Andy
If you have a 220 extension cord that you run your welder on just coil it up as tight as as you can without damaging it and see what happens. You are making a ac resistor by doing so. Doesn’t affect DC as much. Tech term is reactance formula for figuring out I forgot years back but know it exists. Chris may have had a question or two about it on his ham radio test.
what size wire are you running andy the smaller will not be as hot.
Andy; excuse me for butting in, but most of what is being said is to lower the voltage to the machine. If I understand you, you want to modify the voltage that runs along the “whip” out to the nozzle — only. Correct? My first thought on this is to make a ground out of a #10 wire and connect the ground lead to the wire and the wire to the material being welded. I guess otherwise you have to cut the wire going up the whip and try what Don said with a circuit in parallel with your whip wire. TomC
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Tom W.!
Sorry to say, but winding a 2-conductor line in a bifilar fashon on a bobbin will just cancel out any temporary magnetic field, resulting in NO reactance at all! (Reactance = inductive AC resistance)
You just collect resistance heat in the “coil”, which can result in a cable-fire!
Avoid that by all means!
Max
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Paul, I’m running .030 flux core wire. that is the smallest listed on the chart. the chart on the machine says the lowest heat setting is good for 22 guage metal and that’s about what I was trying to weld with no success. even with tiny little dots at a time it was not hardly possible
Tom, you are correct, I am trying to reduce voltage to the stinger. Although any way to run cooler is ok with me. My machine has two terminal lugs where you can unhook the leads to reverse the polarity. should be easy to unhook and put the resistor in there. I guess putting resistance in the ground cable would have the same effect.
I guess the only thing for it now is to get out there and try it.
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Well! if that don’t just beat the socks off an old maid.!!! I clamped a 4’ piece of 1/8" diameter steel wire to my work piece and my ground clamp to the other end, and it reduced my heat just enough that I could weld what I couldn’t before. I could adjust the heat a tiny bit by moving the ground clamp along the wire. I tried a smaller diameter piece of wire which not surprisingly reduced the heat more, until it got red hot and melted off.
and then it started to rain. Next time, I’ll have to experiment further with wire size and length, but it seems to work.
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Hey Andy
Could you coil the wire and put it in a plastic bucket of water . Should heat it up for hand washing. Enough welding maybe even coffee 
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I think the water would short circuit the bare wire. You’d lose the resistance.
I think you want a heating element instead. Maybe from a water heater or an oven.
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All so too reduce the heat setting you could switch too .030 solid wire and use co2, then you might have too turn the heat up a little,as the solid wire takes more power too weld with.
Max
I stand corrected was thinking single wire
OK, Tom W!
Still an airwound coil on 60 Hz and these currents would need a laminated ironplate E-core closed, like a transformer to act as a choke coil; that would create REACTANCE… and it would have iron losses too, creating heat…
Max
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If you use distilled water in a plastic bucket, it will not short out. Also if a piece of low carbon steel rod makes a difference, then a heater element will be too much resistance. Try a long piece of bandsaw blade.
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Hey Carl, are you saying current doesn’t flow through distilled water???
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Distilled water does have significantly lower electrical conductivity than even tap water.
Immersion in mineral oil (special types?) has been used for some computer cooling systems (high-end over-clocking performance nuts) since it’s fairly non-reactive to electronics.
cheap crappy ground clamp and the no bull replacement
The setup. coil made from wire hangar. very tricky to adjust heat, but works.
While we’re playing with old vice grips
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Brian nailed it. Battery acid is the opposite. We used to have a 100 hp motor that had start contacts immersed in oil to minimize arching on shut off.
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Distilled water is non-conductive. That would work until the water got contaminated with something.
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I know I am continuing this topic from a while ago, but I am getting a welder soon, and I was wondering what everybody thinks is needed or what would be too small. I was looking at the Eastwood 250 mig welder, this is on the more heavier duty side of welders, but I think it is okay for a wk gasifier build. I was also looking at the Eastwood 250 amp multi-process welder so that I could try mig, tig, and stick welding. What is everyone’s opinions on these welders, and are these good for a wk gasifier project?
Hi Tyler, Any decent mig welder will build a gasifier. More importantly is to practice on thin metal so you can run good seal beads with what ever welder you have. That being said, name brand welders are hard to beat, Hobart, Miller, Lincoln.
Ok, I heard Wayne talk about that before. I will definitely practice when I do get a welder. Thanks, Tyler.