Rusted mig welding wire

[Phil Waterman]

Problem persists even with the wire wipe. Good point about the wire wipe, but in this case the surface rust was to much for it and soon coated the felt wipe with fine rust dust. One temptation when this wire stutter occurs is to increase the wire feed tension, which only results in birds nesting. I’ve also discovered that rust increases the wear rate on the liner for the welding cable. If you are using the plastic type liner it will even cut through the liner. Keeping the wire spool in a sealed container with desiccant seems to be the solution I buy the desiccant in bulk 1 gallon can at the craft store. Sold for drying flowers; I sewn up a couple of bags out cotton filled them with desiccant. Every now and then I bake the bags at 200 degrees in the oven for and hour to dry them out completely. Use to use the same trick to store open boxes of stick welding rod to keep them dry the weld so much better without the moisture in them.