How to clean a MIG welding torch

Cleanliness is next to godliness when it comes to welding. And that's especially true with keeping your welding torching always humming like new.

In the first video of my new "In the Workshop" how-to video series, I'll keep it simple with some basics on how to keep a MIG welding torch clean.

In the video, I explain which tools you need to help keep your MIG torch clean, why it's important to keep gas flowing, what build-up does to the wire tip, and how it makes the entire welding process easier.

Stay tuned for more In the Workshop videos from my Detroit welding shop, as I offer up all kinds of helpful advice for welders. Whether it’s leading one-on-one workshops, helping college classes, or having a family member throw on a helmet and lay some beads, I love teaching and seeing the light bulbs go on.

Have welding questions? Feedback? Feel free to email me and follow me on Instagram.

Video Transcript

"Hi, I’m Josh Welton and I want to show you a couple ways to keep your MIG torch running, humming, and operating like it should. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had people come to me like, 'Man, I’m just not getting the welds I want and the machine’s not working right.'

"You want to start with the simple stuff first. This is the most simple and the most basic way to make sure you’re starting with a nice clean base when you’re MIG welding. Here’s the MIG gun. I’m short-arcing with it, and you can see how you get some spatter, and that’s not ideal because when that builds up on the inside, it affects the gas flow coming out, and as it collects on the tip, it’ll start grabbing the wire as it comes out, so you’ll start feeling a little catch. It doesn’t even need to be that much spatter. It could just be a little ball on the end of this and it’s dragging. That can have a big effect.

"I’m going to show you a couple of ways to clean it. These are the basic wire cutters (Channelock 337), and these are the welding pliers (Channelock 360). Most of my career, I’ve just used basically wire clippers. It’s a really simple way to use the blade to keep these clean.

"I remember I was out in Arizona for work one time and I came across this dude named Grizz Mace. He was the blacksmith in the O.K. Corral [in Tombstone]. We started talking about metalwork and welding. He was an old-school blacksmith and wasn’t really up on welding that much. And his son had gotten him a little basic short-arc Lincoln hobby welder from Home Depot. And he’s like, 'Man, I just cannot get this thing to run right,' and I’m like, 'I’ll take a look at it, man.'

"First things first, the cup was entirely encased with spatter, so no gas was getting through. The wire was dragging the whole way out. And all he had was a pair of wire clippers. He had no new consumables, because usually you’d start fresh and get a new collet. So all I did was take this apart [removes nozzle], and when you’re using a single wire cutter like this, I just open it up like this and then I use the blade to scrape the inside [of the nozzle]. Now you’ve got a cleaner inside. This cup is a little small, but sometimes I take a wire wheel and go in there and clean it out. But if you keep up on this, these [nozzles] will last you a long time. If you don’t, they start to break apart on the edges and you’ll have to start replacing them.

"[Removes cup] On this MIG gun, you’ve got your collet body and you can see, the gas comes through these holes right here. So as [the nozzle] builds up with spatter, you’re blocking the gas flow, so that’s not ideal. You want to keep all this stuff clean. A lot of times, when I take it apart, I’ll take a wire brush and scrape the stuff off. Then you’ve got this gunk up here, and this is all copper, so the metal will stick to it eventually and then it will start building up. You want to try to keep it clean. So I take the wire cutters and get the metal off like that, scrape it a couple times with the wire brush, and now you’ve got a fresh setup. And that’s where you want to keep it.

"You’re going to dial in the machine so you won’t get much of that buildup, but I want you to see what happens when you get that crap around there, how to clean it up.

"Wire cutters are basic and they get done what you need to get done. The pliers are more of a specialty tool. Now this nozzle pops off. On some of the bigger guns, the nozzle screws on, but say it gets stuck or too hot, the pliers have this grasp thing [between the handles and the pivot point] and you can use that to [clamp the nozzle and twist] crank it off.

"Now with this [shows a larger MIG gun], it’s the same setup, just a bigger gun. These pliers actually have serrated edges [on the jaws] which you can use to scrape if you have something really stuck on the tip and then finish with a wire brush. And then to clean out the nozzle, the pliers have a sharpened edge on the outside of the dolphin nose [jaws] ends. You just kind of go like that (put closed plier jaws into nozzle and twist] and you’ve got it cleaned out.

"Now, you also have [on the pliers] this little [pipe] grip here, so say you overheat [the torch end] and it swells up, you can take [the pipe grip] and use it [twist] to get it [the contact tip] started coming off. And then [on the pliers] you have the wire clipper so you can clip the wire there. These pliers even have a little hammerhead. So sometimes the torch might be discombobulated and not centered [puts nozzle back on], you can take that hammerhead and whack [the nozzle] and center it a bit.

"The difference between these two torches is one of these [smaller] is set up for short arc and the other one [larger] is set up for pulse welding. For pulse welding, the contact tip is going to be recessed from the edge of the cup, and that’s to protect it because pulse welding and spray welding is so hot. Whereas when you’re doing short arc, the tip is actually above the nozzle, so it’s more exposed, so there’s more chance of spatter getting in there, so you really have to make sure you keep it clean.

"And it also depends on what you’re welding. If you’re doing pulsed aluminum, on the tip of this [larger torch], it’ll start frosting up with aluminum. And you don’t even need to scrap it off with a wire cutter. You can just take a wire brush and scrape it off. When I was doing my certs for it, pretty much between every pass, I would take it apart and clean it. Because otherwise it was really fickle, and the aluminum was catching on debris on the outside there.

"Really, the thing I want to get across is it’s important to keep this stuff clean. And if you do, that’s just one less thing you have to worry about. It may seem tedious at first, but you get into the groove of it and it becomes second nature, and it makes everything a lot easier. Like anything else, in welding, cleanliness is next to godliness, and it’s nothing a pair of pliers and a wire brush can’t handle.

"So that’s pretty much it, just kind of quick and easy. Nothing groundbreaking, but it’s critically important to keep the gun clean."