What are you getting your DW’s for Christmas? Mine has everything — want something special — any ideas?
Plus son, as he is loading up to head home after Thanksgiving, mentions that if I am stumpted for a present — he wants a welder and he will send me a shot of it — est cost was $160. Looked on Amazon, and there was one for $330 — do not want to go cheap, would rather give him soemthing that he can use for long time rather than something that he will move from to a better unit — he’s 27 and and architect. — tks — all the best – Dudley
Replies
do not get the ac welder, get an ac/dc welder. Dc is better for welding. Licoln has a good one for about $350. I will never weld ac again.
First things first, have him get some lessons. He needs to decide if he needs TIG, MIG, MIG with a spool gun, Stick AC, Stick AC-DC. There are a ton of choices that need to be made. Only after getting some exposure to the different methods should he pick a welder. Most community collages offer night classes, money well spent. You may offer to pay for the class and give him a automatic welding helmet as a start. Of course this is going to cost you some more money, but you will have a gift that will last and be used.
He needs to decide if he needs TIG, MIG, MIG with a spool gun,
I agree! Just a Old Army Tank Mechanic welder here.. We used Carbon Arc! About 400 AMPS!
What are you getting your DW's for Christmas? Mine has everything -- want something special -- any ideas?
Think you have a problem? Mine's a sales rep for women's apparel and accessories. She can get virtually anything wholesale, or less. So she got a new van this year. Not much of a present, certainly no surprise, so I'm going to have to come up with something else. Not likely I can get the new house finished by Christmas although I did get an email today from somebody who wants to apprentice. Unbelievable!
With all due respect to Brownbag, when I started welding (with a borrowed arc welder) I couldn't tell the difference between AC or DC or polarity. They all worked and my welding was so inexpert that I couldn't see an advantage of any of them. Bought a Lincoln tombstone used, AC only. Works fine for everything I need except thin steel. That's when the mig comes out.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
The other thing to consider is oxy-acetylene. It's more versatile and easier to learn than electric, better for the infrequent user.
-- J.S.
A agree about oxy-acetalene, I would just add on to "Easier to learn": harder to master. If he gets good at oxy acet. he can do anything. And it will help him decide, if he hasnt allready, which type of elec. welder to buy
-->
measure once
scribble several lines
spend some time figuring out wich scribble
cut the wrong line
get mad
My vote is a small acetylene. I have one that I use for copper plumbing, and is very good for cutting and heating stuff to loosen it. And you can make a great explosion at 4th of july...
I've done the oxy/acy, arc and mig. Hands down get a mig. I love my Hobart 135. Runs on 110v. Get the bottle to get away from that fluxcore stuff. $450
Martin
I got the oxy/acl. Lincoln ac/dc. miller mig. I would like a tig unit but what I really want and have been looking is a lincil diesel pipeline welder. Not just the bobcat type but the pipeline welder. The daddy of all daddy. The grey unit you see on back of truck. 10 years use they run $6000.
As usual I disagree with everyone. Get him a 110V mig unit, Miller if possible, maybe a XP 135. He can master it in a few hours, it's point and shoot, and will probably do everything he wants..NOW. He'll progress from there, and it's a good confidence building starting point that he can build from...with a bottle of gas and solid core wire, then a bottle of argon and some aluminum wire...then he'll be hocking the farm for a huge mig, then a tig...soon he's strung out on plasma cutters and looking to score a spoolgun.
I'm Keith ... and I have a problem...I like to melt metal and make sparks.......it's been 2 hours since my last arc......forgive me father.
The MillerMatic 135 just became my latest toy...I mean tool. Signed up for the course at the community college. So far have been able to experiment with all sorts of stuff. Stick's about like I remember it. My first "project" was writing my daughter's name with a bead. MIG was a lot of fun, too. Really didn't like tig at all. Wanted simple...some of the machines had too much stuff to remember--too many settings--and there's just not that much empty space left in my head (or too much...can't recall). Going with flux-core wire...don't wanna horse around with gas bottles. KISS, with me being the last S.
You ought to try gas shielded. its not that bad. if you cam get hold of some of the smaller tanks then youll get a much better weld. and once you get the hang of it tig is really petty cool. you can do some neat things.
I have the Millermatic 175, Get the bottle it is fairly cheap. Less then a hundo.
Here is a good site. http://www.hobartwelders.com/mboard/
I have welded up some stuff on my jeep that would have cost much more than the tool or may I say toy. Let alone the other things, You can pretty much fix anything now.
Go with the flow, foster the creativity.
Edited 5/4/2005 11:48 pm ET by rjgogo
You're starting small, and that's good. Once you get to run some solid wire with gas, you won't go back. You'll still need the flux core for outside welding, but with less smoke and nasty splatter, gas is the way to go.
The "ask Andy" forum from Miller, and the Hobart Forum linked above are just like this forum. Totally addicting.
I moved on from the XP 130..got a MM251, then a Plasma, then a TIG. I was just like you, wanted to keep everything simple....then something happened...must be the melting steel. LOVE the TIG....so precise, simply awesome.
If you don't have one already, buy an auto hood, sounds to easy, but they up the quality of your welds a lot.
Post some pics of your projects.... I will. Keith
The auto darkening helmets can save you from seeing a lot of purple spots... I recently took a welding certification course and couldn't find the Speedglas auto darkening helmet I purchased a couple of years ago. The $149 auto dark helmet at Harbor Freight was on sale for $99 so I grabbed one. During the course, I kept thinking that I used to be a better welder. Finally I found my old Speedglas and tried it. What a difference. The HF helmet was much darker at the top than at the bottom and it was hard to find the right spot to see anything clearly. Actually, the HF helmet seemed much less clear than did the Speedglas. The Speedglas has somewhat of a gradation, but much less than the HF helmet. With the Speedglas, I almost looked like a welder... However, the Speedglas was (is) about $330. I understand that the Miller helmets are about as good as the Speedglas for about $280 and have enough room to wear a respirator under them, which the Speedglas does not.
(Also, getting a set of 1.5diopter lenses for the Speedglas helped quite a bit... And, yeah, I just throw in the elipsis from time to time to aggrevate the punctuationally anal types...)
Flames,
This may be a stoopid Q but...
What it the difference between a wire feed welder with an option for gas and a MIG welder??
Some day I may buy a welder.....
after about 50k of woodworking and carpentry tools...
We always get it right!!!
the third time....
<!----><!---->
"Almost certain death, small chance of success.... What are we waiting for???"
Wire feed uses a flux cored wire, same overall look and feel, but with alot more smoke and splatter(and you can use it out in the wind), the flux in the core shields the weld. Mig has a shielding gas coming out the gun from a bottle, less splatter and smoke, cleaner weld, but not good for outdoors. You can run flux cored in a MIG, but not solid wire in a wire feed.
The option for gas, MAY mean that you need to get a different gun but it has the gas solenoid valve and switches installed or you have to buy all that and a gas bottle. Go MIG, it's cheaper in the long run and more versatile out of the box.
Edited 5/20/2005 7:06 am ET by Keith C
In the last few weeks, we've been able to do stick, mig, tig, cag, and pac. Like a kid in a candy store. I loved the carbon arc gouging, be/c you could "feel" the molton metal as you pushed through it. But there's nothing like plasma cutting. It was amazing how fast and clean that cut, except it was a little like magic be/c you can't feel it happening in the same way as CAG. In class we just work on small pieces of scrap...I either weld or cut my daughter's name in the plate as a souvenir for her.
Kids get a real kick out of welding too. My 10 yo girl can mig pretty well. The 8 yo is a bit scared of the sparks but puts on the hood and watches...the 5 yo boy..well he's a nut, and he loves it all..he'll watch all day, and always asking to play with the plasma.
Soon you'll be thumbing thru the Miller and Lincoln catalogs at night...cruising e-bay for deals from IOC and BRWELDING, just like we all did with Tool Crib.....stopping to pick up scrap steel here and there, taking old swingsets for tube, bedframes for angle....thinking of the possibilities.
Don't go here.........
http://www.weldingsupply.com/cgi-bin/browsecatalogs.pl?UNDEF::
Joe H
:)Got all I need for now. Even have the steel for the railing ordered. Oughta keep me busy enough. If I get that one railing built ok, it more than pays for the course and welder. Plus, DW and DD think it's pretty cool. So let's review...new toy...makes sparks...impresses dw and dd...........I'm sitting pretty!
Get the gas, guess you already heard that.........
Joe H
>Get the gas, guess you already heard that.........Beats being told you already have too much.A lot of my first projects are outside...we'll see how it goes.
after about 50k of woodworking and carpentry tools...
50K? Hell, I need that much worth of tools to hang a picture and that's not even counting the lazer level and the interior decorator my wife wants to hire to tell her which picture to buy and where to hang it.
Hey Mister Sushi, you forgot to cook my fish.
"Am I dead or alive? What's this? Linoleum? I must be in hell." -The Salton Sea
Edited 5/20/2005 9:02 pm ET by greencu
I invented buying tools
We always get it right!!!
the third time....
<!----><!---->
"Almost certain death, small chance of success.... What are we waiting for???"
Dudley,
As Keith stated, a 110 wire feed machine is a great starting point as far as OWNING a welder. I have the Lincoln Weld-Pak 100 and it will weld 3/16" steel fine, but the duty cycle is horrible. Unfortunately, it was all I could afford when I started my business. 98% of my welding is galvanized pipe, chain link gates, ballfield backstops, etc.. and it will weld it just fine. I just use .035 flux cored wire, don't want to mess with mig on this little machine.
Will be stepping up to a Miller Mig soon with a decent duty cycle. My Lincoln is 20%, so weld for 2 min out of 10 at rated amps, which is SOP with Sch. 40 pipe. Need an 80-100 % machine for the demands I have.
My thoughts are that a wire feed machine is good for a shop setting, stick for field welding. The Miller Bobcat 225 is a nice AC/DC CCV machine, plus you can run a spool gun off of it for field wire welding.
Good luck.
Cole
Cole Dean
Dean Contracting
tks to all -- I like the idea of communituy college for exposure but also seeing comments that he can pick it up in an hour or so if he reads and practices what he reads -- -- I'll check the suggestions out and see if I cant do one of the fancy tables that you see in FHB on the tool compaisons
What abou the wives -- what are you all getting your DW? Has to be some good ideas -- across this great country, has to be soemthing that is hot in the mid-west or west coast that I have not even thougth about
Friend at work went to a funeral today -- guy was only 64 -- take care now and you'll push 80 but you have to do it now and it is never too late -- all the best - Dudley
Dudley, I have one of the 120V Millers. Great little machine and since it's 120V you can even weld in the kitchen if you want.
Get the bottle, that flux core wire sux splattering little flux globs everywhere. That's for outside when the wind is blowing.
Oxy acetelene is handy too, but I don't use it much for welding. Good for heating stuff and cutting. It's not a plasma cutter, but doew the job.
Joe H
I concor with Keith . The wire welder is the way to go. Stick welding is bad for the nose . Mine starts to bleed if I do to much of it . Esp. in confind spaces. Miller is a good brand .
The wife...hmmm... I think she needs one of those big window elite helmets...auto, so she doesn't get flashed when she watches me weld. The kids will get nice new tillman jackets, and matching gloves, some assorted tig sticks, and some anti splatter spray.
I splurged on myself a few months ago...30A spoolgun..sweeeeet!
I also vote for the mig. Get the biggest 110v you can--Hobart or Lincoln 135 would be my choice. Get gas, auto-darkening helmet, angle grinder and Milwaukee portable band saw and he'll be able to build most anything he wants.
A decent MIG, even a small one, is going to go way past $160. For a hunnert and sixty, you could probably get a reasonably low quality stick welder. Will probably never lay down a bead that will be considered a work of art...I bought the little Hobart 135 MIG unit as I am still fighting over getting the permits on my welding shop and I wanted something I could run off of an extention cord from one of my out buildings (didn't figure I could do much with my 400 amp MIG unit off of my curent 30 amp service to my property...). I have used the cored wire to lay down the poorest welding beads of my career. I am going to get the argon/CO2 gas bottle to see if shielding with gas gives a little better quality than the cored wire. Paid $399 for my Hobart 135 at the local welding shop (they offered it cheaper than I could get the same thing from Harbor Freight). Only after I had it home did I read the full specs which indicate that at the full 135 amps, it has a duty cycle of 8% - that means that you can expect to weld 50 seconds out of every 10 minutes... The pro at the welding shop said it was not a good idea to exceed the duty cycle as each time the thermal cut out tripped, it got a little easier and pretty soon it would be tripping all the time...