What's up bra?
I'm no welding instructor, but I did sleep at a Holiday Inn last night...
I disagree with Capt. Carrera slightly:
* 50% welder settings
* 50% Getting your material CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN
* 20% Getting your fitment/gaps right
yeah... that doesn't add to 100
If you HAVE to do AL you might as well buy a TIG machine, because you will need a spool gun to do it with MIG and they cost $$.
Having researched this matter in depth for about a year, you cannot get a decent TIG machine for under $500 unless it weighs 1000lbs and has no high frequency start or arc stabilization functionality. Da'kine TIG machines run in the $1-5k's. Add to the fact you live in the islands and you have a much smaller market for used stuff too.
So, if I were you I would seriously take MB911's advice and find a nice Hobart 140/175/180 MIG. You can do anything you need to do on your pcar with one of those. I ended up with an OLD Hobart 120 and have yet to need anything bigger. Took me a year to find a good older less expensive welder that I could pick up locally... (they weigh a ton so shipping is HUGE $) but, I stole it on eBay so I'm happy. I have already paid for it in exhaust work on my street car.
As for gas/fluxcore -- well I'm blowing through my roll of fluxcore prior to moving to gas as a way to practice and make things out of thicker material. FC burns hotter and you may have trouble using it on thin items like sheet metal so if your goal is flares then you will certainly want some gas and the setup will probably run you about $100-200 depending on bottle size, buy/rent, etc... the welder you buy should come with a gas regulator setup.
then you need the helmet. I got a Harbor Freight $50 auto dark unit which is great for the amount of welding I do. they are not good for TIG, though. You will run more on the $200-$500 for a really good Auto darkening helmet that can handle the HF of TIG well. If you give up Auto Dark its a lot cheaper.
Get a good pair of gloves and wear LONG SLEEVES as well as pants or an apron that will not catch fire ($50-100)
So you can see, you can get pretty far into it $ wise so do you research well. I used this board a lot for asking questions:
http://www.weldingweb.com/
Nice people there and you can search for a lot of info on any kind of welder you are thinking about as well as electrical hook up advice if you get bigger stuff.
My last project: Burger Brander. For father's day I bent some 1/16th x 1" flat bar into my fathers initials and welded a 1/4" round to it as a handle. He loved IT and we had a big pork loin on the barbie that he branded each slice with for Fathers day dinner. I think I spent about $3-4 in material... I could have bought one for $45 out of a catalog... but it meant a lot more when you make it your self
I'm having a blast welding! Enjoy!
-Michael