What is MIG Welding

DiscoverLearn

11 Mar

What Is MIG Welding?

Metal inert gas welding (MIG welding) is one of several welding techniques that use electricity to melt and join pieces of metal. Since its invention in the early twentieth century, the appeal of MIG welding has grown phenomenally based on its speed and ease of use – even by newcomers to welding. Read on to learn more…

MIG welding is a sub-type of gas metal arc welding (GMAW), a process that’s been widely used since 1948. Since then, despite equipment details changing quite a bit, and reference to the process by various names (including gas metal arc welding, spray arc welding, flux-cored arc welding and short-circuit welding) the general principles remain the same.

How MIG Welding Works

Whether you weld in your garden shed, a Formula 1 team’s workshop, or using production-line robots in a massive factory, MIG welding works on the following principle. Using lots of electricity, an electrical arc (a short circuit) is created between an electrode wire (a positive anode) and the parent metal that’s being welded (a negative cathode). The arc melts the electrode wire, which is then deposited to create the weld. When the heat is removed, the weld pool cools, solidifies and form a new piece of fused metal – the weld is made.

When you use a modern MIG welding machine like ours, spool-fed electrode wire is fed through a tensioning mechanism and into a co-axial supply line. This leads to a hand-held MIG welding gun – the MIG welding torch or ‘gun’.

At the same time, a shielding gas (typically argon, carbon dioxide or a mixture) is fed along the same supply line to the gun. The gas protects the weld pool from atmospheric gases that would otherwise weaken the weld.

MIG Welding Is Versatile

MIG welding is particularly versatile because you can use it to weld many different metals. These include carbon steel, stainless steel, aluminium, magnesium, copper, nickel, silicon bronze and other alloys.

Okay, so the MIG welding process isn’t the best choice for all welding jobs. But for a wide range of professional and amateur welding, MIG is the best solution. Let’s have a chat about your MIG welding challenge

As with any industrial process, MIG welding comes with advantages and disadvantages. The good news – as millions of amateur and professional welders already know – is that for a vast range of welding tasks, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Here are some of the main ones:

Advantages Of MIG Welding

MIG welding is fast. That’s mainly due to the continuously-fed electrode wire and the way it reduces the amount of stopping and starting during welding jobs.
It’s suitable for joining many different metals and metal thicknesses too. A characteristically good weld bead and the ability to vary weld penetration by changing the amount of current makes achieving strong, smooth welds remarkably easy.
All-position welding capability: MIG welding handles horizontal, vertical or flat welding with confidence.
There’s minimal clean-up requirement. Only TIG welding is cleaner; compared to traditional stick welding, MIG doesn’t use flux, or create extensive, messy weld spatter and slag.
High-deposition MIG welding enables ‘long weld passes’ so you can deposit more metal with each pass and use fewer passes to weld a large joint. The result? Faster welding and increased productivity.
Avoidance of waste: unlike stick welding, which typically wastes part of each electrode (electrode stub loss), continuously-fed wire means you use all your electrode during MIG welding.
MIG welding is easy to learn, mainly thanks to the fact that several parts of the process are automated.

Disadvantages Of MIG Welding:

MIG welding needs a bit more initial investment in equipment compared to traditional stick welding. However, the specification, capability and reliability of today’s best MIG welding machines is impressive. For serious professional or hobby welders, modern machines offer great value for money.
Higher maintenance of MIG welding equipment? With modern, reliable machines, this argument needn’t apply.
MIG welding can only be used on thin to medium-thick metals (typically between 0.6mm and 14mm).
There’s an argument that MIG welding is less portable than other welding processes that don’t require an external gas source. This may be true sometimes, but compact modern MIG welders often redress the balance. For lots of professional and amateur welding, MIG is the preferred method.
Compared to tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding, MIG welding may give less controlled welds under some circumstances.
Outdoor MIG welding can be more difficult because of the effect of wind on the shielding gas. Then again, this can often be solved with higher gas pressure, portable wind breaks or even gasless wire...

So there you have them, the main pros and cons of MIG welding. As you will learn, modern MIG welding equipment make some of the traditional ‘disadvantages’ much less of an issue…

We’re HERE TO HELP: MIG Welding

Our Stool making course explore MIG Welding and it’s use in furniture fabrication. Our one-day metal furniture fabrication course will introduce you to the basic MIG Welding skills that are needed in order to make furniture. You will have a go at MIG welding, tube bending, angle grinding and use the metal saw to create a contemporary piece of furniture to take away.

You will be able to practise welding in the morning and develop your skils before cutting lengths of mild steel tubing on the band saw, then use the metal bender to create symmetrical curves which form the stools legs. Your learn about the use of templates to create metal furniture and weld all the parts together to create your own stool.

By the end of the day you will take away a sturdy, stylish stool for your home or office, plus an understanding of metal preparation and fabrication. This course is perfect for beginners or anyone keen to start working with metal.

BOOK YOUR COURSE TODAY