Best Welder For Thin Sheet Metal

Mig welding is the preferred method for most automotive bodywork and since sheet metal is the thinnest of metals a large expensive mig unit is usually not required.

Best welder for thin sheet metal.

While sheet metal is primarily a tig welding job there are times when it s handy to have an available mig welder to fuse sheet metal. As a rule when mig welding sheet metal never use a body filler metal that is thicker than the base metal. Carbon steel and 18 ga. It s one of the highest quality machines available and comes incredibly low priced.

Forget the larger 1 8 inch tungsten electrode and use a smaller one. Tig welding is the way forward for metal under 0 6mm and a mig welder with decent power and wire control is needed for anything less than 0 8mm. Don t attempt to weld thin materials like sheet metal with flux cored wires which put more heat into the base metal. Stainless steel are used in applications such as hvac automotive mobile machinery guards and cabs and small parts as well as stainless steel food service and processing.

It is recommended that a welder should use 023 or 024 inch wire for light gauge sheet metal work. The majority of the sheet metal welding i ve done was with a 90 amp 110 volt welder. I was hoping to manage a butt weld too but the metal was far too thin for mig and i just blew holes. Gas metal arc welding gmaw is an effective method for joining light gauge metals such as carbon steel and austenitic stainless steel.

Tig welding sheet metal. To weld sheet metal with solid wires use electrode positive ep or reverse polarity. Never go for a thinner base metal for the auto body sheet welding to get the best result out of it. It is better to use instead of a high percentage of co2.