I’m looking to buy a mig welder, small size for 1/4 to 1/2 bar stock, and to weld for other projects.
Can anyone recommend a good starter-size mig welder, and what features I should be looking for? I have limited welding experience…
Thanks.
Expert since 10 am.
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Replies
it all depends on your budget.1/2" steel needs a good sized machine. a couple $1000 gets ya going
you can get a small wire feed at the big boxes for thinner gauge stock or you can find a local welding supply house:
at any rate Miller has pretty good online tutorials and guidance, plus they make a good, rugged product
http://www.millerwelds.com/products/helpmechoose/
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, wer ist jetzt der Idiot ?
What exactly are you planning on welding 1/2" thick for?
Rebuilding my home in Cypress, CA
Also a CRX fanatic!
If your hair looks funny, it's because God likes to scratch his nuts. You nut, you.
portable BBQ grills..??.
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., wer ist jetzt der Idiot ?
my wood burning stove needs work, a new grill (hard to find the size) so among other things, I was gonna weld a new grate from rebar. Actually 3/8" stock would do.Expert since 10 am.
Guys...He's not talking about a 1/2" thick welding rod.He hants to weld 1/2" bar stock together.Any old cheapo stick welder will do the job.
Everybody is born a hero.
that's true.
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., wer ist jetzt der Idiot ?
Check some here about mig welder https://protigwelders.com/mig-or-tig-welder-for-beginner/
Hi, I am a ww at heart and a Mechanical enginner w/ a minor in welding engineering. the Lincolin sp125 at Hdepot, or the Miller unit are great, also see the local welding supply house for some good deals. the flux cored wire is ok, but the mig wire w/ shielding gas the the cats meow. Get a C25 gas mix, and a 60 cu ft gas bottle, buy the bottle, dont rent them disregard all the bs they will say on renting, or go elsewhere. get 023 mild steel wire, ask for s3 at least as a grade. if you ned to weld thicker itesm, the preheat w/ propan as hot as possibel, or put the item inside the gas grille, this will make your welder seem larger and alllow thicker material to be welded.
good luck, dave
JUST BUY A CHEAP LINCOLN CRACKER BOX AND BE A TRUE WELDER :)
Hey now !Don't be picking on my cracker box !Don't MAKE me come down there...Whyyyyy I aughta...
Everybody is born a hero.
yep, a Lincolin 225 amp buzz box will do ya, add some e7024 , or e611 welding rods and go! I still have one!
but I also have a buggy wipp!!!!!!!!!!!
I have a small Miller, 120V that works very well.
Get the gas bottle, your welds will look much better. Save the flux core for welding in the wind.
Joe H
jackplane,,
Don't buy a mig welder for that size project, buy a buzz box, even old craftsmen will do that nicely whereas you need to spend some serious money to get a MIG to weld 1/2 inch plate properly..
a hobart 160 is a pretty nice little mig... as others have said the flux wire really just isn't worth it... get the gas... i usually use CO2 and get as good of a weld as i do with a mix... i buy anti splatter by the gallon and just use a small spray bottle to mist what i'm welding... someone said 023 wire... which for me is for welding sheet metal or thin wall tube... if the machine will handel it 035 is my first choice for general stuff where i'm welding 1/8" to 3/8 material... i buy most of my wire off ebay... even with shipping it's alot cheaper than the supply house ... i usually get 30lb spools but even 12lb spools are alot cheaper... harbor freight 12lb spools aren't too bad and i usually keep a few for backup...
I also have had good luck with a 120v buzz box stick welder with 1/8" rods 6011 or 7013... shocked even me... but you can weld 1/4" material with one without much problem if you bevel the edges ... i carried one with me to the dirt tracks for 5-6 years and i even welded hitched back on peoples trailers with it...
i've never used one of the multi welders where you have a mig and stick welder in one... but i could see where it'd be nice to have...
there are few days that i don't weld something... where other have a passion for wood... me & steel & concrete seem to get along... i keep enough steel in my racks to build just about anything... fun stuff forming steel...
p
yeah.
I took a course in welding, brief but we did mig, oxy-acetylene,stick, and gas forge work. fun stuff, and now I see a lot of projects I'd like to do...
but I still don't know the difference between a buzzbox and getting a mig with gas and wire feed?Expert since 10 am.
jackplane
a buzz box is a simple step up transformer that converts household currant into welding power..
I've seen them sell for as little as $5.00 at swap meets and $20.00 in the want ads.. buy a little welding rod and you can be welding High quaility inside a few days..
A Mig welder needs to both change voltage and drive wire thru the cable to the weld site.. wire size type feed speed and then we can discuss gas, flux core and all sorts of other issues..
A Tig welder offers some of the advantages of a mig welder plus the ability to weld metals other than steel simply and easily.
While it's possible to weld other than steel with a buzz box or MIG, really great welds do require TIG welding..
problem with mig ( I have both) is the prep of the material to get a good weld, has to be spotless. Arc welding is a lot easier that mig, but people want to take shortcuts and do sloppy work. I have a miller 135 mig. If i had to buy my first machine over it be nothing less than 220v like the miller 175on the stick machine I have a lincoln dc machine, I will never will ac again.if guns kill people, then I can blame my misppelled words on my pencil
Jonny,I'm still waiting/hoping for those build instructions from you, on how to make a good alternator/battery type welder.The instructions I have are nearly as old as I am, and call for diodes that I have not been able to find.Can I just spin up a good alternator from something like an 80's datsun, connected to a battery, and weld from that ? I -think- the alternators manufactured after that Mother Earth News article, have diodes built in. But I am not sure they are good for this purpose. I'm worried that I'll ruin a good battery, or alternator...Bonus to this, if I can figure it out, is that it'll make a good battery charger/generator when the power goes out, here... Kill two birds with one stone.
Everybody is born a hero.
As has been implied in the above posts, you can weld thicker stock by laying down multiple beads. You need to have reasonable penetration, but you can weld surprisingly thick stock with multiple passes of smaller sized welding beads. If you are using flux core, care must be taken to clean out all of the slag in the beads, however - included slag can greatly reduce the weld strength and will definitely cause you flunk your welding final exam...I have a Hobart Handler 135 (I assume it is the previous generation to the Handler 140 mentioned above). I guess it is a reasonable machine for the price, but one thing I found that you must look out for on these smaller machines is the "duty cycle", which is the amount of time that you can actually weld compared to the amount of time that you need to let the machine cool. The Handler 135 duty cycle is only 10% at 135 amps, which means that for nine out of each ten minutes that you are welding, you need to let the machine cool. If you persist in overheating the machine, reportedly the thermal cutout can weaken or be damaged. As an aside, while welding with solid wire and gas an give a nice looking weld, it is not acceptable for use in structural applications. To meet the structural code for welding, you need to use flux core. Usually a combination of flux core wire and gas is used for structural welding. IIRC, I think the reason that solid wire and gas is not allowed for structural welding is that it is too easy to get a good looking weld that lacks adequate penetration. However, my memory on that aspect is rather dim these days.
Whoops, Luka, that was meant for everyone, but I managed to neglect to click on it. However, if you are looking for a cheap, kluge it together welder, you might take a look at the article in Mother Earth News of a couple of decades ago, if you haven't already:http://www.motherearthnews.com/Alternative-Energy/1980-11-01/Build-a-20-Portable-DC-Arc-Welder.aspx
That article is the one that I was referencing earlier.It calls for a thermal switch, some resistors, and a diode.1. I have no idea where to get the diode, or even what to ask for.2. I -think- diodes were built into alternators since that article was published, but I am not sure. Plus, Even if they are, I am not sure they do the job that THAT diode is supposed to do. Also, I am not sure if they are tough enough for the application. Am I going to burn them up ? Ruin the alternator in one fell swoop ?3. I could probably figure out the resistors. But the thermal switch is going to be a bit more difficult.Behind all this is the 'spirit' of the project. The intention is to do this as a kludge. Inexpensive. Use parts you already have laying around. I don't have those resistors, thermal switch, and diode laying around anywhere that I know of. And it would completely change the spirit of the project if I had to go out and buy expensive parts...I would be happiest if I found out that all thsoe extra parts are no longer needed. That the alternators built after that article negate the need, because of the way they are built. But I want to be sure of that, before I build something that is going to just burn up the first time I try to use it.Jonny said in another thread that he already has one of these, and I was hoping for some build instructions from him, with enough detail to keep me from wasting my time, creating a small electrical bonfire...
Everybody is born a hero.
Hack at it with a stick until it seems right, then use the grinder to express your artistic side. ;-)Back on the farm, I could never get the mig to work right, let alone look good. But I never got that great with the stick, either.
just cut the diode off and the regulator off and that it. not all alt have built in regulator. The power is controlled by rpm . it mainly be the coil and the groundif guns kill people, then I can blame my misppelled words on my pencil
So just the alternator, the battery, the lawn mower, and the cables...That's it ?Ok dude.If I burn the mountain down, I'm going to tell them Jonny told me to do it...;o)
Everybody is born a hero.
Before you go to ripping the diodes off of an alternator, you had better figure out if they are rectifying the AC the alternator puts out to give you the DC that is needed for the battery. If you don't have a rectifier, and you hook the alternator to the battery, you will be putting AC into a DC device, which will undoubtedly not do either one of them any good. If you can find an old heavy duty generator, that would put out DC directly. During the 1950s when there was a lot of war surplus equipment being dumped on the market, aircraft generators were often advertised in the back of Popular Science and Popular Mechanics magazines for use as do-it-yourself welders. While such home brewed welders can do a reasonable job, they generally didn't incorporate any type of arc stabilization, which could result in some erratic weld quality. From the article, I gather that the battery in the home brewed welder was primarily to serve as an arc stabilizer. It is not unusual for off roaders to carry a welder powered by the vehicles battery for emergency off road repairs. There is an article by someone who built his own 3 battery welder at:http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2006/5/8/6559/50626However, there are cautions that sticking your rod can cause the battery to explode (not a pretty sight...):http://en.allexperts.com/q/Aviation-Maintenance-3308/car-battery-welding-1.htm
I wasn't going to do anything at all to the alternator.Just wire everything up according to the diagram... Without ADDING the diodes, resistor and thermal switch that they added...
I think I used to have a good memory
EXCELLENT website !!Thanks for the link.=0)Why are so many of the pics there, missing ? Do they get rid of them on purpose, or do they just get deleted after a certain amount of time ?
I think I used to have a good memory
Here's an article from some old handyman magazine (maybe Mechanix Illustrated or similar) about how to build one of those aircraft generator welders.
http://www.vintageprojects.com/welding-metal-projects.html
This is a pretty fun website - there are all kinds of do-it-yourself projects from old magazines.
"buzz box" is a small arc/stick welder ie... you used welding rods which you consume as you weld... adding metal to the parts to be welded to get your "bead" buzz i guess comes from the sound it makes... most are in the 250amp & under range... better ones do weld better i have an air products one that just seems to allow me to make a better bead... might have something to do with the quality of the welder ... that i don't know... i know all my buzz box type welders weld better when plugged into my 5kw kabota generator than they do when plugged into line voltage... i know this is just information you didn't ask for but thought someone would chime in and tell why these things seem true... i also have a ranger 8 which is a gas powered arc/stick welder... and again it welds better than any of my buzz boxes...
stick welding... takes more practice to get a good weld... but I believe you usually get a deeper penatration with a stick than you do with a mig... deeper burn into thicker metal... an because of this if i'm welding a hitch on a trailer or something on my dumptruck thats 3/8" thick material... i'll usually pull out the mig and a big fat rod... i like to see the "burn"
mig... metal inert gas... you don't have a rod... you have a steady stream of wire that feeds out into your weld... it acts as the electrode... just like your rod would in stick welding... the gas comes out and shields the weld keeping air from it... in stick welding the flux that coats the rod burns off and forms the shielding gas... you can make nice looking welds without much of a learning curve with a mig... you can adjust the amps and the wire speed and the change the wire size to fit the job... thinner wire for thinner material... a car floor pan you might use a .023 wire... where a trailer frame you might use a .035 wire... it is easy to get a very nice looking mig bead that has all but no holding power... that didn't burn in... yet looks ok to an untrained eye... something thats harder to do with a stick welder... a good hood with the right lens lets you see what you are doing ... that and properly cleaned and ground metal parts to be joined will always help to get a better weld...
lots of online info and cheap books on welding... it's not rocket science for basic joining of like metals... I weld alot... and have a welding shop most shops would be proud to have... but i'm self tought so i try to limit my projects to skill set... bending and joining steel is pretty relaxing to me... my largest single project was my 8 post, 6 landing, 50-60 something tread/rise art deco style steel & concrete staircase and rails that went into my loft project... i fab'd it in sections in my shop and then lifted and welded it together from the rooftop deck penthouse down to the ground floor... build the rails in place... only took me 4-5 weeks... LOL but was alot of fun to form & shape it... when broken down into sections there was really nothing "big" about the job.. except the finished product...
enjoy
p
A buddy of mine owns a welding company. his on site guys have( in addition to a large welder generator) a small miller stick welder. Runs on 120 or 240 it converts automatically. They use when there doing railings or when they don't need to pull the calbes off the truck form the genny. Works great comes in a little case. Stick welding is a lot harder then mig though
True, so I'd rather do mig. I can lay "coins in a row" with oxy-acetylene, but Robert's Oxygen charges a fortune for tanks, also there's the safety/storage issue...so I think my best bet is a small 110v box.Expert since 10 am.
Jackplane,
I am not a professional welder but I am a proficient welder. You seem to be getting some good advice here and some skewed advice. I guessed from your initial post and confirmed on your second post that you don't really need to weld THROUGH 1/2" steel. Just to clarify, 1/2" PENETRATION is not the same as welding together two pieces of 1/2" steel. I am just guessing that it is unlikely you will ever need a weld to penetrate 1/2". However it is not unlikely that you may someday want to weld some 1/2" steel together. For now, you basically want to tack weld together two pieces of 3/8" steel. That would requrire a penetration of 3/16" to 1/4". So really you don't need a very large welder. A 120v system will surely do.
Yes, you could get a "buzz box" stick welder; and with some frustration learn to weld properly. Or if you have a bunch of money you don't mind parting with, you could invest in a Miller or Lincoln MIG welder. The learning curve is easier.
I would suggest searching the classifies (craigslist.com maybe) for a used 120volt setup. If no luck there, try a cheaper name welder from Sears, TSC, Northern Tool, or even Harbor Freight. If you are just welding for a hobby, the offerings from these stores should do you fine for under $300.
If you want to upgrade from there, you could drop $500-$1000 on a cheap "pro-grade" welder. I would suggest a Millermatic 160 or a Hobart Handler 140 (essentially the same). Most welders in this price range will do much more than I suspect you need.
If you want to go all out and spend over $1000, try looking at the Miller Passport. It may not be the most powerful but is probably the most versatile welder for the money. It will weld most common metals with up to 3/8" penetration, accepts 120v and 220v, welds just as good with CO2 as others do with mix gas, and is compact and portable. Note: this is the welder I have and I love it.
If you still think you need 1/2" penetration you will need to go with a 220v setup and spend at least $2000 for a MIG or $1000 for a stick welder.
BTW: you will get far more satisfaction and appreciation for welding if you first take a course at a community college or workshop. There are lots of technical aspects and tips that are difficult to be self taught. Jumping into welding without training can be frustrating and dangerous (high heat, high voltage, explosive/compressed gas). A good instructor will not only show you the method of welding but also the art of welding.
gk
My personal experience with a small 120 volt machine is success with lots of frustration. I bought the Lincoln unit that is upgradable to MIG, just by adding the gas and a regulator, which I never did. I've only done flux core welding with it. I think that the kit is the Weldpak 100, selling for about $300. I bought it in a hurry to fix a part on my car. I know for a fact that there is no way that my car could be fixed for under $1000, so the unit paid for itself the first time that I used it. How can I really complain.
Well the unit has significant shortcomings. Enough so that if I had the money at the time I would have bought something that runs on 220 voltage. These little welders have a very short duty cycle which makes it extremely hard to do a good job on all but the smallest stuff. Most inexpensive units have something like a 10% duty cycle. That means that after you start an arc, you better be able to get your weld done really fast, like less than a minute. Any larger pieces of metal will require preheating with a torch, and numerous small short welds with questionable penetration. Once you just start to get a bead going the unit will cut out and need to cool for a while.
I've used mine successfully on many many projects. It took a long time, and lots of mistakes just to get used to how you have to plan your weld with such a weak machine. Someday I will replace it. Unfortunately it works just good enough to keep me from doing it now.
I was a welder for 20 or so years and I've got messed up eyes and a bucketful of certifications. Probably most impressive to a layman would be the all-position unlimited thickness certification at the nuclear power plant from hell. But that just a plate test and it was easy compared to a 6G test for pressure pipe, which was my bread and butter.
I used to have a 225AC from Lincoln to do work at home. It’s a great little machine and Lincoln has been making them forever. Sure, it’s a stick welder, so the learning curve is a little steeper than with MIG, but it’s a very straight forward machine. MIG welders are more complex and finicky. Even the robust industrial ones require a fair amount of tuning and maintenance, and I suspect a cheap one would eventually drive a novice to distraction.
Forget about TIG unless you want to turn pro.