thinking of buying a welder

[MDCmotorsports]

Yes, if air hits the molten puddle, it creates an inferior weld and most of the time a porus weld.

A tig welder has to have an inert gas (argon, helium etc) to shield the white hot tungsten from the atmosphere, not to mention the weld puddle form the atmosphere.

Also, TIG gives you a nice sun tan in the winter time - INSTANTLY. LOL

Mig just gives you little black chicken-pock like holes in your skin from the flying spatter.

 

[cjsupra90]

Yeah, my GF always bitches about how my arms are always darker then her hole body and she goes to a tanning bed......

I told her that I would teacher to weld, but she would have to do it naked!

 

[Facime]

well show me a TIG welder in my budget or lets forget about it altogether. I can live without welding aluminum, if thats what your basing your opinions on. Im not a fab shop guys. Im just a guy whos displaced from his normal home, trying to stay busy so I dont put a bullet in my brain. Ok, well thats a little over dramatic...but still, I really want to do just basic welding...its not like its something Im going to make a living off of.

 

[NATAN666]

i was gonna suggest oxy acetalne welding. eliminate the need for a "welder". get the gas, a nice torch, some wire and give'r.. its how i learned to weld and i HATE wirefeed welding... i dont know tig but it makes tig seem so natural...

go either tig or oxy acetalyne

 

[drjonez]

haven't (and won't!) read all the posts.....just give my input.

as with most stuff, it pays to buy quality tools. sounds like you need a 110V MIG. any of the offerings from hobart, miller or lincoln are good. don't waste your time w/gasless or with cheapo welders.

as for the TIG pipedream, forget about it. a good TIG runs $3k+ and is actually not that useful for working on cars (other than straight off car fab work). wirefeed is much more convenient when trying to weld on brackets, etc. under car.

just my $3....

 

[Facime]

Thanks, I think I have the info I need now.

 

[supra90turbo]

lol @ "just my $3", Adam.. hahahaha

This is a good thread. I'm looking for a decent MIG for my garage. It turns out we need one more than we thought.

 

[suprageezer]

I too agree with MDC go Miller TIG. You should be able to find a used one in your budget on either craigslist.org or ebay.

Rick

 

[cjsupra90]

If you are not to worried about Aluminum then get a small DC inverter TIG.

For pretty much everything, you will only use DC anyways. Aluminum is about the only thing that uses AC.. DC units are usually much cheaper.


Now for something that most would not buy but A friend of mine picked one up cause it was cheap and wanted to learn to TIG is a DC inverter TIG from Harbour Freight. Here is a link.... http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=91811

For $260 bucks, its not a bad deal at all. Granted he doesn't use it every day, but doesn't seem to be that bad of quality.... I have used it and it works quite well for what it is. I was impressed especially for the money. The only thing that thing that makes it a little hard to learn to use is that it is a scratch start where others that dont have high-freq starting have other special starting features like Millers Lift-Arc........


EDIT: and at that price, you can still pick up a small 110v MIG like you were originally planning on.....

 

[Facime]

nevermind, it was a miscommunication.