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.

Best welder for thin sheet metal.

The hobart handler 140 mig is the best affordable mig welder for sheet metal. As a rule when mig welding sheet metal never use a body filler metal that is thicker than the base metal. Tig welding sheet metal. The majority of the sheet metal welding i ve done was with a 90 amp 110 volt welder.

The backing bar is used commonly by welders to cool the welded metals and they are generally made up of a copper or aluminum metal and clamped to the base of the weld piece whether it is just a piece of thin sheet metal or a body panel you can use it either way. Carbon steel and 18 ga. Never go for a thinner base metal for the auto body sheet welding to get the best result out of it. When starting to learn auto body sheet metal welding with a mig welder you should opt for a shielding gas that has a higher proportion of argon gas.

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. It s one of the highest quality machines available and comes incredibly low priced. Gas metal arc welding gmaw is an effective method for joining light gauge metals such as carbon steel and austenitic stainless steel. Don t attempt to weld thin materials like sheet metal with flux cored wires which put more heat into the base metal.

To weld sheet metal with solid wires use electrode positive ep or reverse polarity. Forget the larger 1 8 inch tungsten electrode and use a smaller one. It is recommended that a welder should use 023 or 024 inch wire for light gauge sheet metal work. 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.