Welding Tips and Tricks

Anybody use .045 fluxcore? My SP 140T came with a .045 drive wheel and I want to know if anybody has used .045. Is it a deeper penetration? It's almost as big as 1/16" rod. Also, Osh has anti-spatter spray for $6.99. Anybody know where I can get that cheaper or is that a good price? It's methyl chloride, so, if anybody has a home remedy, that would be great. Thanks.

.045 is bigger simply because it is a cored wire. It is as small of a flux cored wire as you can get (btw flux core will almost always not need sheilding gas). It will not burn any different than regular steel wire except for some very small differences in puddle and surrounding area appearance. Flux cored wire is for when you need the speed and wire feed part of mig but cannot use shielding gas (wind, accessibility, etc.). Did I help?

Kind of. So, the wire is not bigger, but, the core has bigger flux? If there's really not much difference, I'll probaly just stay with .035. I thought that since the wire was bigger, the welds were bigger and the penetration was deeper for thicker metal.

There are a great many flux-cored wires that require shielding gas, usually 75/25, and many that do not.

Flux-cored wires used with gas are sometimes called "dual-shield".

Flux-core wires will have more penetration, and run MUCH hotter than a similar sized hard-wire (in short circuit mode).

The .045 wire is physically bigger than .035 solid-wire, but due to the flux in the center, it's not "more metal per inch of wire".

With a flux-core wire of any kind, check the manufacturer's recommended polarity, and be sure your machine is set to match.

Steve