[Saz]

I was one of the lucky ones to order Lincoln's Garage pack. If you are not familiar with the deal, for $2599 you get the MIG 210 and Square Wave 200 then get a $599 rebate. Long story short, both welders for 2K. I also now have 2 55cf bottles from USA weld, a ton of wire, stick electrodes but no tig rods yet. I now need to make an extension cord to go from my 4 prong to the 3 prong plugs on the welders. I did use the MP210 to run some 7018 on 110v but kept tripping the breaker. I still need gas and a 220 outlet...... I am dying that airgas isn't open today......
Here they are.

[Artie F. Emm]

Congratulations on TWO new machines! Looking good!

[Rick_H]

Congrats, that sounds like a nice deal. Those 55 tanks will not last long,

[Saz]

Congrats, that sounds like a nice deal. Those 55 tanks will not last long,

Yeah, but for $100 each the deal couldn't be beat. Airgas will swap them right over the counter for $20 and $28 for argon and C25. Way cheaper than leasing. If I ever get heavier into it, ill find some bigger bottles.

[exnailpounder]

Congrats on the new toys. You can use Mig wire to Tig with if you want to play. Find another LWS...Air Gas sucks. If you haven't realized it yet, you will pretty soon.

[Saz]

Congrats on the new toys. You can use Mig wire to Tig with if you want to play. Find another LWS...Air Gas sucks. If you haven't realized it yet, you will pretty soon.

Yeah, they do. But they will do the initial swap for the bottles with no questions asked. All the other LWS are twoce the $$$ for gas, and they will charge me for a bottle test. As far as the TIG wire, I have been looking at some I found on Amazon from Blue Demon. I am looking at 1/16" and 3/32" ER70S6, 4043 and silicon bronze. Any issues with the brand?

Also in regard to the MIG wire, I have 3 35# spools of different wire but they are too big for my MP210. I need to find some empty 8" spools I can re-spool from the larger ones.

[exnailpounder]

Congrats on the new toys. You can use Mig wire to Tig with if you want to play. Find another LWS...Air Gas sucks. If you haven't realized it yet, you will pretty soon.

Yeah, they do. But they will do the initial swap for the bottles with no questions asked. All the other LWS are twoce the $$$ for gas, and they will charge me for a bottle test. As far as the TIG wire, I have been looking at some I found on Amazon from Blue Demon. I am looking at 1/16" and 3/32" ER70S6, 4043 and silicon bronze. Any issues with the brand?

Also in regard to the MIG wire, I have 3 35# spools of different wire but they are too big for my MP210. I need to find some empty 8" spools I can re-spool from the larger ones.

There is a guy here...entity-unknown who was using the Blue Demon filler wire and having problems with dirt and contamination. I don't know what thread it's in but it is recent. He had to clean and wipe his filler wire as they were very contaminated. There are better places to buy filler than Amazon like USAWELD. You might pay a little more but your assured quality. You might want to get some 308l and 309l stainless because you're going to want to learn how to weld stainless. Tig brazing is fun to play with but not very popular. I think I have done one repair with Silbr in the last 2 years.

[exnailpounder]

Congrats, that sounds like a nice deal. Those 55 tanks will not last long,

Yeah, but for $100 each the deal couldn't be beat. Airgas will swap them right over the counter for $20 and $28 for argon and C25. Way cheaper than leasing. If I ever get heavier into it, ill find some bigger bottles.

You could have leased a big bottle(S bottle) for $200 for a 7 year lease and the fills are cheaper. I pay $73 for a 330cf bottle fill and my lease works our to $39 a year. 330cf last a LOOONNNG time. Those SCUBA tanks are a pain in the ass. They are always empty. You're gonna use ALOT of gas when you start out. The more experienced guys always recommend bigger bottles to the new guys for a reason. If it was me, I would return those Scuba tanks and use the money for a lease on a big bottle. Big saving in the long run.

[soutthpaw]

Those are 20CF bottles from HF by the looks of it. I would keep an eye on Craigslist get used bottles. Be sure the neckring is blank. Ok if is out of date, LWS will just swap you tanks and add about $20 for the retest. So does not matter if it passes or fails because you will never see that bottle again.

[Oscar]

There is a guy here...entity-unknown who was using the Blue Demon filler wire and having problems with dirt and contamination. I don't know what thread it's in but it is recent. He had to clean and wipe his filler wire as they were very contaminated. There are better places to buy filler than Amazon like USAWELD. You might pay a little more but your assured quality. You might want to get some 308l and 309l stainless because you're going to want to learn how to weld stainless. Tig brazing is fun to play with but not very popular. I think I have done one repair with Silbr in the last 2 years.

I use a whole bunch of Blue Demon tig wire and I have no problems with it. From steel, aluminum, SS in all flavors, it's worked well for me. It all boils down to basic common sense TIG-prep; of course you don't want to have wire out in the open so it rusts/oxidizes and then just grab it and TIG with it. But if it's stored properly and is free from excessive oxidation, a quick wipe with acetone is all it takes to run with it.

[Saz]

The bottles are over twice the size as the little HF bottles, and there are no damn used bottles around here. The only one I found was a 300CF, that I dont want to move around the country. Still active duty army for a couple more years at least.......

The shops here would only do one year leases for $48/yr per bottle. Gets a little pricey for a hobbyist like me, and the smaller ones are easy to move around and keep out of the way.

[entity-unknown]

The Blue Demon S702-2 rods I got from Amazon did not weld very well. The main issue was the shipping carboard box that contains the rods was ripped and crushed. This split both plastic cases and considering the overall damage leads me to believe there was tons of cardboard dust over everything. If I wipe the rod down with a any color cloth I can see the dust come off and it's not just the copper coating.
After a gentle cleaning using the green scotch brite side of a sponge and then a follow up of the yellow side (you know the sponges I'm talking about) I've enjoyed the results very consistently. The welds were always dull no matter what I did without this, but after that things looked much better and I even had more room for mistakes on my settings/pedal while playing around and it still almost always looked nice.

As for your Extension cord, many machines allow you to replace the 4 prong receptacle with a 3 prong. Call the MFG and they'll tell you if you can.
Here's the 50Ft extension cord I bought and they print a company name on it:
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Lighted-We ... +cord+220v
You can purchase the same cord for about $10-15 less if you don't go for the name which I realized later but could not find the option when I originally purchased the cord. I found the un-labeled version later so I'm sure it's still there but you might find this one worth while.
If you go to your local hardware store for a receptacle chances are they've already had 100 people come in and ask for the same receptacle/outlet so they'll point you in the right direction and maybe even have them labeled as a welder receptacle/outlet.

[sedanman]

Just a minor correction to the above. Plugs with 3 and 4 terminals are not 3 and 4 phase.

[entity-unknown]

DOH! I meant prong. Correcting...

[Charlie337]

As stated before I've had great dealings with USA weld as well as cyber weld for anything I order .

[Saz]

Got some gas today, and tried to make some welds both with and without filler. Since the LWS I went to didnt have any tig rod (WTF?!?) I took some .030 ER70S6 mig wire, doubled it over and twisted it up with a drill, then cut it into 18" pieces. Not ideal but it was all I had. Probably should have tripled it, oh well. The welds look like crap, but i'm learning- also learning how to use my new helmet....... Arc one with idf81 lens..... I need a cheater lens.....

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[exnailpounder]

I usually wear a pair of strong readers when I weld along with the cheater I have in my hood. The cheater in my hood kinda distorts everything without wearing glasses.

[Saz]

Good to know about the cheater. Ill try it and see what happens. I had about an hour of free time tonight, so I sat down and started laying beads on a piece of 2" 1/8" wall square tubing scrap. I'm getting the rhythm and manipulation of the pedal down a little better. I have a LONG way to go, but as Jody says, "stick with the 3 P's- practice, practice practice"....... Working on it.

Oh BTW, I found a pound of 1/16" ER70S2 to work with also. BIG difference.

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