Anyody on the board using a spool gun attachment for mig aluminum welding? I'm replacing my welder and am considering adding a spool gun but have never used one.
Used quit a few of them in my jobs over the years. They are great on new cleaned aluminum. Very hard to get a good weld on old aluminum because it is porous and the heat draws contamination as you weld. Even if you use an acid to clean it is still difficult. I would suggest not getting one for our hobby unless you have a toy fetish. rarely ever needed unless your rebuilding intake manifolds for living.
If you do get/use one MAKE SURE you wear a resperator. Vaporizing the rod while welding is killer on the lungs.
Very good for production welding things like trailers, tankers etc. Very limited use un the hot rod hobby.
We have one on one of our Migs...tried to use it for a set of railings, and ended up tigging over the welds...have most of a case of wire on the shelf....and a wire feed unit we never use...
I have a setup to use aluminum wire with my mig. It has a plastic feed liner with conventional style head and cables. The problem I have with it is feeding wire. It "birdnests" constantly. I can't seem to weld more than once without taking the whole thing apart and cleaning it. POS! That's just my personal opinion. The rest of the welder is very dependable and welds .030 steel wire nice. Dave.
Tig or Gas welding is probably more suited. I use gas for anything under .062, and tig for anything over. Unless its a resto piece then its gas no matter what.
Bought one as I don't have a TIG nor know how to use one. I've had limited use of mine but it seemed to work okay. The spool gun does take some getting used to - it's big and bulky and I personally can't seem to create the same smooth action that I can with my regular MIG on steel. Steve
Like anything else concerning welding, you have to know what your doing, the machine is just part of the process. Aluminum has to be clean to weld it. Dirty aluminum is a pita to clean. Aluminum does not "change color" when it gets hot, it gets shiny just before it disappears. Cutting or grinding aluminum tends to ruin saw blades and fill up grinding wheels and all kinds of cutters very fast. Spool gun welds are seldom "pretty'. The speed and heat level required to use a spool gun tend to look like the weld was thrown at the aluminum. If you stop during a weld, you have to clean the "soot" off the weld area before you can weld again. A spool gun pushes a lot of wire through it and creates a lot of splatter. The splatter messes up the tips and builds up in the gas nozzle pretty fast. Have plenty of tips on hand, and expect the clean the nozzle a lot. You can't allow the wire to protrude out of the nozzle very far or at starts it will burn back and ruin the tip (in less then a second!), or it gets too far out during the weld process the gas won't protect the weld. The gun is large and tends to be where you want the line of view to be or it will be against something giving you a poor angle of weld. Welding with a spool gun is sometimes a pita, but it sure beats trying to send .030 aluminum wire through a 12'or 15' whip. If you intend on doing a lot of aluminum welding, this might be a good time to step up to a tig, but a spool gun has worked well for me for about 12 years now.
I have this same set up on a 110 lincoln mig. Had that same birdnest problem, a salesman suggested using a harder alloy wire. Problem solved, have actually done some decent aluminum welding with it, and no birdnests.
Spool guns are very fun... But as everyone above has said, not very usable in the car hobby. If you wanna weld alum learn some tig and buy an AC welder...
X2 on this. With regards to feeding I find 4043 welds better but 5356 will feed better. Clean aluminum I'd number one. Hot and fast is number two and three
Funny thing is, Eric Vaughn uses MIG on the wheels he narrows and widens. The welds are clean, no splatter and uniform. He doesn't use a spool gun but the regular gun on a fixed mount and a motor driven fixture to spin the wheel slowly. I thought he used TIG, but watched him and it's all MIG.
You can weld alum with a mig without a spool gun. There is also a push/pull set up. The push/pull uses the normal powerwheel pushing the wire and an additional in the torch pulling the wire. It gets rid of all the weight that the spool gun causes, which creates extra fatigue, and more often changing the spool since you have to use a small spool. Push /pull setups are a bit costly though.
Oh, and I agree on cleanliness, it's critical. I was welding a school project for my daughter (a Rube Goldberg machine) and kept blowing spatter everywhere - I ***umed the new 1/8" aluminum welding rods I was using as the structure for the machine were clean enough because they were brand new but I could not get them to weld cleanly until I degreased them and polished them all with a fine stainless brush to remove the oxide. Coolest project and an A+ though! Steve
I have used spool guns and I loved them for what they are for, heavy guage welding, I welded together a truck frame and bed etc etc out of aluminum, it welded beautifully but it was mostly big pieces and could really put the weld to 'em. We did weld lighter stuff with it plenty ok as well but took some spool gun experience to make it pretty. I would rather use tig on auto ****, much prettier and bead as small or big as you need.
Practice make perfect. Don't expect to pick a gun up and weld good. If you push the weld instead of pull it, the soot doesn't have to be cleaned as often. Practice, practice, and practice. Been using one for 35 ears.. Yes, it does have it's place and that is not everywhere. Oh and, there if a fine line of adjustment between too slow of feed and burning back in the tip often and too fast of feed and making excess splatter that has to be cleaned off when done.
Spool guns are a good addition to a mig welder. I have welded aluminum tig, 110 aluminum through a 10' whip and spool gun. Aluminum tig is best but expensive. I have welded a lot with a spool gun including motorcycle cases and john boats.
I have a spool gun that I bought for aluminum. My experiences are similar to what others have stated. Practice, hot and move fast help. As a side note, I have also used the gun with smaller diameter wire on sheet metal. Seemed to work a little better than the .035 wire. I also use it for welding stainless. Neal
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