Cut a piece of felt, pinch it on with a clothespin.

 

Or any piece of soft cloth and do like Danny said...............................

 

Or - You can buy wire wipers at your favorite welding supply.

It's cylinder shaped felt, with a spring clip for tension; just runs against the guide tube.

 

Why bother! Those lube pads are pretty much worthless and not needed. I sell Lincoln, Esab, Hobart/Corex and National Standard weld wires, and every rep from those companies has told me they are not required, and in most cases do more harm than good. Every weld wire manufacturer puts a lubricant on their wire to help feedability, and if you use the lube pads you can actually remove the lube that is their to help feedability. Have you ever used these and noticed a black graphite type substance in the pad?, Guess what that is? Wire Lube! I've had customers use these and have the pad build up with so much lube, then when they start feeding wire the wore can actually pull this lube into the liner. IMO the only time these are ever needed is if a guy has a dirt floor shop, does extreme amounts of arc gouging etc; Don't ever use these on aluminum wires either, as you will really have feeding issues.

My boss was giving me crap a few months ago about all the customers I told not to use these pads, I told him I was there to solve problems, not contribute to them.

 

Yeah, what he said!

If you do feel the urge to put a felt pad on your wire, the only wire I would wipe is the self-shielding flux cored wire. I have heard that you can just push the end of the wire through a foam earplug and that will clean it off well enough for next to no money.

 

Get rid of the pads, poke a hole in a simple foam earplug, pass the wire through it. Every roll of wire pop in a new earplug. This keeps the liner free from crap, and it will outlast the oiled felt version 10:1.

The oiled pads were great 20 years ago, when gun liners were made from crap steel. Not anymore and are just a waste of money to buy the felts.

 

Just a little mention here, Lincoln specifically recommends NOT using any kind of wipe, on ANY of their wires. If anybody cares to look, this is right on their website, http://www.lincolnelectric.com/
Maybe somebody has time to look it up and post a link, I don't right now, but I know it's there.

 

That is correct NOT to use any kind of extra oil (felt) cleaner. You want the liner as dry and clean as possible, not an oilly mess. The ear plug or foam idea merely prevents any dust, welding particulate or other from entering the frive system. It does not harm the wire in any way, unlike it's oilly counterpart.

When I see the felt, or scotch bride pads on the wire on a service call, I toss it into the trash and notify the purchaser not to use that crap any longer!

 

I just grab an old cigarette butt and run the wire through it.

 

Thats a good one!!!

 

Now that we're not allowed to smoke in the shop the butts are harder to come by. There are hundreds outside the door all over the ground but that's a long walk

 

The ez way is to use Weld-Aid wipers and lube, the pads are like 2 bucks each and the lube is maybe 7 bucks a tin.

 

I just bought some, and I think I'm returning mine on monday. Ear plugs FTW(for the win).

James

 

The guy at the steel supply was gonna give me one of the round ones with a strong spring around the outside, and for the first time in my life, I turned down a freebie.

I have a little Hobart 135, and when the arc starts getting intermittent, first thing I do is check the feed. If the wire isn't feeding right I've found that the best thing is to just take the liner off the machine, remove the tip, and give it a good shot of compressed air at the tip end. Amazing how much stuff comes outta that liner.

 

The original problem is dirt from the shop getting on an open spool of wire. The best solution I have experienced is a strip of carpeting that is the same width as the inside of the wire spool. It was about 18 inches long and hung in a Vee over the top of the spool riding on the wire. It stopped grinding dust and spatter from landing on the wire and as the spool rotated the top layer of wire was kept clean.
There is no need for any type of wipe when using wire in an enclosed feeder. If you are getting contamination of a liner look at too tight drive rolls causing the surface of the wire to flake off.