MIG welding tip #1 ...Get a better Ground clamp.

This is probably one of the most important mig welding tips ever!

Ever heard someone light up with a mig gun and it sounds like a drive-by shooting?

You might think the wire speed is way too high but 9 times out of 10, it's just a Bad ground!

That’s right a bad ground.

It is such a simple fix.

People have trashed machines and bought new ones for this reason alone and all the while, all that was wrong was a bad ground.

Why? Have you paid close attention to ground clamps recently? They kind of suck!

Some of them look like they came off a cheap set of jumper cables from the Dollar General store

. 

 

It used to be that ground clamps were made from copper or brass. Now they are copper plated steel with maybe a tiny piece of copper on the jaws....or worse yet, a piece of copper plated steel on the jaws.

Guess what? The old heavy ground clamps are better.

You could say that about a lot of things right?

 It is no secret that copper is the best conductor.

That’s why copper ground clamps are better. Especially ones that have a strong spring.

Bottom line is...in order to get good starts with short circuit MIG, you need a really good ground. 

Try this down and dirty tip for a better ground.

Get an old piece of welding lead and strip the insulation and use that along with your ground clamp to provide lots of contact points so that your mig arc will never sputter due to intermittent grounding.

#2 Mig welding tip... Watch Your CTWD.

The second most important of Mig welding tips is "CTWD" (contact tip to work distance)

Sometimes the term Stickout and CTWD are used interchangeably and I have been guilty of this plenty myself.

Technically, Stickout is the unmelted wire extending past the nozzle.  That can be meaningless when the contact tip is recessed a lot.

A more meaningful term is CTWD witch is the length of unmelted wire between the contact tip and the work.

Too long a CTWD causes the wire to heat up and will soften the arc and make the weld pile up.

A longer CTWD can work ok and can be a good thing on really thin sheet metal like body panels.

and for high amperage spray transfer a longer CTWD is preferred.

But if you want a good crisp arc using short circuit mig on thicker metal, keep the CTWD less than 1/2 inch.

tip recessed= too much CTWD = ropey welds

Thats better...tip poking out= shorter CTWD = better penetration and smoother welding on thicker metals.

You can often find different nozzle /contact tip combinations for different types of mig welding guns where the tip is flush or slightly protruding... but  sometimes, you might need to trim the nozzle.

#3 MIG Welding Tip..Learn to weld Uphill

Another MIG welding tip is to Weld Uphill on anything thicker than 1/4". Just look at the lack of fusion in the photo below.

Short Circuit MIG aka Short Arc MIg is a good process but only when used properly.

Welding downhill over hot rolled mill scale often results in severe lack of fusion.

The weld can look fine but as you can see in the cross section above, can have severe lack of fusion.

While this usually happens on metal thicker than 1/4" or on downhill welds, it can happen anytime settings and technique are out of scope.

Welding uphill makes all the difference.

MIG Welding Tip #4 Remove Heavy Mill scale