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THE SPOOL GUN-THE WELDING TOOL YOU NEVER KNEW YOU NEEDED!
One of the most useful items in your shop is the "mig spool gun". This is a mig wire feeder and mig gun in your hand! With this gun you can easily weld, aluminum, stainless steel, carbon steel, aluminum bronze, silicone bronze, or any filler metal on a 4" spool. If you have a special application you can always spool a small amount of wire for a special job.
Most welders think of a spool gun for aluminum welding-only. With a spool gun you a gun with a "long" cable-as much as 150 feet! Almost any welding job that can be done with "wire" vs. stick welding can be completed at a lower total cost!
According to the "Lincoln Electric Arc Welding Handbook"; for every 100 pounds of welding rod you buy (and you buy it by the pound!) you throw-away 40 pound of material (forty pounds of you hard earned money). This waste is in discarded flux (you are paying the for flux as you are filler rod), splatter, and stub loss! If you pay three dollars ($3.00) a pound for welding rod-you are throwing away $1,20 for every pound of weld metal. That translates to $120.00 lost for every 100 pounds of weld metal you burn!
I quoted a spool gun with a 50' Leads to a customer who installs overhead bridge cranes. The crane rails are bolted to the buildings vertical support columns. Installing the crane requires installing a set of electric "rails" to supply the crane with power (sometimes 480 volts -three phase). These rails are mounted on a small metal arm that is welded to the support column. The customer had been installing them by welding with stick electrode. This was time consuming to say the least. By using a spool gun, with self-shielded mig wire (Intershield), the one welder could position the arm, close his eyes and "Tack" the arm in place, with several tacks. If it needed to be repositioned, the "tacks" could be broken by hand and the arm repositioned. After the arm had been tacked into position, the welder finishes the weld, knocks off the flux with a hand brush, shoots some spay paint on the weld!
Result: installation time cut 1/3 on each arm installed!--With a Spool gun!
You do the math-how many 50 pound boxes of welding rod do have to buy to pay for a spool gun? Lower alloy price with higher deposition rate and less labor to do the same job-a classic NO-BRAINER!!!!
If you are looking for a spool gun to update your welder and your local-yokel welding supply salesman is clueless-we can help! Please take a few minutes to read the authors comments. Our goal is not to teach how to Mig weld with a spool gun. Our goal is to give you information and ideas to guide you to make a purchase of the equipment that will accomplish your goals.
The links shown will take you to websites that will give basic "how to" information on the practical aspects of welding aluminum with the Mig process. We at Weldmart specialize in retrofitting existing mig machines with spool guns and push-pull wire feeder systems.
One of the most useful items in your shop is the "mig spool gun". The spool gun is a mig wire feeder and mig gun in your hand! With a spool gun you can easily weld, aluminum, stainless steel, carbon steel, aluminum bronze, silicone bronze, or any filler metal on a 4" spool. If you have a special application you can always spool a small amount of wire for a special job.
When searching for a new or replacement spool gun the important question you need to ask is this: HOW RELIABLE IS THIS GUN? This maybe very hard to judge, but there are clues. Here are questions to ask your reseller:
1. How long has this model been production?
2. What is the manufacture's warranty? Does it cover Parts and Labor?
3. Does the dealer offer any additional warranties?
4. How many guns (of the model you are interested in) has you dealer sold?
5. Does you dealer do their own warranty repairs-or does it have to be sent "OUT"? Sent where? Turn around time and hourly labor rates?
6. If you buy a part do you lose the warranty if you install a part? If so; how much do they charge you to install the part so you have some warranty?
7. Does you dealer have a good stock of consumables and common repair parts-ask them.
8. What is the consumable cost-very important! (ask your dealer to show you his stock of tips, nozzles, barrel liners, drive rolls, gun handle parts. What does he have and more important what doesn't he stock?
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Here is some basic Spool Gun information, if you have any questions call us and we'll talk.
"LONG-JOHN" SPOOL GUN WITH 10" BARREL
The "Long-John" spool gun has a 10" barrel that is 0.750" in diameter allowing the fabrication of deep channel letters with ease. The gun is available with a standard barrel and is rated 250 amps. CLICK HERE FOR ACCESS THE INFORMATION PAGE
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