Gas metal arc welding

We look at key features such as auto-darkening filters, optical clarity, true color viewing, shade range, arc sensor performance, viewing area, battery options, headgear adjustment, weight, and lens replacement costs.

We discuss why comfort matters during long shifts, how MIG, TIG, and stick welding can influence helmet choice, and why low amperage work may require careful attention to lens sensitivity.

Popular welding helmet models The episode considers well-known options, including the Lincoln Electric Viking 3350, Miller Digital Infinity, E.S. Abbey Sentinel A50, and 3M Speedglass 9100FX Air.

Rather than assuming one model suits everyone, we explain how to compare features with your work conditions, budget, and respiratory protection needs, check current manufacturer specifications, safety approvals, compatibility, and availability before purchasing.

As I'd see it in the older days, there was probably oxy-selene gas welding which I'm going to go out on a limb and say no one's using anymore, I may be completely wrong.

Then we've got TIG welding and we've got MIG welding and more recently laser welding.

If we just leave laser welding out for a moment, can you go over those other threes, even as a non-expert as you say yourself, could you give us sort of pros and cons of those different methods and where one would be used over the other?

Yeah, look, I'm glad you clarified that because I got into this laser stuff recently almost accidentally.

I've never oxy welded myself.

I shouldn't say old.

traditional coach builders that have been trained the traditional way will swear by oxy welding and a good oxy weld is absolutely beautiful and again you can control that heat source down very small and very pinpoint accurate with the way it's having a tip and you get to control the filler material separate to the heat so then you know again it's the heat minimizing heat Then you have, I think you mentioned, was it MIG? Did you say the MIG?

MIG and TUG, yeah, which would probably be our two mainstream options these days, I think.

Yeah, that's actually one of the biggest reasons why I teach welding classes now.

So on the weekends, I do MIG welding and TIG welding and stick welding classes and other different basic fabrication classes.

Because it's something that I feel like I wish I could have had and would have been able to benefit from to expedite my learning curve.

Yeah.

That's just something ingrained in our mentality.

It's actually easier to learn if you know nothing about it than it is to try and run it like a MIG gun or a TIG torch or anything like that.

Yeah, and I think it depends on who your teacher is.

So I had a German guy tell me one time, he was like, look, you can't teach an arc welder to be a laser welder.

The knobs on the machine that you see aren't even all the knobs either.

So you mentioned a couple of things, the power, the wobble, how wide are you wobbling? How fast are you wobbling? Your wire diameter is super important.

So if you're MIG welding, you can put many inches of wire into a single inch of weld, you get a big fillet.

With a laser, your wire feed speed controls your travel speed.

Everyone's holding some two by fours and waiting for their turn.

And then there's Dan Levine and these other, you know, guys and they're welding things up and they're making stuff and they're hitting with the torch and they're MIG welders and all this stuff.

And all I can think of is, whoa, welding is not for me.

It just seems like, you know, I can't picture anything other than B.A. Baracus from the A-Team and he's welding up something and I'm just like, whoa, I don't do it like this.

I don't know how to fake it until I make it.

I don't know how to weld stuff up.

I don't know how to MIG weld.

I know how to grind with a grinder, with a handheld grinder.

This one's really cool because it doesn't utilize a spool gun.

It's more like a standard MIG setup, but that's just using flux core wire, no gas, but you have a standard MIG gun, not a spool gun.

So it's- A lot easier for you to try to get into those harder places where a spool gun won't fit.

So this is a neat twist on some of the other trail welders out there.

So Welder Underground is a nonprofit located in Brooklyn, New York, where they teach fabrication and welding skills through art-based projects.

So we had the opportunity to not only learn how to weld, which included MIG, TIG, STIC, but also become a fabricator, you know, learn, like I mentioned before, the hard and soft skills that it takes to be successful.

Learning the basic fundamentals of being, I guess, a blue collar worker, I could say.

So even as simple as learning how to take efficient notes, learning how to read a tape measure, learning how to read a blueprint, learning how to work within a team, how to communicate with a foreman or somebody that's in charge, how to see a project through from beginning to end, how to troubleshoot a project.

What kind of welding and what kind of g- gun apparatus are you using?

So it's a, [clears throat] it's a flux core MIG welder.

It is not a spool gun, so you, you don't have to try to fit this, you know, fairly large box up between, you know, links in your transmission to get to the top side or something.

It's just your standard MIG gun.

Okay.

Um, all right.

Yeah, that makes...

Uh, that's nice because there are a lot of tight places underneath a vehicle when you're in the middle of a rock trail, and that doesn't necessarily have the most comfortable laying and welding positions, um, to be able to get up, you know, on top of a frame in between suspension links, steering components.