Welders

Hey fellas. This is a question for the welder and anyone who is doing welding at home. I'm looking into buying a welder whether its MIG or ARC I don't know. the last welder I hdad was a weldcorp 140 arc welder and it pooped itself on the first day I used it. Took it back to Bunnings and the guy told me they were shit and they all should be recalled. So I stopped welding for a while and now want to get a new unit and start again. I was looking at a arc inverted welder of some sort just cause they are small, light, and powerful. I don't know what size to get but want it capable of being run off my 10amp points in my garage.


Any experience on any brand would be good. It's just for home handy stuff and a few custom fab works for the nav and my bros patrol. It's gotta be reliable and give me plenty of years work.

Cheers
Rusty

I thought MIG and ARC welders were the same thing..
the ARC.. is the big blue light of melting metal?

hey mate, im not salesman for welders but being an apprentice boily, i kno that most of your decent MMAW (stick welder) invertor welders are more often than not 15amp plugs for ya 240Volt powerpoints, unless you go a cheap one, which i doubt would be an invertor, which most (just from word of mouth) arent worth it, however i bought a cigweld 140 amp MMAW from supercheap and it does what i need it to for little bits and pieces i do around the house.

See it depends of what type of metal and the thickness of material you plan on welding that will depend on what type of welder to buy.

on brands CIG Weld and BOC are generally decent brands to go with, although there are others that you can get for cheaper but still do just a good of a job, someone else on here might be able to give you a better insight.

Hi Fella's

It all depends on how much you want to spend for a welder.A mig welder you can get both gas or gasless.Stick welder,tig welder.Good brand are Lincoln or CIG.You can get a plasma cutter or an oxy set.

Shane

Scotte said:

I thought MIG and ARC welders were the same thing..
the ARC.. is the big blue light of melting metal?

Click to expand...

yes that is true they both make an arc. just you find alot of the real cheap brand MMAW or stick welders (ie supercheap brand etc) call them arc welders.

also RustyNav09 probly best to stay away from bunnings and supercheap brand welders though because alot of your cheaper welders have a pretty lowsy duty cycle.

By arc a meant stick . I'm know professional so I'm not with all the duty cycle stuff. I have been lookin on eBay at the Rossi welder. There prob cheap junk but I just wanna weld like 3mm tube and stuff for trays and canopy and trailer work. Stick inverter is prob easiest to weld. MIG I would like cause I wanna do custom exhaust myself so would be good on thinner metal.

yeah mig is better if you want to weld a wider range of material thickness, although a decent mig set up can cost a bit once you add the hire cost of the sheild gas, you can buy gasless altough they are a bit more difficult to get a decent weld than gas sheilded migs.

yeah almost every invertor mmaw welder should weld 3mm tube as long as you use the right amps, you can pick up a decent 3in1 stick/tig/plasma cutter welder on ebay for round 600-700 that one of the blokes i used to work with got just for use at his home and he said the stick and plasma cutter work great, he hadnt used the tig last i talked to him tho.

mate,get a MIG and dont even think about a stick welder,you will burn more holes then you can imagine.
i have a gasless MIG and have built a 2 ton rated trailer with it(inspected by RTA) and it will handle whatever you wana do with it.
i have an 180 amp unit and i weld 10mm thick plate with it easily.
you will be able to get one under a grand.
PS.. the trailer i built is about 10 yrs old and not a single weld has let go or cracked.

You will find a lot of big men on the google machine dissing gasless MIG - if you go with a CIG or Lincoln gas/gasless wirefeed welder, you've got all the welder the cheap and cheerful DIYer needs.

Good weld prep, an auto darkening helmet (eBay cheapies are fine) and the patience to learn to use it will make it easy for you to produce an aesthetically pleasing weld with good penetration. And anybody good on a gasless wirefeed welder is a wizard on a real MIG - nothing teaches a good hand better than a gasless.

And now I invite Jase to bag the shit out of my gasless welder

Mig = easy but more expensive to buy

Stick/arc = a lot harder to master but machines are cheap.

Only the smallest machines will be 10 amp.

I would tell you to buy a 15 amp machine and file the earth pin down but then I would get into trouble haha.

I would get a 10 amp socket replaced to a 15 amp. I'm fairly sure these days they allow it without a dedicated circuit providing it is protected by the correct circuit breaker. Any sparkys on the forum that know the rules?

I am a boilermaker and a gasless mig for ease of use after a bit of practice is the go. as previously mentioned if you want to chase holes and slag go the stick, I am a bit biased I like the tig, neat welds and you can do almost every thing with it and duty cycle doesnt come into it. I have a BOC 140 inverter that is usually plugged into a 10amp outlet with the TIG is fine but any thing heavier would probably tip out the breaker. A lincolin gasless mig are pretty good quite reliable.

Dion said:

You will find a lot of big men on the google machine dissing gasless MIG - if you go with a CIG or Lincoln gas/gasless wirefeed welder, you've got all the welder the cheap and cheerful DIYer needs.

Good weld prep, an auto darkening helmet (eBay cheapies are fine) and the patience to learn to use it will make it easy for you to produce an aesthetically pleasing weld with good penetration. And anybody good on a gasless wirefeed welder is a wizard on a real MIG - nothing teaches a good hand better than a gasless.

And now I invite Jase to bag the shit out of my gasless welder

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And real men use TIG............and drive D22's.


.

Krankin said:

And real men use TIG............and drive D22's

Click to expand...

Real men have full time jobs and the money to blow on bottle rental and a 40yo chassis for which they charge... $35,000

Respect

Dion said:

Real men have full time jobs and the money to blow on bottle rental and a 40yo chassis for which they charge... $35,000

Respect

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now now...no need for a dummy spit.
taken it way too personally mate...and ahh, my chassis aint 40 year old.

diss

Krankin said:

now now...no need for a dummy spit.
taken it way too personally mate...and ahh, my chassis aint 40 year old.

diss

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Hey, that was no dummy spit

I try to avoid the burning my keys on this forum

I'm on your side

Wish I had the coin to TIG...



D21 vs. D22 ribbing just gets people confused, might give up trying

But look under a Datsun 720- it looks familiar...

Because if it ain't broke, don't fix it?

I bought myself a gasless mig (Nu-Weld) on the recommendation from a repairer of the things and can't talk it up enough. Having not used one before (and being reasonably competent with stick) I recon it is the best bang for my hard earned. Been warned off eBay units because of the lack of parts for repairs.

Cheers Brad

Krankin said:

And real men use TIG............and drive D22's.


.

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Dat's the Truth Brother !!!!!!!!!!

yes its true real men use tig.

the problem i find with most people using gasless is they uses it like a mig. gasless has to be used the same was as MMA (stickwelding) it needs to be draged along not pushed. if doing multipul runs it needs to be cleaned before the next run. wire brush on a grinder or grinding blade will work fine.

Dion said:

And now I invite Jase to bag the shit out of my gasless welder

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Surely your not referring to that thing that intermittently excretes molten globes of shit as a welder?


Invitation excepted