it doesn't seem to grind any differently than regular .023.
Two thumbs down. It's always interesting to try something new though.

 

What brand did you buy? We have one Lincoln machine loaded with it, and the others with ER70S-6 Never noticed much if any difference other than easier grinding. We're required to use the ER70S-6 for structural welding on unibodys, and I-CAR testing, but for cold rolled it dosen't matter.

 

I wonder if it would be pickier if the polarity was backwards?

I loaned my small welder to my brother who, for some reason, reversed the polarity.

I got it back and didn't use it for a while. WHen I did I had a hell of a time adjusting it. I could get it to weld but not well.

When I bought my bigger welder and put new wire in it I noticed the polarity chart. Looked at the small one and figured out it had been switched. Switched it back and PRESTO!

 

You need to slow the feed down a hair and turn down the power a hair. That wire welds hotter for some reason. I think it has more nickel in it or something. If you mess with it a little, it'll work fine. If your Lincoln has a chart on the inside of the cover, look what it says for the gauge you're doing, then see what the chart says for going one gauge thinner and try that. If you're welding 18 gauge, pretend you're welding 20 gauge with the easy grind when you make the settings, and that'll be a good starting point. The steel needs to be clean of paint, lead, and rust. Lead, rust, or other garbage will make a lot of splatter if you try to weld through it. The spatter comes from **** vaporizing from underneath the molten pool of metal, and/or the steel is boiling due to too much heat. On thin sheetmetal on the body of a car, I always do a bunch of short tacks. You can't really run a bead on the thin stuff because the heat builds up and you'll eventually blow a hole. Just keep in mind that the easy grind welds slightly hotter than the normal stuff. Another way to control the heat is to start in a little closer and pull back the nozzle slightly after you start the arc. More electrode stickout equals less heat. Just don't pull back too far. Like maybe start with 3/8" stickout and pull back to 1/2" near the end of a short bead. Experiment on s**** metal until you get a feel for it. Oh, another thing that'll cause spatter is if a breeze blows across your weld and washes away the shielding gas.

Good luck!

 

Welding from the back side...
Structurally the metal doesnt care but the only issue is warpage....
When welding from the front of a panel, each side of the seam will warp toward you at each side of the weld. Yes, we straighten it as much as possible but there is always a low spot. Grinding the weld down tells the story.. the sides of the metal are ground before grinding the weld flat.
Normally when you weld from the front of the panel thats not an issue because the seam is simply filled with mud.
But when welding the seam from the backside. you have the opposite.
The welded area is higher. When grinding it flush you are taking more material thickness away at the weld making it thinner than it possibly should be. Smoothing it out with mud is more difficult also. Try it on a sample piece. You will see what I mean.

 

Not trying to be a smart ***, but what you just described sounds like it could be a gas flow problem. I've seen guys try to weld for a long time before they realized the bottle was empty. Just throwing that out there.

-Brad

 

Very true, I welded for about an hour , could not figure what the hell was going on.
Never turned the bottle on
DUH !

 

When I got my MIG recently (A lincoln 175 SP PLUS) I had a hell of a time getting it to weld, it was messy and spattered all over the place.
I just ***umed I was **** at MIG since I hadn't done it much before (mainly TIG).

My wife walks up and looks at it and goes 'looks like you've got no sheilding gas'. Of course I'd already checked the bottle and flow guage, but she seemed to have a point - turns out the gun hose hadn't been inserted far enough into the MIG unit and was allowing all the gas to come out into the air at the box - not at the weld...

Smart chick my wife.

 

2 thumbs up for me.
I run a little Lincoln migpak 15 (220V).
First few spools and I ****ed and wanted to go back oxy/acet!
Been welding fer years. Not a great weldor but got by with a Lincoln IdelArc 225 and oxy/acet.
Went to a welding shop that deals heavy in autobody supplies and bought an "easy grind" without knowing it existed and couldn't get over the difference. Hammer weld and no crack, easy grind (surprise, surprise) and less spatter.
AND I DON"T HAVE GAS YET!!!!
In fact.. I used a unit with gas and 'regular' wire and prefer my setup.
Ok, I would prefer gas AND easy grind but not in the budget yet.
It's all settings, prep and practice.

 

the "easy grind" wire is considered low alloy wire meaning lower tensile strength. regular wire is 70,000 lbs vs 30,000 lbs. just make sure you remember to switch wire when you go back to doing structural work. one of the local tech colleges had to recall 6 months worth of repairs to check the uni-bodies they had fixed because nobody marked the roll of wire so whenever the wire ran out on the main welder the students just fire up welder #2 and used it not realizing it had wrong wire.

 

I've done that!


Well, okay, not for an hour, but still.....

 

I ran out of my regualar .023 wire at about 10pm on a Saturday night. Not sleepy, and not ready to hit the rack. My eye fell upon the roll of Easy Grind i bought a while back...
Here is what I found.
My welder has an uneasy relationship with this wire due to a bad/inadequate ground cable. No noticeable probs b4..
No gas flow problems, but thanks for the hint, I really needed to clean it up anyway.
I can now make a beautiful bead with this stuff, but it is very sensitive to gun angle.
Revised conclusion: I will use Easy Grind for sheetmetal repair, and throw in the other wire for thicker steel.

 

Hey Kevin, When I weld panels together, I like welding from the outside. That's because I use the light reflection that I see on the outside of the panels to get them as straight as possible. Working the seem as I go. Probly doesn't make much sense, but I set up bright lights in the work area and you know the panels pretty staight when the light reflection on one panel meets the reflection of the other. You can pay better attention to the way the metals pulling too. Carl Hagan