Well after speaking to a mate of mine yesterday, I thought I'd do the same as him and do some research into welding gas suppliers... Now I've been a BOC customer for around 10 years now, and my dad has been one for a lot more... but as some of you know, having an account with BOC or Air Products means you have to pay a rental fee on what bottles you have.. and TBH of late it has been getting a little bit OTT now I've now got to the stage where I have 2 bottle, 1 for the MIG, and one for the TIG (argoshield, and argon respectively) so as you can imagine, that's a fair bit of rental per year!! Now to the point in hand, My mate said he'd got a bottle for his TIG that he only had to pay a deposit (and refill) on.. no annual fees!! And you get the deposit back when you return the bottle!! So after a bit of research, there are by the looks of it 2 companies that do this, and they are pretty much nationwide between them!! www.adamsgas.co.uk http://www.southwestgassupplies.co.uk/ luckily for me I do have a stockist near me... so once my bottle of argoshield runs out, I'll be moving suppliers!! Thought it might be useful to you guys who want to use something a little bigger than the small disposable bottles, but don't want to be tied into an annual rental agreement!!
I've always used the CO2 pub gas bottles with my little mig, but what difference is there when you use argon co2, better weld?
I used a c02 bottle then moved to argon shield and I won't go back to c02 the welds are much cleaner and neater runs better I've found anyway us I can Argonne shield cheap
I use Hobbyweld. They are a little short on distributors from what understand, I got mine from JK who stock them.
Cheers for the heads up paul im on the small disposable hobby cannisters and swapped from argon/co2 mix to co2 because i got more gas in the bottle for my money I seem to weld a lot better with argon co2 mix than straight co2 and need less linishing afterwards Once my hands healed ill have a go at running with less gas pressure on the co2 and see if things improve but welding outdoors its hard to gauge when a breeze starts blowing Did you get that pm i sent paul?
never knew about the less gas thingy, mine pours out so i'll be turning that down then! I use pub gas as i get it for a tenner a bottle. Karma for the info guys
I always have my gas low but when I turn the welder and bottle on I try it first but after one weld I need to adjust it bit more ,may be because I bashed to regulator :/
They invented a gizmo called a FLOW METER , Its a high tech piece of kit that shows how many litres per minute of gas you are using ,,,Pi$$ take over .. cheap enough. leave the pub gas in the pub and use argo shield
That's interesting I always have gas on max Gonna try it lower tomorrow )) I'm a self taught welder lol any more tips????
co2 cools the welds as your laying them down which is why some people struggle to weld with it, you need very low flow rates with it just a touch,otherwise you get poor penetration and pigeon poop welds, argoshield needs much more, welding with either is just a question of set up. co2 is also a tenth the cost of argoshield do to the outlay price and the volume used to weld with, but a flow meter is indeed a useful tool or at least a two dial regulator showing bottle contents and outlet pressure
