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I have many years of exp. brazing as a jeweler but no mig exp. A friend just gave me a little Century/solar model 117-027 WFWT mig welder. It's in perfect shape but he's been using it with only flux core wire, not gas and solid core as designed. He said to make it work better with flux core I may need to change the leads internally. My question is would it be better to return to gas and solid core as I believe it was designed to use, or will it work properly with flux core wire? It has a place for the bottle on the back of the machine but the internal plastic tube that delivers the gas would have to be replaced as it has been cut off. Thanks for any info.....Samuel
Reply:Samuel, nice to hear from you!  Most wire-fed welders can either run flux-cored wire or solid wire & gas. The option is left open to you, as the weldor (the person, not the machine). That said, it just depends. I say replace the gas tube and try solid wire just for the experience of it. For thin metal, sheet metal and light gauge up to about 1/8", it can be useful, especially as a learning tool. You do need a bottle of shielding gas, and 75/25 (CO2/Argon) mix is very common for steel welding.Enjoy! City of L.A. Structural; Manual & Semi-Automatic;"Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place where gold is refined. Iron is taken from the earth, and copper is smelted from ore."Job 28:1,2Lincoln, Miller, Victor & ISV BibleDanny
Reply:the mig setup(shield gas and solid wire) willmake a better looking weld, as there is no slag..