What flux core wires to keep on hand?

[Gary Fowler]

That is my understanding as well, while it is spool, it is designed for brazing and soldering, not arc welding, and the claims otherwise are false. Like this add here
Gasless Flux-Cored Mig Welding Wire Aluminum Magnesium Alloy ER5356, when you look up just ER5356, you come up with it being standard MIG aluminum wire, Airgas

I am not aware of any flux-cored aluminum wire for arc welding. First indication of falsehood it the word MIG and flux-cored together, it has to be one or the other.

 

[A-one]

None. Now I just keep .030 solid wire and some 6011 in 3/32 and 1/8.

 

[California]

INE 'INETUB BA71TGS'. A top-quality industrial product made in Italy, not China.

I tried several brands trying to get my first HF 110v flux welder to run nice. Nothing was really satisfactory. but Hobart from Tractor Supply was usable in that AC welder. For my second flux/mig welder, Century 110v DC, Hobart flux wire was satisfactory and that Century welder ran what I had left of HF's cheap wire better than the HF wire had run in the HF welder.

Then I bought a used HF-180 welder from someone who was more an experimenter than a hobby welder. He included the original HF wire plus Blue Demon, Forney, Lincoln, Hobart, and a couple of other brands of wire in slightly-used 2 lb rolls. All welded ok after I bought the right feed roller for that welder and solved the feeding problem that had apparently frustrated that first owner, and caused him to sell that welder (with the wire etc) for a tenth of what he had paid for everything. But everything made more splatter, smoke, fumes than I wanted. It was hard to see what I was doing and some of those wires fed unevenly.

Then someone here or over on TBN recommended INE wire. Yes! Far less smoke. Its easier to see the puddle. It feeds nice. Far less splatter. The welds clean up easily and look good. Since my work area is open-air, I don't think I'll ever set up gas and run mig wire.

INE. Recommended by this amateur if you need flux-core wire. It costs a little more and its well worth it.

 

[A-one]

I have an inverter stick machine that only weighs about 15 or 20 pounds. That's the real reason I won't bother with the flux core. If I need more heat or have to go outside, the stick machine is easier to deal with. Plus stick electrodes are more cost efficient. Only $15 or so for 5 pounds of 6011.

 

[California]

I have an inverter stick machine that only weighs about 15 or 20 pounds. That's the real reason I won't bother with the flux core. If I need more heat or have to go outside, the stick machine is easier to deal with.

I should learn from your example. Now that I have an inverter welder rated 130A stick, maybe I should use that instead of my usual which is flux core in the HF-180.

Setup would be simpler. I haven't used the big stick welder (230A AC, weighs a ton, nuisance to drag out) for a long time now.

I wonder if the 130A inverter stick welder will burn 1/8 6011 as well as the big welder did when it was set to about 120A (AC). I don't recall that I ever set it higher, after this one project in my avatar photo. Could I do this project with the inverter welder? For that matter, could the HF-180 with flux core? Maybe I don't need the elderly 230A monster any more.

View attachment 20

 

[A-one]

Maybe not as good, but it will get the job done.