Mig Welding

[JeepinLA]

Hey wanted some advice or opinion on welding in a garage that has a linoleum floor. Just got a nice Mig Welder and while I have done it a few times i am pretty new to it and want to be safe....will a welding blanket be enuff or do I strip the floor or keep it outside? It would be nice to be able to use the garage and weld whenever I want without worry to passers by etc..the landlord wouldn't care if I stripped the floor down but that I can imagine would be a mess...getting the flooring up might not be terrible but the leftover adhesive etc might be even worse!!! Thanx

[xmptsunami]

Good luck mig welding outside, the wind blowing away your shield gas sucks.

[JeepinLA]

yeah thats part reason for wanting to keep in the garage altho where I live its generally not windy at all

[hardline04]

Pretty much any welding outside is impossible with a MIG, even if you don't think the wind is blowing, it will still mess up your bead. If you are going to be doing a lot of fab work in the garage, then taking up the flooring may be your best bet. Sometime linoleum will suprise you and come up rather easy, other times not so much. Might be worth doing a test area and see if it is going to give you much of a fight. If I wasn't going to be doing a lot of welding then i would throw the blanket down to keep from putting a lot of burn marks in the floor. Your best bet maybe to get a few buddies over one saturday and just strip it.

[sometoyotaguy]

That probably explains half my trouble with crappy welds. I'm always outside.

[mechanicalmongoose20]

flux core is your best bet for welding outside.

[bggrnchvy]

I've only ever welded mig indoors when I was at work. I weld outdoors with GMAW all the time. Yes, you have to take precautions to try and minimize airflow across you're work area and run a higher flow rate of shielding gas but it's honestly not that difficult.

It's not like you're trying to weld up a gate on a wind swept prairie.

As for the floor mig spatter will find it's way everywhere. You might get away with prodigious use of welding blankets, but at the minimum it will be a pain in the ass.

[Wyoming9]

If the landlord does not care about the floor.

He is willing to have you pull it up. I would guess concrete is underneath .

Then why mess with it.

It can`t be much worse then me welding over top the carpet on the kitchen table/welding table.

Running wire outside is no big deal if you use common sense . some times it is a pain to get loader buckets inside.

Not to mention the old crusher parts before the addition of manganese to give them longer wear life

[JeepinLA]

Thanx for all the input guys...yeah the intention was to weld inside I just wanna do my best to make sure I don't set the house on fire!!!

[OutlawRider]

Originally Posted by JeepinLA

Thanx for all the input guys...yeah the intention was to weld inside I just wanna do my best to make sure I don't set the house on fire!!!

When I was working for the college, we pulled up tiles with a butane torch. Get em hot and the glue will start to melt. Then a scraper to pick up the edge and remove it. It's not always cake work but does better than just scraping.

[Todd W]

You can MIG weld outside just fine don't be stupid about it, and it works. Hell, I built 1 entire rig outside, never had any problems.

Rip up the linoleum if you don't need it, and call it good and weld inside