HAd a Dillion set since 1972 when he came into the scrap yard, cut a steel beer can and an aluminium beer can in 1/2 then welded them together.
Cut a comb from a lump of 2" thick armour plate.
I can weld rust with it now.
Dillion kits do not need special rods & no flux for anything other than Aluminium
HE went broke because back then BOC ( CIG in those days ) had a monopoly on selling Oxy gear and also were the monopoly seller of bottled gas so they were hardly going to carry gear that uses 1/3 the amount of gas & requires no flux which they also sold.
We now import the same gear from the USA under the DHC 2000 brand. Australians are the stupidist people on the planet when it comes to supporting local inventions.
I usually weld with old rusty fence wire for steel & old balustrade wire for stainless .
Aluminium I use broken pieces of castings unless it is a very tricky job or has to be "pretty"
When I just buy a length of silicon extrusion or scrap aluminium power wire
If you ever watch any of Kent Whites ( Tin Man Technology ) videos , he uses a variation of the Dillion gun as the technology had been out of patient for nearly 30 years .
And yes I can do a water tight no distortion weld on a steel can but have still not mastered doing the same with aluminium cans.
Industry went electric because it is quicker & time costs money
But I need the oxy gear to remove rusted solid fasteners, wheels that are rusted onto axels etc and I don't actually need an electric welded for anything.
And MIG is still an arc welding process even if you are using one of the fancy wave profiles, the head still comes from a series of sparks, except with MIG the sparks can be smaller because the electrodes are smaller diameter