Hello

I'm looking for a new welding technique (for the moment I use a MMA inverter, but it's quite hard to use with <2mm steel, and rather impossible for <1,5mm) for framebuilding.
The obvious answer would be "go for a TIG !", wich could be the good anwer (I can put a basic TIG kit on my MMA) but the big problem is: in France, Argon and its derivates are really, really expensive (350€ for 2,5m3 of Atal, ~80€ per reload, bigger bottles require a subscription). There isn't a lot of providers, and particulars are a minority of them customers...

So after quite a lot of researches, I've found that MIG MAG can use Co2 (much much cheaper, about 1/3 of argon price) for steel welding. Surprisingly, this process is nearly unknow in my country, or very little used, while it's recommended for steel in Welder manuals in US.
The pro and cons seems to be:
+ : better penetration, cheap
- : hotter, lot of splatting, more carbon in the weld, "short-circuit" metal transfert

So my question is: have you already test (or at least heard about) this gas for framebuilding ?

Mig is not used a lot in framebuilding (less temperature control than TIG, cold start,...), but with a MIG-MAG machine that allow ~30A welding and a bottle of Co2 could make a pretty cheap (~300-350€ for all) way to weld tubes (>0,8-1mm, I don't think high-end steel could be weld this way). Surely by welding with short seams to avoir break through the tubes.


Thanks