Welding Tips and Tricks

First off the machine I'm referring to is a Hobart 175 mig. I have run countless spools of wire through the machine trouble free flawless performance. I bought a new flatbed car trailer a year or so ago. I decided to build a frame on the tongue to mount my winch. I laid everything out and see the machine to weld.

The machine wouldn't weld to save my ass. I mean it just spit and sputtered and blew sparks all over the place. I thought hmmmm bad ground. So I ground a bare shiny like a mirror spot on the trailer, same problem. Moved ground clamp 2" away from welding joint, same problem. So now I'm ready to scream.

So I start looking over my ground wire and clamp, can't find a problem. Connections are all clean, no corrosion to be found. My machines stay in climate controlled environment so corrosion was never a thought. But it never hurts to check.

I set back up on my job at hand, same problem. This machine just won't weld. Checked argon regulator and it appears fine. So I grabbed a few scrap pieces and threw them on the shop floor and thought wth I'll give this a try. The machine welds perfectly!!! Hmmmmmm this is really strange. So I set back up on the job at hand, same crap the machine won't weld !! Moved back to the scraps on the floor, machine performs flawlessly. So I give it one more stab on the winch mount. THIS MACHINE WON'T WELD. I'm convinced this machine has become possessed.

I get to thinking, I wonder if my tig welder will weld on this trailer. To shorten the story the job was completed with my tig welder. Now, why wouldn't the mig do the job??? That's a question I've never been able to find the answer for.

Over the course of the next year the Hobart 175 mig has made lots of repairs and built lots of items. The machine has performed flawlessly. Until last weekend.

My Pops had to do some repairs on his pickup truck. 2 new front frame cab mounts were fabricated and welded on the frame. The little Hobart mig did the job without a hiccup. Then a frame mount for the radiator support was fabricated and that's where the machine bugged out again, same exact story as above. The machine just wouldn't weld on the frame. Pops tried some scraps on my welding table and the machine performed flawlessly. Back to the truck, the machine wouldn't do the job. Same exact symptoms as above.

Thankfully I've acquired a small lincoln mig and my Pops used it to do the job.

So after reading this ridiculously long story what do you guys think may have been the issue?

I am dying to hear what the cause of that was. Like you, I would have said bad ground. It will weld on a truck frame but not a trailer frame. That's just plain weird.

Is your wire solid or cored?

Oily contamination?

Solid core wire, that's all I weld with. I forgot to include that I even changed wire thinking I had some sort of problem wit it. Also changed argon bottles, same issue. Very frustrating.

Sounds like the mig gun cable has separated at the crimp by the machine.

I had one come in for repair once that did that - peeled back to look at it and the wire had frayed and was making intermittent contact.

Can't guarantee that's what happened to yours, but it wouldn't hurt to check it.

I will give that a look next week when I get home. Thanks Dave.