yes self vulcanizing rubber tape is an electricians best friend. I would totally use that if I had it to patch up these perfectly usable cables.
Like I stated earlier, tape them up and put them back on the floor. Our plant doesn't have a ton but we have well over 100 mig welders and they weld just fine with worse cables than what I'm seeing in your pics.

Thanks, I was leaning to using tape on them. I'm gratified to here that you're using other cables in similar and worse condition and they work well. It's great to hear from someone who's actually done what I'm about to do (tape them).

Thanks all!

PS: I'll have to wait for shipping for the tape to get here.

 

I cited the article where I got the information that 4 gauge was too small -- They are also a manufacturer. Please don't blame me for trusting the more cautious source.
Here: https://www.cerrowire.com/products/resources/tables-calculators/ampacity-charts/

Can I blame you for not even using a chart for welding cable? That chart is for regular wire and not welding cable that is so short in length and not in continuous use, like the wires in the chart. Those charts are for house and industrial machine wires.

don't believe me? Look at the wire coming into your house, from the light pole. Most houses have a breaker panel of around 150 to 200 amps, look at the wires again, most are only a round 6 gauge.

 

Can I blame you for not even using a chart for welding cable? That chart is for regular wire and not welding cable that is so short in length and not in continuous use, like the wires in the chart. Those charts are for house and industrial machine wires.

I googled "Wire ampacity". I expected a set of mathematical equations involving duty cycle, awg, environment temperature, etc. Mostly what I got was generic extension cord sizing charts. I was very disappointed. If you know better search terms, please tell me what they are.

Don't believe me? Look at the wire coming into your house, from the light pole. Most houses have a breaker panel of around 150 to 200 amps, look at the wires again, most are only a round 6 gauge.

Over here, we have very stringent guidelines about while sizing. Both the incoming from the pole that our provider installed as well as the ones from the meter to the main panel are 2AWG. Our main breaker is a 200A breaker. I can provide pictures (of our main panel's incoming wiring) if you'd like.
It's not so much that I didn't believe you as that I was incredulous regarding the idea that a lower AWG would work for any length of time.
I had 3 sources saying otherwise.
1: The AWG chart I linked.
2: Our house wiring.
3: The welder's (original?) wire.

I don't normally take a stand unless I have evidence against or I am unsatisfied with the explanation given. And I normally ask questions in the later case instead of challenging people (like I loved to do when I was young).

 

@shortbus , I think what you're suffering from is a lack of understanding me. I'm a detail person and a perfectionest.
I know people (like you) don't like that about me, even now I am going on recommendations, not details of how wires work (Good enough, but it would be better to understand).

When I was first doing algebra, the #2 thing I hated about it was how contrived the word problems were. Example, "The boat is going down the river at 5mph. How long will it take to reach the dock that is 60mi away?"

Doesn't reading that example upset you? Don't you want to know how fast the river is flowing? In which direction? What the resistance of the boat is to the water? Which direction the wind is going? How fast it's going? What the boats resistance to the wind is? Whether the boat is sail powered? If not, does it have enough gas for a 12 hour trip? What the HP of the engine is if it has one? How efficient the propeller is? Etc, etc, etc?

The #1 thing I hated was how they'd never explain to you how they came to the conclusions that they did. For example, how does the sin calculation work? I even asked an old teacher who had to do it with pen and paper in her day. She said they used tables. Where did they get the tables from? How were they made? Does no one have answers to the most basic things?!

I despised that so much that I ended up never using the sin, cos, or tan functions on the calculator. Instead, I used graph paper and did the measurements by hand. At least then I understood what I was doing.

 

The Wire Ampacities graphed in the NEC, ( National Electrical Code USA ),
are designed around the Temperature-Rise,
inside of an approved-Conduit,
alone, or
with a specified number of other Current-carrying-Conductors,
with a specified Insulation-type, ( which has a 2, 3, or 4-letter identifier, such as TW, or THHN ),
which has a specified safe operating Temperature, ( which is included in the Chart ).

All of this means that if You choose to go with the NEC recommendations,
it will give You a very conservative Wire-Gauge requirement for a given Amperage.

It also means that there will be minimal "Voltage-Drop" created by the Resistance of the Wire as
the NEC does not require increasing Wire-Ampacity to compensate for Voltage-Drop until
its length exceeds 100-feet, ( roughly ~30-Meters ).

So, unless You are severely strapped for Money,
sticking with the NEC requirements will result in fewer compromises, and greater safety.
When all else fails, stick with what the manufacturer originally supplied with the equipment.
Going larger can't hurt, but may be more expensive or
more bulky, and heavier in weight, which could be an inconvenience for a Welding-Cable.

BTW,
I seem to have vaguely detected that there may be some confusion about AWG ( American Wire Gauge ).
AWG numbers work backwards.
4-AWG = 100-Amps,
2-AWG = 200-Amps, and has a much larger Wire cross-sectional dimension, ( roughly twice as much area ).
.
.
.

 

I googled "Wire ampacity". I expected a set of mathematical equations involving duty cycle, awg, environment temperature, etc. Mostly what I got was generic extension cord sizing charts. I was very disappointed. If you know better search terms, please tell me what they are.

Google "welding cable ampacity". But when you do that you need to look at the length of cable they are talking about, usually 50" or more. And they are talking about an industrial situation, continuous welding stick after stick for hours on end. I'm assuming you not doing either one of those things with the at home welder you have, they mostly have a very low "duty cycle", where you need to let it cool off. And they don't have long welding leads, commonly under 8' in length, which both allow a smaller gauge cable to be used.

I don't normally take a stand unless I have evidence against or I am unsatisfied with the explanation given. And I normally ask questions in the later case instead of challenging people (like I loved to do when I was young).

I base my answers on experience in my life time. I've fabricated many many things over my life and did it at work for a living. I too need to understand things and do things on a budget, but there are times you just have to bite the bullet and spend money, usually once if you do it smartly, and it holds up for the rest of your life.

 

@ballstemlord
Another thought for why they want to sell you the smaller gauge cables. While the highest output from your welder can be 225A, you almost never will use that output. The commonly used rule of thumb for stick welding is "1 amp for each thousandths of an inch of the rod diameter". And since most all hobby welding (and that is what your welder is for) uses 1/8" or 0.125" rod that makes you use the closest out put to 125Amps. Sometimes you will use smaller rod(after you learn how to weld) say 3/32(0.093") or 5/32"(0.156") but 1/8" is the most common. I was taught that rule of thumb by my grandpa who was a welder by trade back when I first learned as a teen and it has always worked well. I'm now 74.