Review on Forney 309 140 Amp Welder - 120V Welding Machine by Justin Gerrero

Please note that Revain now sells several different types of welders together on one site with a combined set of reviews. This rating is for the Forney 140 amp, 120 volt MIG welder only. I have had a tiny Harbor Freight Inverter Welder for many years that I absolutely love. I also have access to my father's larger old welding machine. But the benefits of wire welding, such as not having to start a long weld with a short rod, have always been clear to me. On the other hand, I was a little intimidated by the hassle and expense of MIG gas tanks. So I finally bought a cored wire welder the Christmas before last. To give the concept a shot, I skipped the Harbor Freight and other low-end models and bought the significantly heavier Hobart 125EZ. Well maybe that's the wire I used (Italian INETUB, highly rated by Revain) but the flux core has been a huge disappointment to me so far. People said the flux core had spatter, but I assumed they meant spatter, like welding electrode spatter. Well, holy cow, I've never seen a splatter like that of a flux core. Microscopic "BBs" literally accumulate like a thick layer of dust on your welding table. Many thousands of them adhere strongly to any bare steel surface, not just an inch or two around a weld, but even tools or innocent objects from 2 to 3 feet away. And while arc welding slag often just curls up and naturally flakes off the weld as it cools, flux slag is like a thin, bonded ceramic coating. Hit it with a jackhammer and only where you hit it will chip the chips. Fluxed welding fumes are also very thick, requiring frequent cleaning of my welding helmet window. Well, I don't want to fully condemn the process or the Hobart 125EZ now that I haven't even tried Hobart wire in them, but my experience so far hasn't been good. I will say the 125EZ arcs a lot of heat and thermal overload has never affected me. Anyway, I got this 140 amp Forney MIG welder to try out. I actually had it for over a month before ever trying it because I couldn't afford a gas tank and I had no intention of getting out and going down the flux core route. No one is going to buy that real MIG machine that intends to use flux cored wire in the long run, are they? So I went shopping in my area to buy cans and gas. A clerk recommended a hardware store in a nearby town, but they wanted $250 for an 80-cubic-foot hobby tank and $67 to refill with gas. Internet friends from other parts of the country tell me they fill up a tank of the same size for only $16. Well, I tried Tractor Supply Company. They wanted $300 a tank and $45 a tank of gas, and none of their stores within 100 miles of me sold gas or tanks. Two other hardware stores referred me to a local welding shop who told me the same $250 and $67 I started with plus a $12.95 annual tank maintenance fee. I finally remembered a real welding supply store only 30 minutes away that would give me a $220 "for life" tank and charge about $35 to refill. This tank is 80 cubic feet, and the welder uses about 20 cubic feet of gas per hour during the actual welding, which translates to about 4 hours of actual arc time. Larger tanks are available, e.g. B. 125 cubic feet, but since most of the "weld time" is actually setup and planning time, I think this more comfortable size will work for me. If someone has cooked a lot, it's actually cheaper to fill up large tanks. No matter, no matter for the welder. Welds EXCELLENT. The welds are so clean and nice with no spatter, a real contrast to the flux core. If you think about what's going on, fine-tuning the heater and wire feed knobs to match the feel of the arc and the look of the weld will soon become intuitive. I assumed the 125 volt welder would be limited to .023" light wire, but this machine also comes with .030" and .035" tips. It actually comes with a .035" tip and as I plan to weld heavier machine stands and possibly a trailer I bought a 10lb spool of Hobart .035" wire. .030" diameter wire is suitable for the full range, while .035" diameter wire is only 22 gauge thick but is the obvious choice for tough work. Looking at the device, it's impressive that the Forney wire feeder is all metal. The Hobart feeder on the 125EZ has a plastic frame. The Forney ground clamp is also much heavier than the Hobart. But then the price difference between Forney and Hobart is a few hundred dollars, so maybe those comparisons aren't entirely fair. One downside I have about this Forney is the study materials that come with it. Made in Italy which is a good place to manufacture but probably the language barrier of the instruction manual doesn't help. The "Schnellstart" sheet was particularly bad; I strongly recommend that you read at least the basic manual before setting up or using the welder. For example, the sheet tells you how to connect the gas hose, but never whether to turn on the gas or how to adjust the gas supply. It also doesn't give you exact details on how to thread the wire through the guide. Another problem I only discovered after starting a large welding project is that this welder will overload and trip the 20 amp circuit breaker when turned on to full power. I'm trying to weld a mini router stand out of 3/16" steel and both of the 20 amp circuits I have occur with every weld. 20 amps, but apparently that's not common in apartment buildings. This need for a dedicated circuit negates much of the advantage that 120-volt welders have over 240-volt models. You can't just roll it around on a welding cart and plug it in anywhere as you might think. Well, you can't MIG weld outdoors anyway because the shielding gas is blown away by the wind. In summary I think this is a great welder with mediocre instructions but prospective buyers of a true MIG welder should be aware of the cost of the cylinder and gas. MIG welding is perfectly clean but depending on your budget the gas cost may not be negligible in places Be sure to create a circuit that can handle the current drawn by this device at full power.