So now we have it....the first hands on demo of the Multiplaz 3500.

It's awesomely hot......cutting a piece of 2mm thick mild steel plate was like cutting through a piece of paper.....fast as you can go.

So far I haven't had a lot of good results welding square tubing, the stuff you use to make all those small machine stands and benches.

It is so hot that the tube, 20mm square with 1mm wall, burns through quickly, so a few more demo tests to improve on that are wanted.

I have made a number of projects with 20mm X 1mm wall steel sq tubing using both Mig and Tig, and managed to burn through with the Tig on quite a few occasions, mainly from not moving the torch fast enough.....once the area starts to glow it's move or it collapses into a hole.

I did a weld test on two pieces of 1/2" steel plate using a 3mm (1/8") regular welding rod, with the flux removed, for a filler rod.

The penetration is very deep, practically all the way through if you slow down the rate of travel, and the amp setting indicated about 170 amps....this was with the machine connected to a 240 volt 10 amp supply instead of the 15 amp supply recommended in the handbook.

Welding at that rate was in Mode 2 with the earth lead connected to the job and the arc making contact with the workpiece like as in a Tig torch.

No "veeing out" weld preperation is used in this method, as the weld gets the two faces fused together with the filler rod adding a bit to prevent sagging in the weld area.

It welds faster than a Mig and faster than a stick and much faster than Tig, and you have to be quick in moving the torch forward or you get real deep penetration.

The weld characteristic is like melting the two edges together and adding filler to top up....very full weld with a slightly raised bead on flat stuff.

I haven't tried welding two pieces at right angles, but the process is the same....deep penetration.

The last weld test was on cast iron and this is like melting butter onto bread.

A few seconds to preheat the weld area to red heat and a pure cast iron filler rod, 3/8" diam,( no special High Nickel rods needed) filled a 1/2" X 1/2" deep hole level to the parent metal.

The body of the iron work piece drew the heat out too quick to allow the weld to anneal itself so a chilled rock hard weld finish resulted, but a subsequent reheat and slow cool will prevent this for regular work pieces like exhaust manifolds and damaged machine work tables etc.

I haven't been able to get ANY success with alluminium, no doubt due to the lack of proper flux at the demo time, so this will be the next trial.

A piece of stainless steel plate 1mm thick dissapeared in holes at the weld site, so that needs to be tested too.

I did a bit of copper "brazing" straight onto the steel plate using some copper wire without any flux and it went oK, so a lot of those small jobs that need brazing are possible without using expensive bronze filler rods etc, but the thicker filler rods are better than thin stuff, 1/4" diam would be OK as the torch eats filler quickly.

Next demo session today.
Ian.