Weldit wire and contact tips

[Al T.]

A thought that makes you go Mmmmm...

I read in the SMAW book by Miller that some contact tips have a curved path for the wire to travel to increase amperage transferance. Those type of tips you could not see thru when held up to the light. I wonder how they drill a curved hole?

So far I have gone thru about 3 lbs of wire and the tip seems to work just fine on my hh175.

[super vw]

same thing happend to me with the included .30 flux wire and tips that came with my hobart 135, all i did was forced it through with the wire and it came out fine, it shaved some little copper bits from the inside and now its come out just fine

[david e norton]

tip to small?

i have also run into that same problem and now when i get new tips i have a drill bit i use and reem them all out to about .036-.038 and found out this works just great. no more wire sticking in the contact tip.

[Tim135]

I switched from .030 flux core wire and tip to a .035 flux core wire and tip and although I used Weldit (Hobart) wire and tips, the wire was an unusually tight fit in the new contact tip. So much so that I had to use a welding tip cleaner to slightly enlarge the new contact tip so the wire would feed. I carefully filed the end of the new wire but it was too tight to feed. I double checked the size and marking on the new contact tip and even tried a couple other tips in the package but the fit was the same. Is this unusual or a common problem? I figured I was ok because I was using Weldit wire and Weldit contact tips and the tips were labled for Miller or Hobart. What do you guys think?