Thanks for the kind words and the stories, I enjoy reading what people post 😀. I am glad to help people out, that’s why I make the videos 😀. I will have to try out c10 on some thin sheet. My welder is capable of mig welding really thin material with .023 wire and c25. However many people’s machines don’t have the low end performance to do that (or the ability to use .023 wire), and I could see a high argon gas mixture really helping keep the weld from blowing through the material. Thin material is probably the most frustrating welding to learn. I know stick welding sub 1/8th material is extremely difficult. Not a fun time lol.

I love the bend tests

i was about to comment on that... loved the video but missing bend test!! look forward to it... good thing I was planning to get a 100% CO2 anyways... now I am even more convinced 100% is best option for me but i will also watch your spray arc video now.

btw... question about overhead... would it make a difference between 100% co2 vs a c-25 for welding overhead? for overhead I only use fluccore because Mig for me much harder as it drips a lot of lot.

I am with you 100%... I always look for some number for comparison and Gregs channel is the only channel giving us comparative numbers​@@brnmcc01

Just for clarification the I in MIG stands for inert gas such as Argon gas..but once you mix active gas such as C02 in a mix or straight tank the correct term for that welding process would be MAG welding as it uses active /oxidation gases which does allow hotter , deeper penetration at lower power settings..in other countries besides the USA they indeed use the terms MIG / MAG depending on the gas used..most people have never MIG welded ever in their 20+ yrs of welding as they have always used mixed gas vs straight Agron..

Ah, for things car like exhaust pipes then? All the cheaper stuff like Walker is all aluminum coated mild steel seam welded pipe.

@@brnmcc01 I'd run .030 or .035 on exhaust pipe. Excellent on aluminized.

Thanks for the settings and your thoughts. I bet it would work better than c25 on poorer surfaces.

@@makingmistakeswithgreg You're welcome. Thank you for the videos and reviews. You also opened my eyes to flux core and the possibilities. The Titanium 125 is a game changer at home.

No doubt 100% co2 mig will far outperform the penetration depth of 7018. What I am curious about is if it will handle a bend test in my shop press as good as c25. There is a slight reduction in tensile strength with 100% co2, but I don’t believe it’s enough to make much of a difference. I am doing some bend testing tomorrow, I guess I will find out lol.

@@makingmistakeswithgreg I look forward to your results. I've tested some 1/8" wall tubing and the tube will break before the weld does. It'll be interesting to see your bend tests on thicker material, as I'm not set up to bend much more than 3/16".

With all the mig testing I have done it honestly seems like the biggest hold back is that 200 amp ceiling and sub 23volt cap on many machines. When you cross over 200 amps and 26v capability all of a sudden mig becomes extremely capable. Thats why I went with the rebel 235 which can hit 250a intermittent. It’s setup more for what a person would want for handling anything in the home shop. The pro pulse machines are nice, but honestly for what they cost the actual capability is somewhat limited. Tons of settings and modes, but still limited by output. It’s hard to spend that much money when a few 7018s can get the job done in any position, fairly easy.

No problem. Unexpected results are always good 😀

The pliers are definitely nice. I like how thin they are, I find them super useful for a ton of random jobs. Dual shield, lowhi, or spray are really the best solutions for thick plate. I will say the 100% co2 is far better on 3/8th plate than I would have expected. I am going to do some bend testing and if it survives that it’s worth it.

Cost wise co2 here is definitely cheaper. That 20lb tank is something like 14$ to fill, and I guess it equals a 150cuft cylinder. That’s 7-8 hours of mig welding for 14$ of shielding gas. The bottles are something like 100$. If you factor in the far cheaper bare wire and the cheap gas fill ups, it’s actually probably cheaper per 10lb spool with co2 mig over flux core. Obviously where you live is probably harder. If you can find a way it would be worth it to do it.

Me too lol. Only took me 6+ months to try it out lol.

Much appreciated, my experience echoes your results. I found on my 100a mig welder it wasn't really worth it unless I was out of c25 on the weekend. CO2 on the kegerator is a much better usage 😂

There are a ton of ways to minimize warping, some work, most don’t lol. The number one thing is to have a really good fit with minimal gaps. If the fit is good having the ability to clamp things together will make a world of difference. I tend to just “dope” things more than clamp, aka tack it with a lean the opposite way it will pull then weld it. This works well but can go south in a hurry. I will definitely have to do some actual testing on how well different methods work.

Welcome 😀. Preheat heat is definitely a hassle. In general short circuit mig really struggles above 1/4inch unless you have a 230+ amp machine. At the 200a level with 100% co2 gas it seems to have really solid performance. The biggest limiting factor between stick and mig is thick plate, most home mig machines simply perform poor above about 5/16th steel. Once you get into bigger wire machines (250a or higher) stick is honestly overshadowed by far on clean steel. It’s just that those machines are costly, physically big, require a lot of power, and are very uncommon to own at home.

So I did just that, in this video: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/fap2e8dqrryxeIk.htmlsi=ONZ8NFcuLE7xt3W- . The porosity is primarily caused from solidification of the weld without the gas escaping. This is due to thick weld throat depth (trying to weld bigger welds on thick material) combined with the heat sink of the material causing the weld to solidify too fast. The only real solution to this issue seems to be to go to bigger wire like .045. It can handle thicker material with hotter weld pools so the porosity isn’t as much of an issue. The other rather interesting aspect of using shielding gas with the wire is that the shielding gas will affect the properties of the weld. Gasless flux core is rather brittle in comparison to gas shielded mig, and even absent of porosity I would worry about the finished weld being overly brittle and weak.

100% co2 definitely does lower tensile strength. I did some investigation on Lincoln’s site and they claim 100% Co2 will perform above minimum aws spec for er70s6. However it will test lower than c25, so it is technically weaker. Other destructive tests (charpy v notch) also have reductions. What I am curious about is if I shop press a 3/8th fillet weld plate if it will fail or not. I know 7018, 7016, er70 have no issue handling it. But 7014, 60xx, and normal t-11 Gasless flux core fail.

That makes sense from a chemistry perspective. Argon is almost a perfectly inert gas, CO2 is able to react with other substances to some extent. Not surprised if it brings some mild contamination into the weld’s metal.

@@makingmistakeswithgreg well, Co2 is a reactive gas. What do we try to keep out of our welds? Oxygen. The plasma breaks the co2 down to carbon and oxygen. The carbon adds to brittleness and lack of elongation and elasticity. We all know what oxygen does to a weld. The tiny amount of oxygen (for those who will complain) in a 98/2 mixture of argon oxygen is small enough that the detriment is less than the advantages. 75/25 is a compromise. There’s a balance where the co2 is needed, even though it’s not great for the weld itself.

@@melgross So like 98/2 would be considered MAG metal active gas, rather than Metal Inert Gas then? Or is MAG only ran in spray transfer mode

@@brnmcc01 you now, these definitions are general. There are special cases for everything. After all co2 is a reactive gas as well. But the general effect is that overall, it’s inert. It’s hard to explain in a post. But it works, and that’s what matters for general welding. If we want to talk about aerospace work, then everything is different.

If it’s advanced welding out of Milwaukee area Wisconsin they are indeed an excellent store. I deal with them and matheson gas out of oak creek for everything.

@@makingmistakeswithgreg I recognized their markings on the bottle. I’m just south of the border in taxinois, but advanced is great. Great guys to do business with!

Cool to hear you’re a chemistry major👍. I never took a chemistry class so I am pretty rusty in that field. However with that said I know that running straight co2 requires more voltage to run properly. I would imagine 100% co2 is probably a poorer conductor of electricity than c25. People say it runs “hotter” when my guess is it needs more voltage to simply stabilize the arc that exists during short circuit. With tig a similar thing happens with argon vs helium. Helium requires more voltage to establish and maintain an arc in the arc gap. This allows you to have much higher heat input with a tight arc than would normally be possible with tig. Thus deeper penetration because the heat is driven into the material.

I used a standard regulator for c25. The regulator may not be super accurate because the density of the gas is different. It works no problem.

I probably will. I can tell you the bead will be tall, narrow, and have a weird appearance lol.

For filling one tire off the co2 it’s not much of an issue. If you fill 4 the regulator will get frosty. The regulator is designed to handle pretty high flow without freezing up. It works pretty good on off road tires.

@@makingmistakeswithgreg Thank you for your response. I have learned alot from you. Yes it makes sense, maximum flow I use is 35 cfh for my work, so I unplugged the heater.🙏

At 1/10th the price I wouldn’t even think of adding argon. Honestly I am not sure why so much bad information is out there on c100. Everything I had heard about c100 (like it has more spatter and it can’t weld thin material) seems to be false. Sure it does have a reduction in strength over c25, but on anything under 3/8th thick material I don’t think it would matter.

On that thickness with 180a I don’t think your welds could get stressed enough to see any benefit to c25, so definitely no reason to switch. Have you ever noticed a bunch of spatter? I expected far worse spatter and simply saw no evidence of it which is contrary to the “common opinion” lol.

I have a 215 as well, it runs 6011 and 7018 stick really nice too, so far I'm happy with it. I haven't tried 6013.

@@brnmcc01 On my 215 I have tried 6011, 6013, 7014, 7018 and 7024 with mine, and they all run very well with 7014 and 7024 (flat position only with 7024, Greg has some really good videos on 7024) being my favorites. I have had some success with 6010 as long as it’s not Red Rod. Matheson Gas welding supply chain has a Matheson brand 6010 that runs well with a proper arc gap. You will find the 215 does in fact have a Hot Start feature of about 40%-50% additional amps for 1/2 second, and an undocumented but nice Dig function i.e. I have stopped all motion and literally drove the rod straight in with some force, and it won’t extinguish the arc. These features were confirmed by Miller Tech Support. I also understand the newest version is designed to intentionally run 6010, but I get by nicely on the version I have. I also bought the TIG kit for that, and I can answer any basic questions on that, or tell you about issues I have had with it - I’m on my 3rd foot control pedal replaced under warranty for failing.

So the interesting thing with tig is the tungsten gets white hot and doesn’t melt. It can do so because of the absurdly high melting point of tungsten. The problem is, it can only hit that high temp when oxygen or other reactive gasses are not present. If you were to try to use c02 to shield a tungsten the co2 gas would react with the tungsten and it would be consumed. The reason you can use c02 with mig is because the wire is consumed anyway and it’s both the electrode and filler material. If we could synthesize an element that had the same melting point as tungsten but had no reaction to co2, I would imagine the heat input would increase and the weld penetration would increase. Interestingly enough, there is a gas that works like that which is tig compatible, its helium. Helium increases the voltage required to maintain an arc, thus increasing heat input. The helium doesn’t react with the hot tungsten. The main downside to helium is since the shortage started a few years ago the price has skyrocketed to the point it’s pretty much unaffordable.

The modern welders make a huge difference in control. On super thin material being able to dial in things precisely (and change inductance) makes is much easier to tackle tough jobs like thin material. Glad to hear you welded thin material with no issues with the co2 👍

The way the weld penetration looks is definitely way different than I expected. Wire processes tend to be very narrow and pointed for penetration, especially spray. The c02 weld looks nothing like the 50+ cut and etches I have done on wire so far. Depending on how the bend testing goes I might switch to it and turn my cylinder in for a different gas.

So I looked up the manual for that welder and as you found, it’s difficult to determine voltage. If I had to take a guess it probably only outputs around 20volts under load. I have part two with c02 coming out tomorrow. I will do a part 3 and that will be out by this weekend. In part 3 I am going to test reduced voltage and amperage. I know that welder you have could weld 1/8th no problem. 3/16th would probably be best done with flux core but I bet that machine could do it with gas shielded mig. I have a feeling 100% co2 would have a bit of spatter with the reduced voltage over what I was running but until I test it I won’t know for sure 😀

It will produce very weird beads, much like running DCEN polarity with normal c25. The penetration from what I heard will be decent, but the bead will stack up like a very tall rope lol. To get out of a dark alley in the middle of Detroit it’s doable, but other than that I would avoid it lol.

The inductance was set at 60 or 70%, I didn’t change it for either. That’s generally what I use for thicker plates. It definitely made a clean weld. The voltage is the big reason, if you run too low it will have way more spatter.

So flux core self shielded wire will have more penetration than short circuit with c25 but less I would say than 100% co2 mig. The limitation with self shielded flux core is when welding thick steel with .035 wire. The weld will have internal porosity due to how fast the weld solidifies. Going up in size of flux core wire to .045+ will likely fix this, but many people’s welders won’t run .045 wire. For the average person short circuit mig will outperform flux core for actual strength on 1/4 and thicker material assuming .035 wire and a 200amp machine. Even with more penetration the flux core weld is weaker in a bend test due to porosity. Dual shield in .035 performs poorly on thicker plate (literally zero penetration), I have tested that previously. However I didn’t test it with 100% co2. I have a hard time believing it will perform good enough with it to make a difference. .045 and bigger dual shield tend to work fine on 1/4in and thicker steel.

Interesting. The welds do look slightly better with c25, but considering the cost increase and lack of performance, I could easily see why people would stick with 100% co2.

@@makingmistakeswithgreg Also, the machine I use is 26,5V/250A mig welder and it seems to run just fine with low settings on sheet metal and pure co2 and 0,8mm wire. In those circumstances it sounds like a little hornet and there's very little spatter, arc is almost undetectable by an autodarkening hood. I've also had success in welding 4mm thick square tubing to 8mm base plate with pretty high settings. I pulled the torch and after that I did a root bend. Full fusion with a very respectable flat bead. I did weave it slightly, though.

Nice. If the bend tests I am doing today (video out shortly) come out good, I definitely will recommend c02 for people who have welders that can hit decent voltage.

It’s called naval jelly, which is a pretty funny name lol. Harbor freight, Menards, and most hardware stores sell it. It’s a pink colored acid. You cut your plates, polish the surface a bit with a 80 grit (or higher) flap disc, rub the acid on, and give it a minute or two. The hotter the plate is the faster it etches. It takes me more work to get pics that turn out with the camera, you could do a down/dirty etch on a unpolished plate fast and be able to see enough to know what’s going on.

So spray on .035 starts around 200amps output and 23-24 volts (with c10 gas, 98/2oxygen and others will vary). If your machine is atleast 200 amps you should have no issue hitting spray with .035. .030 would require a lot of wire feed but would also work. The other issue that you mentioned is the mig gun (and duty cycle). There is a ton of wattage being putout when you’re at 200a 24volts. Keep an eye on melting things other than metal lol.

@@makingmistakeswithgreg How much is a lot of wire feed? The max speed setting is 600, but stuff on the chart only goes up to like in the 500's range. Max output is 215 amps, but at that high of a voltage I think the duty cycle is going to be like in the 15% range. lol.

Self shielded flux core would have little difference and wouldn’t be a great idea (I did test that with c25 before lol). Dual shield would probably see some increase in penetration. I doubt it would be as much as in this video. Dual shield already runs at pretty high voltage, 100% co2 would require 27+ volts on co2.

@@makingmistakeswithgreg thank you for the reply. I've spent all day repairing a rusty chassis that really should be scrapped. But the manny is adamant and apparently I'm the only person that is even remotely capable of welding in the town or within an hours drive. Clouds of rust and I remembered your respirator video. So before I started I went and bought a mask. Thanks from the Scottish Highlands

Great point, it’s available far more places and times than c25.

It definitely is cheaper. I have never ran it with dual shield wire but I would imagine it would have more penetration like mig, probably a bit less of a difference though.

So here in the states (not sure where you are) it’s very common to call short circuit process “mig welding”, regardless of gas. This is technically incorrect, which is why welding schools call it GMAW (gas metal arc welding). Mag welding is a better term to use to describe Mig, the problem is the average person gets confused by that term and doesn’t know what I am talking about. You are 100% correct, c02 is classified as an active gas since it is not inert. So are many other gas blends like 98/2 argon/oxygen, trimix, etc. The same issue exists with MMA vs stick welding here. Everyone here knows what stick welding is, but say MMA welding and you get deer in the headlights look lol.

@@makingmistakeswithgreg Yeah im also in the states i was just curious, appreciate the explanation greg 👌👍

If you can’t adjust voltage independently it won’t likely run properly with 100% co2. The machine was setup to weld with the assumption of c25 more than likely. You would probably get a ton of spatter running it.

@@makingmistakeswithgreg thanks

Globular transfer can be achieved with 100% co2 but generally at settings above what I ran. The lack of spatter, welding sound, and the visual appearance (lack of molten balls on the wire) all would suggest short circuit and not globular. I guess it really depends on what definition of globular you look at, because the conventional one states the two general defining characteristics of globular is balls of molten metal on the wire and an increase in spatter. At reduced settings 100% co2 would be more or less MAG welding.

Technically both c25 and c100 are “active gasses”, the argument could easily be made that 100% co2 is only “active gas”. The only wire process that uses 100% inert gas is aluminum, which uses 100% argon. That doesn’t operate in the short circuit process though, it’s spray. In America short circuit process is universally called mig regardless of gas used. In many other countries that isn’t the case. Much like many countries call stick welding (or SMAW) “MMA” welding.

"Manual Metal Arc welding" or "E-Hand-Schweißen"... 🤣

@@makingmistakeswithgreg not only aluminium, but stainless steel is MIG (or TIG for fine looking welds). Carbon steel is mostly MAG. I have welded carbon steel with argon, but only because too lazy to go after different bottle.

I am not sure if that is readily available, you could “make it yourself” with two bottles and a blend valve. My guess is it would be pretty similar to c25, the voltage required would definitely be lower than 100% co2.

Yep, there is no spray with 100% co2, and if the cost is higher were your at that’s a big limitation. I like the performance of 100% co2 overall. I am starting bend testing for part 2 right now, it will be interesting if it will pass bend testing the same as c25.

I ment that the higher percentage of Argon is more likely to spray than c25. I doubt that 100% CO2 is able to spray. The bend test on welds with 100%CO2 will be very interresting, too! The manufacturers for wire give slightly reduced values. I don't want to bet on, but I guess the welds will break in the press but surpass c25 if bend towards the weld. As always very nice Video!

I said atleast twice in the video that I have ran the same voltage with c25 with minimal increase in penetration. Voltage is not a driver of penetration, gas mixture and wire feed speed are. Spray arc done at similar wire feed and similar voltage has a completely different penetration profile. I even put a picture comparing spray (430in/min c10 gas) to c25 (420+ and 21v) and the penetration of both of those A) looks nothing like the 100% co2 weld, and B) has by far less sidewall fusion. You are looking at the effects created by differences in gas mixtures, not the effects of voltage. For more information look at this, Per Lincoln electric: “”One main welding variable that has virtually no effect on weld penetration is arc voltage. While changes in arc voltage can result in minimal changes in weld penetration, the effect is very minor compared to welding current and the other variables just listed in this article”. Article found here: www.lincolnelectric.com/en/welding-and-cutting-resource-center/process-and-theory/variables-that-affect-weld-penetration#:~:text=One%20main%20welding%20variable%20that,just%20listed%20in%20this%20article. Let me ask you this: If spray welding at 26volts with c10 gas (similar wire feed speed as 100% co2) doesn’t have as much sidewall fusion as 100% co2, how would c25 with short circuit achieve anywhere near the same as 100% co2? It’s not possible. Just based on what is in the video it’s pretty clear that c25 will not achieve what 100% co2 can. The reason 100% co2 has increased penetration is because of the gas mixture, the voltage required is merely a requirement to reduce spatter, it is not a driver of penetration.