Hi all.

Been wanting to weld for a while and finally got around to doing it as my sills have formed holes and I could not afford the loss of the car while being repaired or the cost of the welding so I thought to try it myself.

I've got a dirty pro tools a365 140 mig welder that I feel I saw someone recommend here. I would have liked a better machine, but budget wouldn't allow.

Anyway, I've been playing about with it a lot. I first started with the supplied flux core 0.8 wire. Someone said I should just tuse gas, so I bought a cheap draper regulator and the 86/14 disposables from Toolstation and some 0.8 solid wire. Felt a little more impressed with that. Until someone mentioned 0.6. had to swap the drive wheel but did that and it doesn't seem to be all that bad.

I've done some runs on the 1mm sheet and they've been really fine, a little less so when butt welding them. But I can see Improvement.

Now the issue comes with getting some random results. Without changing the settings I've gone from the one photo which shows what I think is semi ok stitched welds on the but joint to these weird bubbled bits. And I can't figure out why or what is causing them. I feel it has something to do with the gas, but I'm not too sure. (Horizontal is just welding through on the sheet, vertical is the butt weld. Ignore the mess around the second one)

Have you watched the tutorials at the top of the page (next to the home button below the Mig welding forum ? It will give you a good basis to work from. Unfortunately your disposable bottle won’t last long at all, if you intend to do a lot of welding invest in a refillable bottle for which you pay a refundable deposit. The last bit of advice is practice, practice ,practice