Just a coupla quickish questions about welding really.

Basically, I'd like to learn to weld, just for a few bits on my MK and as an extra skill to have handy.

Any suggestions as to how, and for a cheapy welder to get started with?

Cheers

Local College is always a good start...I'm in the middle of an evening course at Bracknell at the moment and it's great. Quite a few kit owners/locosters there, too

unfortunately, it's not really an option, the next course starting around here will either be march or august

Agree with Steve. Take it from me - teaching yourself to weld is a long and very difficult road. I've been at it for more than a year and am only now starting to show progress.

If you can get an experienced weldor to show you the ropes that'll probably do as well.

Otherwise the way I'm doing it - bought a few books, practice on lots of scrap, troll a few welding BB's archive and ask a lot of questions.

If you want to get quickly on your feet then MIG is your answer. For versatility buy one that can use gas and about 140/150 Amps. You'll be able to weld mild steel, stainless and about 3 mm thick aluminium with a 150 Amp MIG.

Good luck.

having just bought a 150 amp welder (upgrade from my 100amp) I think its wonderful BUT ....

you can't weld on full power through a 13amp socket. On power 5 of 6 it draws up to 14.5amps.

(well ok, you might be able to weld on full power as i know someone who has, but its a close run thing!)

Mike, I had a problem about 9 months ago when I bought my 140 Amp oil cooled arc welder where the mains kept on tripping at full power.

The breaker it was running off was a 20 Amp breaker. Got an electrician to put a new box in my garage with thicker wire and 30 Amp breaker.

Never had that problem again. When I bought my 180 Amp inverter as a test I ran it at full blast and manage to "cut" a 6 or 8 mm steel bar with it - eezy peezy.

Also after the upgrade I noticed how much more "livelier" and stable the arc was than before - it's a real pleasure welding now.

perhaps any electricians can sort this one out? I have 2 welders, a clarke 140E Mk2 which has never blown a fuse in 13 years(usually full power), and a SIP 140 arc welder which blows one every 30mins on low power.

I suspect it has something to do with the transformed power and the OCV they put out. The arc is 48OCV and the mig is unknown

Perhaps also because the MIG is pulsed, if the capacitors in it smooth the power drain it will draw the same amount of power as a lower amperage arc welder.

Could be something to do with the arc voltage for each welder - the lower the voltage the more amps you can have, in theory anyway. An arc welder is generally around 50 - 80 volts depending on settings, while a MIG is a fair bit less.

It's all down to P=I x V

David