Welding

[Low Style]

Hey guys,

I want to buy a welder so i can start making my own exhaust and fix up rust and so on.

I have had some experience before with a welder ( seam welding my car ).

Just wondering what is the best style(mig, tig) for a noobie and someone looking to make extractors/ zorsts.


any help will be appreciated.

[marvis]

Tig would be win, but gas mig will do the job and be a bit cheaper.

[ke70dave]

i have a mig welder at home (non gas) and ive only used it to make some bumper bar mounts, and fix some rust holes (quite dodgily i might add). but it does the job. though my mate used it to make some intercooler piping out of some exhausts, and that held together.

i had a go of a mig welder with gas at work the other day. and my eyes have been opened up to a whole new level of possibilities. with gas it was SSOOOOOO much easier. just point and shoot!!! of course my welds weren't perfect but damn they turned out ok for my first attempt with a gas mig.

only problem is you have to hire the gas bottles, which is a pain.

also get a auto darkening helmet, far out its awesome to use. can actually see what your doin, without going blind for a second while you put the helmet on.

though i don't believe you can weld alloy with a mig.

i think theres a huge thread in the "tools" section of this forum about welders.

[redsprinter]

much what ke70dave said +1 .

ive got a small amount of experience doing simple welding tasks. next year i going to apply at tafe for a basic welding course which should help with my technique

[Dan_J]

you can get gas/gasless mig so use gas wen u have some decent work to do and use the gasless the rest of the time for cheapness :P

tig if you got the spare cash

[Sam-Q]

you can weld aluminum with a mig but you need to change the drive wheel(s), liner, tip and run a pure argon gas. You need a decent wire feed unit too, a dual drive option is good but the gun feeder is best. Even after all that its pretty hard to do and makes steel seem really easy.

[Vezza]

I wouldn't even bother with a cheap ass mig welder, gas or gasless. Had one of those and it was just poo. Extremely difficult to get a good weld from them. Even medium range migs are pricey.

I ended up getting a good quality 200A pulse stick/tig welder. Which is more than enough for anything you can throw at it around the house. First I used the stick alot because I figured tig would be too difficult... boy was I wrong. Don't listen to what people say about tig being super hard. Yes, to get an absolutely perfect weld takes a bit of experience, but even with a bit of practice it's not too hard to get a decent strong and pretty weld. With no crappy slag.
It just takes a few hours of practice, but is well worth it

Another advantage I found with the tig, is the ability to braze with it, for brass/bronze fittings, fixing radiators etc. Which you'd normally need an oxy/acc set.

Just make sure you get something half decent. Look at the duty cycle rating. A welder may say it can do 150A, but it may only be 10% duty cycle. Which means at 150A you can weld for continuously for 1min, then have to wait 9mins to cool. Which one of my mates found to be extremely frustrating (supercheap auto welder).

[Sam-Q]

I bought an ESAB single phase gas mig yesterday. I will be trying it out as soon as I get it together and make a 15A to 10A type plug converter for it. I woudl just swap the plug but I dont want to mess with the warranty.

[fantapants]

sam just get a good plug wired in... for sure you know a sparky mate who can sort it for a drink or two?

or what i did till i had my plug was use a cheap extension cord, the 15 amp plug can be squeezed in :)

[Sam-Q]

hehhehe, I am a registered sparky!

What do you mean by a good plug?

I dont bother with anything but an adapter because I know the whole 10 and 15A outlet concept is flawed and its only to protect extension leads. I will use 1.5mm lead to make sure it can handle the current.

[Tim.duncan]

i have a ac/dc tig welder and love it! iv had a bit of a go with the ali and turned out well i fixed up some seats and seat mounts and put my rear mufler on. stainless is where its at for tig so easy just make sure your preps good.

it also does stick and is a plasma cutter but i have not used these functions yet
was $1400 bucks but worth it for me as i wanted to learn some new skills