03-15-2015, 03:57 AM
The mig process is dependent on maintaining a high standard of cleanliness. It includes keeping the wire clean as well as the base metal.
Both areas needs to be kept free of all possible contaminants.These are all critical points noted in the Miller,Hobart and Lincoln electric welding education notes available off the internet. Its all there for anyone to see.
It is incorrect to think to think that the wipers will strip corrosion of up rusty wire. Your lube matic kleener pads are only designed to remove those loose metallic particles and other dust that finds its way into the wire feed enclosure while the wire is mounted on the spool and in the machine.
Three things are about to happen and all of them detrimental to the operation of your mig:
1. You will contaminate your weld deposit if you use the dirty wire-expect porosity and loss of strength in the deposited weld bead
2. You will contaminate the cable liner
3. You will damage the contact tip and lose optimum operation of your mig.
It is false economy to go to these lengths to enable the use of some crappy wire that needs to be chucked in the scrap bin.
On a big 15KG rolls it is possible to spool off 4 to 5 layers to regain a rust free zone but on the smaller ones .5 kg or so,you have not got a lot of layers of wire to work with.Once you get down to a clean area there is not enough usable layers wire left to make the whole exercise practical! This sounds like what you are dealing with.
Thirty years plus of trade experience with the mig process is what the above comments are based on.
As this thread was posted 3 weeks back I am guessing that the op has already found out about the above points. Hopefully these comments may help someone coming along later.
Cheers
Ozwelder
Both areas needs to be kept free of all possible contaminants.These are all critical points noted in the Miller,Hobart and Lincoln electric welding education notes available off the internet. Its all there for anyone to see.
It is incorrect to think to think that the wipers will strip corrosion of up rusty wire. Your lube matic kleener pads are only designed to remove those loose metallic particles and other dust that finds its way into the wire feed enclosure while the wire is mounted on the spool and in the machine.
Three things are about to happen and all of them detrimental to the operation of your mig:
1. You will contaminate your weld deposit if you use the dirty wire-expect porosity and loss of strength in the deposited weld bead
2. You will contaminate the cable liner
3. You will damage the contact tip and lose optimum operation of your mig.
It is false economy to go to these lengths to enable the use of some crappy wire that needs to be chucked in the scrap bin.
On a big 15KG rolls it is possible to spool off 4 to 5 layers to regain a rust free zone but on the smaller ones .5 kg or so,you have not got a lot of layers of wire to work with.Once you get down to a clean area there is not enough usable layers wire left to make the whole exercise practical! This sounds like what you are dealing with.
Thirty years plus of trade experience with the mig process is what the above comments are based on.
As this thread was posted 3 weeks back I am guessing that the op has already found out about the above points. Hopefully these comments may help someone coming along later.
Cheers
Ozwelder
Ozwelder, proud to be a member of MetalworkingFun Forum since Jan 2014.