Advice on buying a welder

on 03/04/2005, Heds supposed :

If you needs are to weld 3mm and above thick steel, then an ordinary electric welder (using rods) would do fine. Mig types are essential for steel much thinner than this though.

That's just not enough. You need the angle grinder, the box of disks, the automatic hat, the gas bottle hire/disposable and all the rest of it. You _can_ get a S/H MIG for 50 quid, but they're less than wonderful. IMHO a decent MIG is 250 and a real one is 500.

On a budget limited to £50, I'd get a S/H natural draught gas torch from eBay, some tinsnips, hammers and mallets, a half-empty propane cylinder (2,50 from the council dump) and an immersion heater (tenner) from the same place. Then take up coppersmithing, which is just as much fun as welding steel and a lot less demanding on tooling.

MIG rather than stick. Stick is certainly cheaper to pick a machine up for, but it's just not a practical tool to use for almost anything.

Yes, well it would be 8-)

So go back there, or local equivalent. Whereabouts are you ?

It would eat up your budget and leave you with something that's useless on anything less than 1/8" plate and only really useful for over 1/4". Neither sort of metal being the sort of stuff you can cut witht the tools budget you'd have left over.

Agreed - even many MIGs around 250 ish are pretty poor, and you have to pay

Yup - MIG will weld thin plate, ARC (stick) won't.

Alan.

Thanks for all your advice.

So I should look for a MIG rather than an ARC. Next question is: Gas or Gas less? I don't really fancy the trouble of bottles and the associated space they would take up so I think gas less would be best.

I already have an angle grinder, disks, snips etc so that is not part of my budget. I only need the welder, flip down mask and gloves.

Re going back to the workshops, I live in Surrey now and have not found anything similar. Also I don't have the time to make full use of the membership so it would be a bit of a waste.

thanks,

/Heds

Hi,

Get a gas MIG, look at the prices of normal vs flux core wire and bear in mind you'll need more of the flux cored stuff:

The budget gas MIGs are set up to take small disposable cylinders, but can use full size ones with the right adapter. I would have thought a gas MIG can use flux cored wire too with no problems.

Would be well worth getting some scrap or spare metal to practice with, and some course notes or a decent book on welding.

BTW How thick is the metal you're welding?

cheers, Pete.

Advice from a newbie welder...

It's a lot more expensive to run than a gas one - even using the small bottles. If you get larger bottles, even more so.

Another tip is to get an auto mask. They've come down a lot in price - and IMHO are essential for one with little experience. ;-)

MigTigArc Portsmouth are useful, inside I'd use gas, outside gasless, most will handle gasless fluxed wire, with the right sized tip!

Only if you can reverse the polarity of the torch. Easy on some models, next to impossible on others.

Youve only got 50 notes, and you wont get anything but arc for that.

Arc is cheap to buy and dead cheap on electrodes (from 25p). The downsides are 2: the weld is a mess and needs a cleanup it takes a bit of practice to get the stick waggling right. Expect problems for the first 1/2 to 1 hour with arcs going out, and workpiece not heated enough.

Gasless wire is very nice to use, but you wont get anything for =A350, and the wire is expensive too. =A39 a reel isnt huge but it adds up with reel after reel, theres not much on one reel. Advantages: easy, 5 minutes practice is enough welds are clean, no need to bash the crap off them afterwards.

Since youve got 50, its arc. Dont touch the 185A one, it'll vapourise anything you work on instantly.

The one issue I always notice with budget welders is current control that doesnt go low enough. You need one that goes down to 15A at the most, I dont think Ive ever needed to use as much as 40A. The brochures promote huge currents, but thats just not whats needed, especially for lightweight work. You could probably build a house structure with 40A.

NT

I bought a dual gas/gasless MIG a while ago, having had a conventional gas MIG before. I still haven't tried it with gas because gasless has been good enough for the stuff that I do, and less hassle. Some stuff will still need gas, so keep your options open - it probably only makes a small difference to the price.

Only a few millimeters, maybe some scaffolding poles/foot plates, bits of scrap I pick up from skips.

I used to mainly just use 2-3mm steel plate.

/Heds

Don't waste your time on scaff pipe. It's galvanised, which means lousy welds and a headache afterwards. You can scrounge better materials.

Hi,

In that case an arc welder should do, especially for overlapping 'lap' joints. Maybe worth hiring or borrowing one first and practising on some scrap to see how it goes.

Well worth reading up on how to weld, if welding galvanised or rusty steel it needs to be ground back to clean steel first. Also keep the welding rods dry, dry them out in an oven if necessary.

A local welding supplier should be a cheaper place to buy rods than somewhere like Halfords or a tool hire place, plus be a good source of advice.

cheers, Pete.

Add an angle grinder for some 6 quid, and the galvanising just goes away.