Overcoming challenges of fence repair in the field by Lincoln's Weld Tech Expert, Harry Kantz  

Harry Kantz

Within the walls of The Lincoln Electric Company are some of the brightest minds in welding, but we wouldn't be The Welding Experts® if it weren't for the expertise of our customers. Learn with us from questions submitted by real customers and answered by the real experts.

I have two questions:

First, I bought a wire welder to repair my wrought iron fence and it won't heat up the steel hot enough to weld and repair the joints. It melts the wire well enough but it doesn't heat up the iron to get a good flow going to join the pieces.

Secondly, are there cut-out switches to turn off the wire feeder when the stick cable is in use, and does the amp selector switch cut-off so that the amps for stick welding cannot be used when in wire mode? If I select the current for stick does the switch cut out the wire feeder drive so I cannot use it by mistake?

Answer:

I believe the 230-Volt wire feeder/welders like our SP-175T or SP-175 Plus using .045 Innershield NR-212 self-shielded, flux-cored wire would be powerful enough to do about any fence job you happened upon.

When setting up to weld fence or to do other welding in the field, some welders choose one of our wirefeeder/welders along with one of our engine-driven Welder/Generators for power (Weldanpower 125 or Power Arc 5500). This way they do have both a portable wirefeeder and a portable stick welder.

With this set up you can leave the stick electrode cables attached (just make sure they are not grounded as they do remain hot) when you are wire welding and can leave the wire welder plugged in while you are stick welding. I would turn the wire welder off but that really isn't necessary either.