Welding Tips and Tricks

hi there, registered for this forum today. I am a pure welding beginner. I've watched various youtube videos to some sense of what to do. I acquired a welder almost by accident, the guy I bought a compressor off of was almost giving it away so I thought what the heck. Just this afternoon I assembled a Nomad portable welding table and fixed a sheet of 20 gauge metal to it and 'drew' my first successful beads. My welder is older and basic, it is a 'Solar' 120V 90 amp wire feed machine with a bottle of 75/25 CO2/argon gas and loaded with 0.023" diam solid core wire. Everything seems to work ok, its taken me a bit to realize how important it is to get a good ground and have clean metal to work on. The one problem I've identified so far is that as long as the welder is 'on' (ie voltage setting turned on and unit plugged in) the wire will arc to the work material whether or not I have pulled the trigger. This causes the wire to burn back to the nozzle. I'm wondering if there is a way to repair the welder so that I can prevent this occuring, so that I'll only strike the arc when I pull the trigger? Thanks and looking forward to spending time on this forum.
Bill P in Calgary

I did some googling and understand now that it's likely that my welder came this way, ie without a contactor. Not ideal but I think I will be able to live with it, adjusting how I begin a bead and taking some precautions with the gun.

Quite right, Bill,

The lower-priced units commonly have the tip hot at all times. This is most annoying when welding innershield where no gas nozzle is usually used. It's also a good way to get lightly shocked in wet conditions.

Welcome aboard!

Steve S

Bill, welcome to the forum.