Need Advice On Mig/other Welders

[peterx666]

I have been thinking of getting a welder for some years but dont kno

much about them

Understand gas welders are best but the bottles cost £100 each t refill so too expensive - they used to make one with smaller bottle but they dont exist anymore?

I dont know the difference between an elextric welder and a MI electric welder except that the MIG has a wire running through it - wh I dont know. Do these perform differently in use or is one bette than the other for welding certain things? Can you help me tell th difference??????

Aldi have a MIG welder on offer DC power output of 25amp to 130amp - i this good enough for most jobs??

The MIG wire seems expensive - how long does it last? what does it do is it like the electrode in the elec welder? Says its cored with flu

- doe that help the weld?

If anyone can offer any advice or point me in the right direction - would appreciate it - it may save me from paying out on the wron thing??

HELP

Pet

-- peterx666

[Harry Bloomfield]

peterx666 wrote on 30/05/2007 :

Basically...

Electric welders are cheap to buy and the rods are cheap, but you are limited to thicker steel welding (over around 3mm). Fine for fabricating various things, but not much use for car bodies etc..

The MIG welders can weld very much thiner steel inc. car bodies. Some use a separate gas or a coated wire instead like the Aldi unit. The wire serves the same purpose as the rod (consumed in the weld) and the gas or coating prevents oxygen getting to the weld.

The Aldi MIG unit would be a good basic welder for most purposes.

[John Rumm]

For general odds and sods I would go for a MIG if choosing again. I have a SIP 150A Merlin arc welder that is ok, but like most of its breed not good on the thinner stuff. The other irritating thing about mine is it is not fan cooled, so tends to cut out after 20 mins of being switched on (or 60% of the way through a job!)

The standard wire (for use with shielding gas) on big reels is quite cheap. Smaller ones less so. The flux cored stuff is much more expensive, but ok if you are not doing much.

The wire is consumed in the weld, same as a rod on an arc welder. The flux creates the protective shield of gas as you weld (same as the coating on the arc rod, or the separate gas supply when using ordinary wire). Flux coted rods make a messier weld, but work better outside in the wind.

You have not said what your main uses would be, so its harder to suggest something.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

MIG is generally accepted as being the best value and ease of use for DIY

- especially if you want to do car body repairs or weld thin steel. They sort of come in two types - the sort with a flux in the wire and ones which have a separate inert gas supply from a canister or bottle. The latter type are cheaper to run, but perhaps not as convenient as the 'flux wire' variety. Some types can do either.

[George]

Mig welding is the way to go if your doing girders? :0) its far easier to use a Mig than a Arc welder and you can get a finer weld without burn through.

Mig welders can use copper,brass and steel feed cable which is definatly cheap. Try Screwfix or Machine mart for their pricing.

[George]

That should have been...

NOT doing girders. :-)

[Andy Dingley]

MIG (MAGS really) is certainly used for "doing girders". The process is more controlled than stick and you can weld almost continuously without having to stop and change rods. In particular you can robot weld with wire-feed with a very simple robot (just an edge-following trolley)

For domestic scale though, it's MIG everytime.

• Read the ng archives, also the excellent sci.engr.joining.welding

• Get a good book (Gibson's "Practical Welding"). Haynes etc. aren't worth reading.

• Nightschool classes, or other competent welders with access to reliable industrial-scale equipment are worth knowing.

• Most DIY welders and most garage-mechanic welders are bloody awful.

• Get a wheelbarrowful of clean scrap steel and do some real practice on rubbish before you go anywhere near the real project.

• Budget for angle grinders, gloves, etc. too.

• WaterGel in the squirt bottle! (fiver, Boots)

• Use a real argon gas-based welding mix, not pub CO2

• Start out with cored (gasless) wire if you can't afford gas or you're working outside in a wind, but spend the little extra and get a machine that can do both in the future.

• Get an automatic hat (cheap these days)

• Get a decent machine when you can afford it, particularly if you're planning to restore a whole car. SIP are all crap. Cebora are OK at around 300 quid. A 500 quid Murex will outlive you.

• When you've bought a SIP and the thing is so crap it's stopping you working, throw it away and get something decent. Don't waste your life mucking it out and getting nothing useful done.

• Save up for a plasma cutter.

[crb]

I have a MIG welder and an arc welder, both lying unused since I bought a Portaflame gas welding kit

find it so much easier to use and very flexible in its applications. Oxygen bottles have no rental charge and cost around =A325 for a refill. MAPP bottles are around =A314. Hunter Tools of Godalming, Surrey also sell various specialist brazing rods (Australian in origin I believe) which IME are easier than welding and give (for my applications at least) as good strength as a "proper" weld.

No connection with Hunter Tools, simply a satisfied customer.

CRB

[Tim Lamb]

In message , Andy Dingley writes

OK Where then?

Most of the ones I have found are circa 100ukp!

regards

[Dave Plowman (News)]

They seem to make it very difficult to find out the price of it, etc. I can get the PDF of the spec and some spares ok.

[Andy Dingley]

Ads in the back of Practical Classics (car mag), last time I bought a cheap one.

Go for cheap, go for batteries not solar, go for a standard-sized hole in the helmet.

Then take the cheap works out and fit it into an industrial-quality hat, with adjusters that don't slip (two knobs on the outside, not one).

Mine was over 200 when I got it, and Racals were 400. Cheapest I've paid was 70, a few years back.

[Tim Lamb]

In message , Andy Dingley writes

What is the problem with solar?

OK. I still use a hand held shield and clamp the work piece. Welding with a spare hand is going to seem very odd:-)

Most of my welding is 3mm+ so a splash on the run in doesn't matter. Having to wear *reading* glasses for this sort of work is an added inconvenience.

regards

[Huge]

I did an evening class in Welwyn Garden City called something like "Basic Welding" where we learned AC arc, gas & MIG welding. Worth every penny of the 37 quid it cost.

On the evening class we had to make welds, cut them in half, polish and etch them, then get shouted at by the instructor as to how crap they were. :o)

I didn't do this. Mistake.

[Mark]

Yes but you are doing an A Hall and implying that a hobby mig on pub gasCo2 is unusable which is just not true. Two test welds on 20swg steel one with a 20year old SIP 100 using pub Co2 the other with a Migatronic using an Argon/Co2 mix

[Andy Hall]

For one class or a series of them? I'm always surprised as to how little these sort of courses cost in comparison to IT related ones. I wonder whether the pricing is based on what the customer is willing to pay or on what money's at stake.

What is an automatic hat? A visor that drops and lifts when you press the tit on the business end of the welding machine?

I've never done welding or had a reason to do so, so not really studied it - I'm even less interested in fixing up cars than domestic appliances. However, I have the impression that this is like the metalwork equivalent to bucket chemistry. Viz magazine has a reference to unattractive ladies along the lines of "face like a f*cking welder's bench" I'm intrigued as to what is not appealing about a welder's bench. Admittedly, this did come from the same source that produced remarks such as "smell like a tart's winder box" (apparently it's a geordie turn of phrase.)

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Dunno about now, but adult education (evening) classes used to be a service to the community rather than a business. The premises and equipment are already in place so it should only be the labour costs that need to be covered.

[Andy Hall]

Understood. Even then, the lecturer is not getting a lot for his expertise.

[Steve Walker]

Indeed - it's an outrage that the expensive learning facilities in every town tend to be locked shut for 3/4 of the time. They should be used to teach adult ed groups at cost, night & day, 52 weeks pa, like in the old days - aren't we supposed to be creating a high-skill workforce or something?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

My brother was a teacher and used to take evening classes. He reckoned the pay to be a bit like overtime - but with the definite bonus that you were teaching those who wished to learn.

[Andy Hall]

I can certainly see the attraction of that.