All I ever ran in my MM185 was L-56, and in the MM 251 L-56 and Indura. Both ran very well.

When I run wire trials I alwas get a spool of L-56 to use as my standard. The Indura wire and L-56 was almost indistinguishable. And the Indura was $0.30 per pound cheaper.

The L-56 is in the $1.50 a pound range at my distributor these days, the Thermal Arc is right around $0.82, now keep in mind this is 0.045 wire and I buy ~500 pounds at a time.

Never gave much thought to wire until BOC was bough out by Airgas and I had to switch to Radnor, that wire did not excite me.

If you are not a larger user of wire I would suggest Lincoln's L-56, it is pricey buy reliable and good. It comes down to what are you headaches worth. Volume users can run trials and see where there money is best spent. Like Scott said, it depends on the machine...

National STD here was 2.85/lb for a 60# box( 2-30# rolls ). I didn't want to spend that much and also have to get 2 rolls of a wire I wasn't sure about. Stuck with my Pinnacle wire and got it for 1.25/lb. Not bad for .030, IMO. Also found out that it may be made by Harris, which puts it up a notch higher in quality maybe.



Ron, our old rep was a great one. He just lost the battle with old age recently. :( The new one is a piece of work from what I hear. He could care less that only 2 of the stores in San Antonio are keeping ties with Hobart. :confused: All the others are burning bridges...their words. One of those stores won't carry Hobart wire...only rods. :confused: That leaves one store for now that I can get Hobart wire from....and they are tough to get to.

Ouch that hurt just reading that...

Yup, that was what I thought when they told me. That was from Airgas in SA. See why I don't use them much? FWIW, and in all fairness, HB-28 was 2.65/# in .030 from Trigas. Not too much better, but I could at least get one roll. L-56 was about 2.70/#, IIRC. This is one reason I stuck with the Pinnacle wire. The next closest wire was Linc's Super Arc, plain old 70S-6 at 1.45/#.

The worst part of this Hobart dropping deal, IMO, is that all the stores almost are replacing Hobart with Inweld. :eek: :rolleyes:

The National Standard, Standard Arc 6 was crap wire. When I opened the box the wire still has the powdered drawing lubricant still on it. When you welded with it you could see the dust coming of in the plasma of the arc! Poor arc quality. And 10-15% more spatter than with the TA wire, Indura or L-56. Also for "comparison" or so you know how bad you are getting screwed on wire, my pricing for the NS wire was to be $0.92/pound. I ran ~100 parts and switched back to my TA wire.

I played with voltage and inductance and saw little improvement. I was at my distributor today and the Lincoln rep is sending me some of their wire, can't remember exactly what one. I'd give him a razzing but he bought lunch so I'll take it easy on him. :rolleyes:

Also the Quantum Arc is on back order maybe a month before I get that to trial.

The sample showed up yesterday, I should be able to get it tested tomorrow.

Pulse Gmaw vertical up ? :)

Okay not tomorrow but 3 days later. Spent the better part of the weekend mobile welding on an emergency job. Stainless Tig with the Dynasty...

Can't discuss the job but it was for prototype parts for a major automotive manufacturer. It was one of those... "Poor planning on your part does constitute a profitable weekend on my part..." or something like that... ;)

Anyway...

My first impressions. It is a great improvement over the BR-6 and HB-28 wires. I am running it on 14ga. deep drawn part so the wall is not 0.075 but thinner. WFS is 330 ipm of 0.045 wire, 19.3 volts and currently 32 on inductance on my 350P. I am running the ragged edge between short circuit and globular transfer. I have not yet tweaked the voltage and inductance in yet, but I expect it to exceed the Thermal Arc in performance and run close to L-56 and Indura. Spatter is already less than the Thermal Arc wire. :D