I've been thinking about learning to weld. Yesterday, one of my cycle wing stays snapped, so now sounds like an opportunity.
for tatting about, £150 for a basic MIG welder sounds like a lot. £50 arc welders are a lot cheaper but are they rubbish / more difficult for a
learner? I've looked on eBay but there's no cheap stuff.
all advice welcome.
gaffer tape
3mm or 1/8" is about the minimum thickness steel you would routinely want to weld with an arc welder. That said, any paint becomes weld-thru primer.....
go to a local welding factory and get it done for a fiver
adam
quote:
Originally posted by oadamo
go to a local welding factory and get it done for a fiver
adam
Having done arc welding (badly) before I bought a MIG to do the locost, I found the MIG a revelation.
If you do go for the Arc, you'll spend weeks swearing at it, then go and buy a MIG anyway.
[Edited on 17/6/07 by bilbo]
Arc welding can be difficult as the DIY air cooled jobbies have an open circuit voltage (OCV) of 48v, this can make the initial startup a bit sticky.
Their minimum amperage tends to be about 40A which is a little high for 16g but can be done.
If you get a DC inverter things get a lot easier, with an OCV of 70-85v and a minimum amperage of about 20A, really rewarding, beautiful welds can be
achieved with relative ease.
cheap.
I am in Evesham which is about 25miles south of B'ham. If you want to borrow an arc welder to have a try, I have one - send a u2u.
Good luck
Dave
I have an old oil cooled 140amp AC welder which has now been relegated as I have bought an inverter which practically does the job for you. Mig is so much more controllable if you haven't done much welding and will probably be more productive for you in general with a quicker learning process. The little DC inverter/scratch start tig units with arc attachments are good for portability and you don't need any gas for arc welding so you pays your money and takes your choice as they say
If you go mig go for a good one £220 ish.
The cheaper migs have useless motors which cannot give a smooth wire feed.
My current welder gives perfect welds, my £150 B&Q gave horrible welds when the motor stutted, just ok when it fed correctly.
Darren
I would really recommend getting a s/h mig unit. I taught myself mig and found it quite easy to pick up. Arc is far less pretty to look at so you are
not going to be proud of it and say "I did that"
I have used arc, mig and oxy. I found I was best at oxy and Mig. Arc was extremely frustrating to learn and I had poor results. I'd recommend
buying a decent, good condition Mig secondhand, It will give you better results and will have done its depreciating so if you didn't want to keep
it you can move it on for little loss.
best
Craig
quote:
Originally posted by RazMan
Arc is far less pretty to look at........
.
quote:
Originally posted by gazza285
quote:
Originally posted by RazMan
Arc is far less pretty to look at........
Only if you are doing it wrong
arc is just as good for most things and if you get the hang of it can do some good welds, i find doing a weld any longer than a inch is when it gets
hard to keep it looking good, can weld 1" box beautifully 1in3 goes and get good results 1 in 5. but go for a mig welder they are meant to be
simpler to use, never used one myself because someone broke the mig welder we have and its a total mystery to me how to get it to feed the wire again.
mig will be more useful in the long run as you will be able to weld car bodies
haha, im letting my friend learn how to arc weld at the moment and hes been welding 1" bits of box together and we have ended up with something
that look like a mace
Give a kid a lego kit and the first thing he'll make is a weapon
well i have just finished my NC qualification in welding at college and can say that mig is definatly the easiest one to learn but can take a while getting the settting right and producing nice looking welds, more so when the metal getse thinner. Arc is easy once you get the hang of it and id choose it for anything over 5mm and tig for anything lower not that migs a bad thing i just dont like it as much feel more comfortable with stick and tig
TBH If I had to keep just one welding set it would be the Arc..........and an Inverter one at that.
No faffing with gas bottles.......cheap consumables..........plus stainless rods. Good accsess into corners. you can bend a rod also to tight
spots........or hold the rod steady with other hand.
Still ....no ones forcing me so I`ll keep Mig and Tig for the Mo