Welding Tips and Tricks

Hi, Im a total newbie when it comes to mig welding. I just picked it up as a hobby. I acquired a lincoln sp135 mig wilder for $75 bucks from a yard sale. Ive been use flux core wire and seem to be doing ok. I would like to move on over to gas. I have a soda fountain in my man cave and had an extra expired co2 tank. I took it to airgas and they swapped it out for 30 bucks. I also found a couple gauge in my shed and have no clue how I acquired them (old age). Will any one of these two gauges work with the co2 tank? if so what type line do I use to connect it to the welder? I was thinking barbed fittings, hose and clamps but I could be way off. I went to a LWS and they wanted to sell me a $175 gas kit with free nylon washers included. Way outta my price range. Any help would be greatly appreciated to get me up and running so when i go back to the lws to get what I need and dont get taken advantage of. Thanks in advance.

Welcome, Bowtech! In your picture the regulator on the left appears to be oxygen, and the reg on the right is without fittings or gauges. You'd probably do best to get a flowmeter- i've >heard < you can get them on Amazon for $30. You can get hose barbs, fittings, and braided hose from Home Depot. There's no magic in an LWS hose kit. The CGA number for co2 is 320.

If you want to be really forward thinking, in case you ever want to use an argon-co2 shielding gas, you might get a cga 580 flowmeter for argon and a co2 adaptor for it. That way you can use co2 now and argon-co2 later.

Before you start welding, though, you'll need to change your welder's polarity. Flux-core MIG is electrode negative, and solid wire MIG is electrode positive. If you haven't already, download the manual for your machine to learn how to change polarity. Let us know how it goes!

+1 on the flowmeter. Beats the heck out of a secondary gauge. Just do a search on Amazon for "welding flow meter" and you'll find a pile of them for <$30.

The Lincoln SP 135+ is a great little machine. I bought one new about 10 years ago and have built a couple of pretty nice projects with it. I've used mine on both CO2 and 75/25. I prefer 75/25, but it does fine on both. Now that I have a 240 volt MIG machine also, I just leave the 135 loaded with FC wire and it's ready to toss in the truck for quick repairs at a friend's place or whatever. No bottles to tote, and no worries about the gas blowing away when welding outside.

Good luck with getting yours set up. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. Keep us posted.

Larry

ldbtx wrote:you'll find a pile of them for <$30.

You're right, I searched and saw a couple CGA580 flowmeters for about $25, and a co2 adaptor for $17. The dedicated co2 flowmeter I saw was about $53, so it actually makes economic sense to buy an argon flowmeter and the adaptor. Plus, Bowtech would be ready for argon-co2 when he gets bit by the welding bug.