Welders: If you had to choose one...?
 

I have yet to learn to weld, but realize I will need to with all the projects I have. I would like to purchase (and learn on) a welder that will be most useful to the average "car guy"...welding sheetmetal, repairing broken mounts, adding brackets to rollbars/frames, etc. Nothing exotic, just basic repairs for the average mechanic. Also looking to use for around-the-house projects (a/c stands, decorative components, etc.). My shop has 220v if that matters.

If I had 220v capability I would get a 220V Lincoln (that's what I got) or Miller MIG welder with infinite adjustment. If you want a slightly more portable machine, you could think about 110V MIG Lincoln 135 series or Miller's equivalent

Do you have a model #? I just did an E-Bay search and there are several hundred "Lincoln MIG" welders, ranging from a few $$$ to several thousand $$$. Is MIG easy to "self-teach"?

Miller Econotig or other brand equivalent. I could not live without mine and almost never use my 110 mig I started with. After all, the question was Welders: If you had to choose just "ONE"....?

Mig is the easiest to learn.

Tig produces the best welds (if done properly). (Okay, SAW produces better welds, but that's out of the question here. ;))

I have no idea what anyone uses stick for...

I used a stick welder to fabricate my frame rack and towers. 3/8 to 3/4 plate.

Hobart 135 I love mine. It's 110 volt and real mig with gas regulators right out of the box. Excellent quality and fair price, I have welded fender flares,engine mount and misc. with zero issues. I'm not a fan of Harbor Freight welders as I think support for them is non-existant, better to stay will Miller,Hobart or Lincoln.

if you have 220 at 60 amps, I recommend the econotig.

Re 220 mig - If you ever saw the Miller and the Lincoln side by side with the sheet metal off, to even the untrained eye, you would say "give me the Lincoln"
They are far more robust than the Miller even though on the outside they look similar and are about the same size. (This will piss off the Miller guys but its true)


I have had my Lincoln with infinitely variable wire speed and amperage for 3 years and it is very nice and trouble free.


All that said both will do the job and the amateur welder probably could not tell the difference. A home shop would not have duty cycle issues either unless, possibly, you were building a trailer. I think they are about the same price. If red hurts your eyes then get the Miller.

If that's all you know at this point, stop. You will waste money until you actually weld and know what you want. Why do I say that? Well, so far I've bought two and I could sell both in a heartbeat if I had the money to buy the right equipment. Don;t have shi!t load of amps in your garage? Buy a gas powered one. the time you spend with the torch running is minuscule compared to fabrication, set up and post welding activities.

I go to welding school; I'm in my 2nd semester. I went to welding school 30 years ago, too. I've been hitting and missing ever since. You can't teach yourself to weld....properly and totally safely. I don't care what others may say.

I just got done taking a welding class at the local community college. For $260, I'd recommend it before purchasing a welder.

My goal was just to learn about the various processes and their applications. Well, I learned about the first part. (We spent far too much time on oxyacetylene IMO.) Still, I didn't find the instructor all that insightful and I don't think I'll get much more out of welding 5" plates for four more classes...

Good point Milt. Try before you buy. My mechanic, and the local Miller dealer both let me try equipment before I bought.

Fortunately, I have a warehouse with 200amp service. I do plan on taking classes, but I'm a pretty good self-learner. Thought it might be satisfying to learn to stick two pieces of metal together on my own.

I just bought a MIG welder last week, and that's exactly what everyone told me: get one with continuous (infinite) adjustments for wire speed & amperage.

The welding shops I called recommended the Lincoln 140c as a "heavy use" home hobbyist welder. That's the 110V model, and can weld up to 5/16 plate. The 220V model is the 180c, which can weld up to 1/2" plate and is about $100 more. I wanted 110V so I could cart it around with me and not worry about getting access to 220V.

I've had my Lincoln 140c for a little over a week, and I can't tell you how happy I am with it. There are no "welding 101" night courses around here, so I had to read the manual and learn on the fly. It is really easy to use, and pretty soon you get a sense for what it's supposed to sound/feel like.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1192542093.jpg

I have a Lincoln 135plus here at the house and have been able to do everything I've wanted. Even some 3/8 plate with passes on both sides. I use a 175plus at work (building nascar chassis) and even have used Bert Beagle's and will say If I had the service to do the 175 I would, but the 135 is slightly more handy. But, I have access to the 175 anytime I need it so take that into consideration. BTW the charts inside the door of the lincolns will get you close. And I would stay away from the newer 140s and 180s if you can. We've had alot of trouble with them and they seem really touchy to get right.

Also a good project is to build your own welder cart. Lets you be creative plus you can learn how to weld better while actually building something.
here's an idea:
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1193060575.jpg

????? :D I never took a welding clas in my life, but I have taught a few friends to weld. I would put my thin wall chrome moly tubing tig welds up against anyones. It is all about learning to recognize proper penetration and avoiding undercutting. I learned at a young age how to stick weld at a friends house. Later in life, learning to mig weld was simple. Anyone can learned to make non critical welds with a mig weld in short order. Tig welding and oxy/acetylene welding takes much more practice, but once one understands the theory of proper penetration it can be mastered thru practice.

Unless you take a welding course taught by someone like mb911 or maybe a custom motorcycle or hotrod builder, you will probaly not be taught all the little nuances that will help you weld thin sheet metal or thin walled tube structures. These can be mastered by some serious practice. Learning how to weld two 1/4" plates together in a class, is not the same skill needed to weld the typically thin sheet steel or thin walled tubing that car guys typically want to weld. Unless you know someone that can help you initially with this kind of welding, IMO, you are better off just buying an old fender or two at a junk yard and cut it up and start practicing on it until you can make decent welds. I think most who become dicouraged with DIY welding at home, typically do not take the time to practice enough on scrap in different positions and after 5 minutes of practice, they try to actually weld on their car and end up with a mess, so they give up.

I yi yi !!

I just dropped $850 on a 140c

Care to elaborate?

I'm thinking of getting the Lincoln Invertec V155-S. Anything I should know about that?

Chris, the inverter tig welders are awesome for welding thin steel and stainless steel, but they are DC only, so welding aluminum is not possible. My Miller Econotig is both AC and DC output, so it can weld both. At times I wish I had an inverter type welder, as a friend of mine bought one a couple years ago and it will weld thin stuff a bit easier than my Econotig due to the fact that the current can be set much lower than my econotig. If I never needed to weld aluminum, I would opt for the inverter tigs.

FWIW, the econotig does a beautiful job on .035" thick steel tubing, but takes some concentration to weld .025 and thinner steel. One can fake it out a bit by winding the ground cable around a steel pipe to rob some current. My airplane's tail feathers are made from bent .025 4130 steel welded to tube .035" steel tube and one has to be very careful to start the arc on the heavier tube or start and or immediately melt a drop of filler rod on the sheet steel raw edge to create a heat sink, stop, then start the weld up paying close attention to adding filler and keeping the arc concetrated on the heavier section. IOW, lots of practice till it becomes natural.

At this point, I have no intention of welding aluminum. I can understand why you would want to use AC for doing Tig on aluminum, as you get a balance between cleaning oxides and penetration.

I'd like to do a roll cage and then maybe a full chassis from tube. I've often wondered if AC Tig wouldn't be better for that.

We had some of the first ones to come out and found that the feed wheels were not gripping the wire right. Seemed like maybe the wheels were marked wrong for the wire size. Also the controls just seem so touchy, really hard to weld thin material. And when spot welding you have to turn the heat range to max to get any penetraion. They just don't start out hot enough IMO. I haven't heard of any corrections to these problems and the last I saw one of the reps. was about a week ago. Our supplier has hoarded as many of the 135s and 175s he can find, so that should say something.

Legion- I've not used the 155 because they are only for tig'ing steel (dc). We do have a few of the 205s and I've been impressed with them. Their only downfall is the short duty cycle with thicker alum. but on thin alum. I've welded all day with no trouble. Big price difference though. I would look into the miller econotig or the hobart tigmate. They seem to be a little cheaper and have heard good things on both.

I'd really like something that does Mig and Tig, AC and DC, but they are pretty pricey. We're looking at $3,000 - $5,000 for a full rig.

Although, when I sell the 951 it will free up quite a bit of cash...

Tim, what kind of gas(ses) do you run for Tig? Do you do any Mig? If so what gas(ses) do you use for that?

We were running 75% AR and 25% CO2 for Mig and 100% AR for Tig in my welding class...

absolutely love my Miller 140autoset. it is one smooth ass machine! i do wish i could do al. and ss but my usage (beyond working on the car) is for fun only.

i found Tig to require a LOT of coordination (amazing stuff though) and if i do hit the lottery one day i will most certainly own a nice tig machine. however i am totally happy with my Miller mig.

there is something so totally satisfying about laying down a weld that sounds absolutely nothing like bacon frying (i think this analogy was coined by a lousy welder).

Chris, the place I work at uses Ultramix (75%-25%) for it's wire welders that are strictly used for steel, but at home, I have a big tank of argon for my tig welder and a small tank for my rarely used 110 wire welder. In recent years, I had my small tank also filled with argon as it works fine also for steel, but I wanted a back up if I ever ran out of gas in my tig welder on a weekend.

Also, when I mentioned the AC/DC thing in respect to inverter tigs, I am talking about the output "welding mode" which is "Electrode negative" (DC) for welding steel and stainless. For aluminum, you set the welding output to AC. The inverter types IIRC, are DC output only (I guess that is why they are called inverters as they convert the 220 AC house current to DC only). They work awesome for welding steel and stainless steel, but they do not have the high frequency AC output available like larger old school tig machines. I am guessing that other companies like Hobart, Lincoln etc offer full feature relatively inexpensive air cooled torch models similar to the Miller Econotig like I have. I would not be afraid to buy any of those name brands, I just happened upon a good deal on my barely used Miller Econotig a few years back. My Econotig does have a set of stick welding cables that plug into it, so for welding heavier "farm" type stuff, I on occasion will use that feature.

Thousands of roll cages have probably been built with mig welders, but for critical stuff made of relatively small diameter thin walled tubing, tig is BEST as once you master it, you can accurately control the heat from start up of weld on a cold metal to the end of the weld when the metal is hot. Mig starts cold until the metal heats up. You often end up with either not enough penetration at the start of the weld, or you burn thru too much at the end of the weld as the thin metal quickly becomes hot. I wouldn't worry too much with the average roll bar, but I won't pull 6 g's in an airplane if I don't think it has 100% penetration in all of the tubing cluster joints.

our invertec v-205 is a ac/dc machine Wonder if that was a fluke Tim! :D

Anyhow I would shy away from Miller right now noty much good going on there with TIG machines at the moment. Lots of bad PC boards. The ESAB and lincoln Tigs are better at the moment. I have at home a ESAB Heliarc 161 Tig Machine. it works wonderful. But I also get the choice of a dynasty (miller) 300 dx,synchrowave 350 (miller), and many others at school. I used to be a big miller Fan but just have terrible luck at school with the millers

Ben, I have not looked into these small tig welders recently, but a couple years back, the small relatively inexpensive ones were indeed DC only. The 205 you mentioned sounds like a nice unit. I checked Lincoln's web site and the 155 Legion mentioned is indeed DC only.

As I noted before, at the time I got my then 1yr old Miller Econotig, I got a good deal on it (traded an old basically junk experimental airplane project for it which I valued at about $1000).

For the real thin stuff, I would rather have one of the small inexpensive DC only machines, but I occasionally need to weld aluminum, so the Econotig is just fine for my home shop. I have added a thumbwheel torch control (a must have for welding in large awkward airplane fuselages) and I bet I use my welder once a week on average even when I am not in the middle of a big project.

Whew! That invertec v205 is pretty pricey.

Tim does the econotig have any limitations in the metal it can weld?

Just saw an ad on the miller site for a spool gun that fits the 140 and 180. It would surely be fun to try it.

There is an aluminum spool gun kit for the Lincoln 140 & 180 too. I was a bit sceptical, having read here about MIG welder's limited ability to do aluminum. However, the guy at the welding shop showed me some pieces they had done with the Lincoln 180c... looked pretty good.

You guys are talking about a spool gun for Tig of Mig?

sorry, for a 110 Mig machine.

None that I am aware of. It has four basic mode settings: AC high & AC low (what I use for aluminum), DC Electrode negative (what I use for steel and stainless steel), DC Electrode positive (what I use to create a ball on the end of a tungsten to use on aluminum)

MB911 could probably advise on welding exotic metals that I have not encountered.

Thanks Tim. How about working with relatively thin al like on a radiator or catch can?

The thinnest aluminum I have personally welded with my Econotig, was .050" 5051 aluminum sheet that I made butt welded aircraft fuel tanks with. I am confident it would weld thinner aluminum, but I could not say just how thin. I did a good job on my tanks, but I am much more experienced with tig welding relatively thin steel components. Most aircraft aluminum is 2024 and therefore is usually riveted together, while most steel parts are 4130 and welded.

Butt welding sheet aluminum tanks is difficult in that one must keep the gap to a minimum which means many tack welds. Tack welds are kind of dirty and when doing the final welds, it is difficult to maintain an even "stacked dime" type appearance as you keep running into the relatively dirty tack welds. Cleanliness is critical for aluminum and I always go over the joints with a clean stainless "aluminum only" brush in between tacking/finish welding.

No such thing as a spool gun for tig unless it is Hot wire tig which is used in orbitals.

seriuosly look at ESAB units. Very nice quality.. The econtig's use to be great but have steadily lost ground.. I do like the older ones

I think he is refering to thickness and yes the econtig does have limitations 1/4 inch aluminum would be max IMHO and probably require a good preheat. But you probably won't be doing that any time soon

I've seen Tig torches for manual use that have a wire fed in next to the electrode. Not sure if you would consider that a spool gun, but they do exist. Not very common as you cannot change direction with them.

Look at the bottom torch:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1193184311.jpg

I have a Lincoln sp 100 that I bought in 1989 and other than one of the guys at the shop cutting through the cable I have never had a problem with it and I use it constantly and am pretty hard on it. Great machine.

those are not hand helds those are for orbitals and are typically hat wire meaning they are positivly charged.