Discovering the original Millermatic 35 welding machine
Josh Welton’s trip to Miller Electric powered previously this 12 months bundled an unexpected but welcomed cameo: a prototype of the landmark Millermatic 35 MIG welding machine. Before this yr, Miller Electric invited manufacturer partners Welton (still left), Michael Brandt (2nd from remaining), and David Ankin (proper) to Appleton, Wis., to talk at its nationwide product sales meeting.
The historical past of instruments is eternally fascinating to me. They are constantly developed out of possibly necessity or the need to get a career done with much less exertion, considerably less time, more properly, and with better high quality than earlier tools and approaches. And for the reason that this pursuit of earning the “perfect tool” is ongoing, we often thrust ahead with the most up-to-date and biggest with small thought from in which they came.

These times, MIG welding equipment are all over the place. Just about every single garage has a essential, small limited-arc or flux-main equipment able of managing responsibilities from correcting whirligigs to making an ATV trailer. Not only that, but extra advanced MIG welding devices now are obtainable for compact retailers wanting to enhance output with procedures like spray transfer and pulse. It can be straightforward to forget that you weren’t constantly equipped to roll up to a hardware store to get a all set-to-weld equipment.

Previously this 12 months, Miller Electric powered invited manufacturer associates Michael Brandt, David Ankin, and me to Appleton, Wis., to converse at its nationwide product sales meeting. It was a enjoyment vacation and the session with the sales workers was a excellent time, but each time I stop by Miller HQ, the factory tour is like peanut butter on a spoon for a manufacturing unit rat like myself.
Following browsing the business remedies division where by the Millermatics are constructed, we entered the entrance foyer where by shiny more recent machines like the Millermatic 255 and 252 and Multimatic 220 sit on exhibit. But a humble, patinated stack of two containers on a cart caught everyone’s attention. 
Just more than a fifty percent-century in the past, a compact group of engineers at Miller Electrical turned out a equipment that not only improved how physique stores at the time repaired sheet metal but also formed how we think of little-store MIG welders from then until now. At the time, all MIG welding devices had been a combo of separate elements, with the wire feed, electric power source, and fuel movement all stand-by itself aspects that necessary to be connected and synced by the person. That all transformed in the early ‘70s.
“In 1971, Miller released the initial energy source with a crafted-in wire feeder, the Millermatic 35. Rated at 150 amps, the Millermatic 35 was the ideal rig for sheet steel shops, garages, vehicle entire body and fender repair service, upkeep welding, decorative metal work, and metal sculpture.”

Now, we can continue to obtain these MM35s floating around in garages and shops across the U.S., but far more generally than not they’re considered outdated relics, a nod to a game-altering second in welding engineering background. So, what was unique about this cobweb-lined setup in the foyer?

Lloyd Gaurke was the engineering guide for Miller on the unique Millermatic 35. He nevertheless lives in Appleton and however welds. A 7 days in advance of our manufacturing facility tour, he identified as his Miller contacts to check with if they’d like to have his personalized Millermatic 35 on display screen. Continue to operational, Lloyd had been throwing sparks with it right up until Miller gladly took possession of the device for its archives. Having a ‘71 MM35 that still operates, owned by the dude who designed it, is rad sufficient. Even so, this factor does not look like a output MM35.
Two containers make up the machine: just one smaller toolbox style of container fastened to a more substantial, vented, rectangular housing. Worn, red Dymo labels with embossed white numbers and letters cling to the lower box’s experience, there to direct a lever where by to go depending on how thick the steel you’re welding is. There is also a substantial swap that I believe is of the on/off wide variety. At the bottom are pink and black constructive/detrimental lugs. Protruding out of the smaller sized best box is a knob to modify the wire pace and the direct for the gun, which connects with a generic rubber hose and metallic hose clamps. A modest-diameter gasoline line fitting operates by way of the front of the box, around the outside the house of the principal direct, and into the gun. The wires to the gun’s set off trace a equivalent route. There’s a 3rd line that I’m not confident about, but it might hold a wire to management the gasoline on/off change. The gun has two buttons to start off the gas movement and set off the wire feed. A couple of random holes in the box betray that this set up has knowledgeable modification the moment or twice.
Inside the prime box are a spindle for a wire spool that lays flat alternatively of vertical like we’re accustomed to, an outdated-university wire feed, fuse, and gas solenoid.
So what can make this unusual machine so special? It is one particular of 3 prototypes Lloyd Gaurke and his team at Miller created in the course of the progress of the world’s to start with MIG welder with a created-in wire feed. It is the tremendous unusual preproduction version of what would turn into the archetypical all-in-a single MIG welding device. The MM35 would develop into an economical, uncomplicated-to-use, self-contained unit that revolutionized how we would use MIG welding machines then and now. It was a 150-amp device that introduced the now ubiquitous Millermatic line. And below I was having it in—the background, the ingenuity, the experience that released a million Millermatics. And also, a machine which is been set to functional use for above 50 yrs, evidenced by the spatter-covered consumables. Just one more resource in a further garage.
