A gunsmith in So. Cal asked me to check out an old cheapy Mig welder
that he had traded for a new rifle scope. Branded Silver Beauty, with
small 25/75 argon tank. Looks a lot like an Esab 110 volt joby.
Typical HI/Lo and 1/2 switches. Seems to be built well enough. Tank
has a regulator marked " Preset for 30lbs"

The roll of .023 wire was badly rusted and would hang in the liner, so
I bought him a new 2lb roll yesterday and last night fired it up.

Ive never migged with gas before. Shrug. So I putzed around for a bit
getting it dialed in, was even able to run a bead on some very thin
galvanized sheetmetal without burning through as long as I kept the
speed up and the power down to lo/1. It was nice to see a shiney
bead, rather than the cruddy looking surprise package I get using my
HF flux core machine (which will not go low enough to weld that same
sheetmetal, no matter how fast I go)

Im curious though..when welding on a chunk of mystery steel (likely
12L something) I was getting a brown layer of soot on the work area.
What is it? What was causing it? I recall something about that in a
post before..but cannot find the reference. The tank was filled in
1992, and is about the size of a large thermos bottle. Says 25% /75%
on the sticker. Unknown how much is really in there. Shrug.

I was also getting an unstable arc much of the time. Good ground,
wire wheeled the work piece. Wire feed seems to be pretty consistant.
When pressing the trigger, could clearly hear the gas at the nozzle
end. I could get it to stablize a bit by welding closer to the
workpiece, but ran the risk of welding the wire to the tip (which I
did at least once)

As a control, I ran the same beads with my HF flux core machine, and
got a better weld, and one that didnt stand quite so proud of the
metal, like it was hotter and was getting better penetration.

Ill be returning this thing to the gunsmith this coming week, but
would like to be able to give him a heads up on its shortcomings etc.

Thanks

Gunner

That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer's
cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays
there.
- George Orwell