Swapped from stick to MIG for our steel beam connections last month

The welds are cleaner and my guys aren't constantly stopping to change rods. Anyone else make the switch and notice a big time difference on structural work?

2 comments

2 Comments

willow40715d ago

My old shop had this one guy, Gary, who fought the MIG switch something fierce. He swore the rod put more metal in the joint. Took him a full week of burning through tips before he admitted the wire was actually laying flatter beads on our column base plates.

sarah53115d ago

We ran into the same thing on some column splices last year. The big difference for us was the lack of slag cleanup between passes, that alone probably saved an hour or two on a ten beam day. I will say we had to dial in our wire feed speed a bit tighter than we expected for the thicker flanges, ended up running a little hotter than what the chart said. Once we got that sorted out we were knocking out connections way faster than with stick. The guys actually complained less about neck fatigue too since they aren't constantly bending down to grab a new rod.