Welding Wire Quality

[CharlieTR]

This past weekend I learned a good lesson about welding wire quality.
My local hardware store only carries Forney brand welding materials. I had a bad time with their ginding disks and was concerned about buying the flux core wire, but bought anyway. Got home started welding and could not believe the spitting and sputtering coming from this wire. What really concerned me was the color of residue. Instead of tan colored, it looked the color of gray like cigarette ashes. I am not sure if that means anything or not. I am a novice welder. I ended up taking it back and going 50 miles round trip to welding supply store. I really hope this was just one bad unit, but I will not risk buy that brand again.

 

[MadReferee]

The quality of different welding wire, solid and flux core, has been discussed to death on both the Hobart and Miller Motorsports welding forums by the professional welders. Some machines have no preferences while others of the same brand are finicky. It's a crap shoot, machine wise. However, wire wise, most professionals agree that certain brands are much better than others and the foreign made wire is inferior to USA made wire.

In my case, both my MM175 and MM251 have had a steady diet of several hunderd pounds of Harbor Freight made in Italy wire and they both have had absolutely no problems. I have made a few destructive tests using USA and HF wire and could see no difference in the weld or penetration. As long as the solid wire meets ER 70S-6 specs it should be ok for the average hobbyist.

Miller Motersports welding forum

Hobart welding forums

 

[czechsonofagun]

I had always good experience with Lincoln wire - from home depot - but the wire from TSC, whatever brand it is - seemed to be worse. The difference was mainly noticeble while doing body work (I drive 1986 CJ7 and there are rust holes in the body every year to be mended)

 

[kenmac]

I don't know the brand wire I use .I get it from the welding supply store where I get my gas bottle changed out. I've never had any problems with this wire whatever brand it is.

 

[MrJimi]

I am like kenmac, I use the wire from the welding supply store and I won't use that HF or wallyworld crap, welders cost too much to use crap, I am not an expert but when I weld something I like to have it stick together
Jim

 

[RonMar]

I have had very good luck with Lincoln

 

[MadReferee]

I am like kenmac, I use the wire from the welding supply store and I won't use that HF or wallyworld crap, welders cost too much to use crap, I am not an expert but when I weld something I like to have it stick together

Define crap. If the wire meets the ER70S-6 standard, which almost all do then it should be ok for normal mild steel use. Crap could simply be that the human doing the welding is not all that experienced or that the welder itself in not up to par, or the ground is bad, the mill scale has not been removed, etc. I could go on and on. I also don't see how a poor quality wire equates to how much a welder costs since the wire just comes off a spool thru a roller and out to the gun. Again, define crap.

The two largest suppliers of welding wire here in the USA come from Italy and Turkey. You had better check the source of the wire you are using as it probably came from one of these two countries. Speciality wires and wires with slightly different alloys for special needs are usualy made in USA. There are some expensive mild steel wires make in USA.

The real bottom line is that it's usually the person doing the welding along with the machine settings that determines whether or not a weld will hold. Don't blame the wire.

 

[Dargo]

I've had good performance from Forney. I have an account at my local Air Gas store and I get Forney for the same price as the unknown stuff at the stores known for selling junk. My thoughts on Harbor Fright, in general, are not good. Even so, I think it's possible to get something you can use there, but it's a crap shoot. My sister and dad have been certified welders for decades (yeah, one of my sisters is a master welder) and their shops get their supplies from Air Gas. They go through hundreds of pounds of wire and rod a day. If there were any consistant problem with Forney, I think they would have seen it.

 

[AlanB]

Mad, I guess this is one where I see things differently from you.

Because something Meets spec, does not mean it is as good as everyone else's.

That HF MIG meets the spec of Being a 210 amp (or whatever) Mig Welder, but I believe you would agree with me that the control and quality of weld produced by your Miller would be better? Maybe not.

I personally like Lincoln wire, last I checked when I went to school there they were producing it in house. I can not back it up with facts, but if my memory serves me, they made an awful lot of welding consumables, I want to say a majority, but again, I would have to look for the numbers.

I can tell the difference between the Fourney and the lincoln wire. The amount of slag, popping etc is substantially more with the lower quality wire. Same machine, same day, same welder, same base stock. As fair of a test as I can think of.

So, yes, I occasionally run the Forney or other off brand wire, (usually when I run out in the middle of a job and Rural King is all that is open) but I much prefer to run higher quality wire that well exceeds the base requirements of the standard.

 

[MadReferee]

Well, I have first hand experience with both a made in USA wire and the made in Italy HF generic wire. I normally use HF wire and have put over 200 lbs thru both my MM175 and MM251 with no problems whatsoever with respect to feeding. I have also done destructive tests on HF wire welds and have seen no discernable problems due to lack of penetration. I have also used the made in USA brand from my LWS. Paid around $36 for 10 lbs vs $20 for 10 lbs of HF wire. I ran the same destructive tests and saw no difference. The USA wire had no problems feeding either.

Based on my usage, I could see no difference in the wire characteristics, the quality of the weld and bead, or the mechanical feeding of the welders, between the two wires. The avearge hobbyist will probably see no differences either, except from his wallet.

Now if I was doing some critical welding that required a cetified weld then maybe I might look to trying different wires. BTW, the ER70S-6 spec really pertains to the alloy content in the wire. Different brands of wire may need a different setup on the welder too, simply because the protective coating on the wire may have different characteristics.

Again, the real bottom line regarding good welds is NOT the wire but it is the PERSON doing the welding and how he has the machine setup.

 

[RonMar]

I agree that a lot of problems can be attributed to the operator. But I believe the quality of the wire will have an effect also. We may be mixing experiences here in this thread also. For my experiences, I am talking about innershield wire only as I believe the person who started this thread was also. My solid wire/gas shield experience is 20 years ago and I never supplied or compared wire, I just ran beads.

On the last ship I was on(2 years ago), the DC's were about to get rid of an almost new miller portable MIG welder. The shop Chief said it didn't perform all that well and that surprised me. I asked to take a look at it and he was right, I ran a few beads with it and it was pretty nasty with an unusual looking flux residue and not at all what I was used to on my own equipment. The wire in it had a Miller label on it and probably came with the machine. I could find nothing wrong with the machine itself or it's power source.

I happened to have a new spool of lincoln wire out in my truck and we loaded that into the machine. It was an immediate night and day difference in performance.

We went from a porus unstable bead with excessive spatter to a smooth flowing bead with no changes in the machine settings. I don't think it is really an issue with the metal alloy of the wire, but more an issue with the process used to install the flux core and the quality of the flux used. it may also be an issue of theage of the wire or the way the wire was stored before purchased which may have an effect on the innershield.

Instead of the metal flowing into the bead, it was explosively being ejected from the weld puddle leaving a real nasty porus weld. I believe the flux was causing it. I have used other wire at different times on other peoples machines with mostly good but varying results. The results I have had with Lincoln innershield wire have been consistently good. They say that it is produced in an ISO certified facility, so perhaps that has something to do with it. Perhaps I have just been lucky and gotten fresh/new spools. but so far so good.

 

[Dargo]

I've honestly never used any flux wire with any of my MIGs. I don't have a clue as to how they would vary between brands. Personally, I like not having to deal with slag.

 

[RonMar]

Unlike stick welding, The slag from innershield MIG is very thin and easy to remove. I usually use a wire wheel on a die grinder to clean up my welds. It just takes a single pass and you are down to bare weld metal in a few seconds. For places I can't get the die grinder into, I use a tooth brush sized wire brush.

 

[kenmac]

I'am with dargo . I have used flux core wire in the past but, I prefer to use the gas. I just checked on the type wire that I bought from the welding supply & it is lincoln brand, same as my machine.The next time I'am in H.F. I will buy a roll of their brand & try it.I just have always bought from my welding supplier without any thought of the brand he was selling me.

 

[dfkrug]

Based on my usage, I could see no difference in the wire characteristics, the quality of the weld and bead, or the mechanical feeding of the welders, between the two wires.

This is my experience, too. I now buy the HF 10lb rolls of .035 ER70S
and they have worked identically to the Lincoln wire I used to buy....

 

[ohiooutdoorsman]

Can`t help but comment here, I happen to work for Lincoln Electric in their consumable division, I have been making welding wire for about 20 years now, I have made millions of pounds of it and put my code on it, mig, flux, I have made just about all of it with the exception of stick. One of the reasons our product is top quality is we use quality materials, state of the art machinery, quality checks throughout the processing from start to finish and also we are payed piecework for everything we make,if we make a poor quality product we don`t get payed for it, if it comes back from the field it is traced back to the individual that made it and we are given points that go againest the bonus we get at the end of the year, bottom line is if we make garbage it costs us money as an individual! if you have a problem with Lincoln wire return it and Lincoln with replace it.

 

[yomax4]

Like the guy above, I do not make wire but I have sold Hundreds of Thousands of Pounds of all types of welding wire you can imagine. One of the easiest to duplicate is ER70S6. Most average welders can not tell the difference between mid grade and premium grade because of the variables that are involved. From what I read, Most people on here have Medium grade type of welders which is all good. Top Shelf Equipment asks for Top Shelf Wires like Lincoln L-56. Sure you can buy HF wire and it is fine but try to run it on a Robot or in Pulse or Twin Pulse Mode. If you dont use Pulse thats ok but there is a huge difference in wire out there. Your Cored Wires have a Shelf Life. If they lay around in the humidity they will perform like the post above. If you have a $300 welder buy cheap wire. If you have a $8000.00 welder you " Will " buy better wire. Anywhere in between, Gravitate to the best wire you can afford. It's all about what works for you. People don't use expensive wire because they don't know about the cheap stuff. They use it because of what it is..It's all fun, Weld Away!!!