Been thinking for some time about buying a Welder, i now have an early VW camper which needs quite a bit of new metal if its ever going to pass an mot. So what do i buy, what would be the easiest to learn too use by a complete novice.
Thanks
Well for a range of opinion from people who've used them then register on migweldingforum.co.uk & read a bit & watch the videos. It depends on how much money you've got (or the extremely low chance you've got 3ph from your storage heating), personally I really like the tiny R-Tech mig welder I've got, whatever you buy think carefully about the gas, the little bottles get expensive very fast.
I had a mig (170A, IIRC) which served me well enough. I think it cost me about 70 quid (s/h), and possibly something similar for the gas/rental (I got a big tank to use with it). Easy enough to get to grips with on heavier stuff; welding thinner material took more practice.
Main gotchas were my having a mask with a fixed screen (offer welding tip up to material, then can't see a bloody thing until trigger is pressed :-) and gaining enough access to the material being welded (sides of vehicles a doddle, undersides not so much without a car lift or inspection pit)
cheers
Jules
Search past posts, this has been done to death
You need a wire-feed MIG welder. Manual stick is cheaper, but no use for bodywork. You can use gas too, but it's harder and much slower. Handy for shaping though.
Cheap MIGs are grim, as their wire-feed is poor. Cebora or Butters are about the cheapest you'd be happy to use. Murex have a Tradestig 141 that is getting a good reputation and is about the cheapest of all the useful ones.
Gas needs to be an inert mix, not CO2. This means either disposable (pricey!) or renting a cylinder from BOC et al. This is a real pain in the UK 8-(
Get an automatic helmet. fantastic things. Also a leather jacket (dirt cheap, really useful under vehicles) and a bright floodlamp. Angle grinder, wire wheel, flap disks etc. & the obvious safety kit. You can never have too many clamps.
Night school is good. You need to be "told how to weld" (5 minutes, a book will do it) and then practice a lot. Don't practice on the vehicle you're trying to fix. You need a wheelbarrow full of small mixed clean scrap, then after you've welded that into a solid lump you'll be getting the knack of it. Once you're half-decent, you then need to start sawing your welds in half and testing them to see how they really are. A good book on welding in general is Gibson's "Practical Welding",
The theory of wire-feed is vital to understand:
You learn by winding the dials up and playing with spray transfer on thick stuff, then learning subtlety (lower power and dip transfer) later on.
Shaping replacement panels is another story. Fortunately Beetles and campers are both nice thick steel, nothing too weird and have good panel availability.
Gas is very expensive and a good compromise is to use gasless wire. It does spatter a lot more, but after cleaning up the weld is more than adequate.
Its not that easy to use on car bodywork though as it tends to cut through .
eh? IIUC on thin sheet gasless MIG wire is worse than MIG wire with seperate gas? - how so?
Cheers Jim K
Its down to conductivity of the shielding gas. You can get differing ratios of argon, CO2 and O2 depending on thickness of material and depth of weld.
I concede that the shielding gas is better than "gas" from gasless wire, but its effect can be offset by using a lower welding current.
...yebbut..... he is specifically referencing thin material (car bodywork).... why do you and he believe it's *harder* to weld thin stuff with gasless wire vs gas and ordinary wire?
Cheers Jim K
Thin metal is prone to "blowing" holes, but only if very thin and ought to be plated anyhow. With gasless you may have to reduce current wrt gas to stop this. It also depends on feedrate, charcteristics of welder (current vs voltage) and the skill of the operator.
I find gasless is more tolerant of unclean metal, it's also largely unaffected by wind. Each to their own.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Fredxx" saying something like:
Another plus for gasless is it just sits there, ready to use. You don't need to worry about a gas bottle or rental or any of that shit. The downside is it's a bit harder to use at first, but it rapidly justifies its existence when in use. I have a small gasless set for odd use and it's fine for a lot of things when I can't be arsed with farting around dragging a bigger set around. The wire is more expensive, but not a big deal, really.
Gasless wire also has less metal in it for twice the price.
If you add up the cost of gas and normal wire I guess its probably not far different to gasless wire.
Depends on how much you are prepared to pay, small hobby Mig welders which will be ok for car body panels run from £180 upto £500+ for a Portamig 185., i would decide how much you can afford and the ask on migweldingforum.co.uk which as another poster has said is _the_ place for informed advice. If you have never used one before you need to practise and get your technique perfected before you even think of starting on the VW. unlike this chap
Gasless is hotter so you get more penetration, a lot of Migs start at 30amp which will just blow holes in
Are you using the right welder polarity?
You can get a secondhand TIG welder for about £350. They rock!
I've read an number of articles which suggest it doesn't make much difference and that its more the current/voltage characteristics which are more important.
My MIG is wired for gas, and my understanding the ideal polarity is the reverse for gasless wire, yet I can make satisfactory welds. If you have an alternative experience I would like to hear them.
That's interesting - I have a SIP Migmate for gas only, and would like the option of gasless. Do you need any other parts other than the wire?
no - tho all "either way" machines have easy access to reverse polarity of torch/earth - tho seems some don't bother....
cheers Jim K
Yes, reversing the polarity is ideal. If you don't do this, you'll burn the base metal, just as reported here.
Some cheap gas/gasless welders run permanently with gasless polarity (wire hotter than base), so they would suffer from poor penetration if used for thick metals, which admittedly they're unlikely to be used on.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.