What kind of inexpensive (relatively) welding device do I need?
I have steel burglar-bar doors onto which I want to tack some steel mesh and turn the grate into a screen door (sorta - it's really to keep the cats in instead of the bugs out).
In addition, who knows what future small welding jobs might come my way.
Its a good thing I save helpful posts. There is someone who posts using the name "heybub" and every post is a keeper.
I just looked through them and he answered someone else who asked about welding telling them to get duct tape and glue and make sure it is the good stuff from the dollar store and to get a hammer from harbor freight. He said all of this shouldn't cost more than $8.
I was thinking the same as EA, Lincoln 225 welder. One potential drawback to them is they need 220 VAC single phase. The Lincoln salesmen must've made a good living off farmers way back when. One advantage is they can cut metal if necessary when cranked to maximum amperage. It won't be pretty but it will work. Some used ones on Ebay, of course.
On Tuesday 05 February 2013 23:45 HeyBub wrote in alt.home.repair:
Personally, I would go for a small CO2 MIG unit, with a small bottle[1] of gas. Not the "gasless" wire.
[1] Proper refillable bottle - one hit for a deposit but cheap to refill and far cheaper to run than throwaway bottles. Lasts forever in the shed if not in use. The ones I'm thinking of are about 2.5 ft long.
A decent[2] home grade MIG can cope with light materials well, eg thin mesh and sheet but can still weld upto about 1/8" steel which makes it fairly versaile.
[2] It is possible to get a decent home use unit. It's also possible to get a rubbish "pro" unit. I had a Cebora which was very good. The main thing that matters is a stable wire feed and good current control. What a home unit is poor at is duty cycle, which is often not so much of a problem for occasional use.
Don't forget to budget for CO2 bottle hire and a regulator.
Your main problem will be learning to use it. The easiest to learn to use are MIG welders. (Metal Inert Gas). Stick/straight electric welders are much more difficult especially on thin metal. Gas welding, harder again.
Perfidy?? goddamm.... is perfidy like being an asshole?? If so, dats George!!
Someone mentioned HF welders. I'd check with the ng's I mentioned, and rcm, first. I bought a fancy-dancy Sears welder, con't variable amps, sposedly more power than my Lincoln 225, other bells/whistles, and goddamm did it suck.
The older lincolns came with a special 75 amp circuit, with a 100% duty cycle. You can tell this bec that amp rating on the dial is circled. For thawing frozen pipes'n'shit, or using with a carbon-arc torch. Or, just, well, welding, for long stretches. Most welders have a 20% duty cycle, incl the Lincoln on its other amp settings.
Strange, tho, I don't see this marking on the newer Lincoln 225s on display, leading me to believe that they do not have this feature. fwiw
I bought a HF el cheapo flux core welder off of Craig's List for $50. It even included a helmet. It works great. If I ever want to upgrade I can sell it for what I've got into it.
I had an ac welder for a while. All I did was cut things. After my brother was fooling around with a couple, suggest I make a dc adaptor. I made it, and seemed to work well. Used some diodes lad large split torroid transformer for inductor.
Based on several recommendations - and, admittedly, my own inclinations - I opted for the HF 90-Amp MIG welder. Fortunately, I found one on Craigslist PLUS a welding cart ($50) PLUS a few extras like a better helmet ($50) and welding pliers ($8). One hundred bucks for the collection.
I haven't used it yet, but it looks pretty spiffy. If anyone is interested I can post the results of my experimentation at another time.
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