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I feel bad to recommending it but I would go for a stick welder. (arc)
They are cheap and usually reliable.
It is definitely harder to learn and I would highly suggest getting an automatic shielding helmet but produces good quality welds.
I bought a thermal arc last year and love it. Its portable and easier to use than I expected.
My first experience welding was a gas less mig sip welder which worked well at first but became useless after about 2 years.
I would personally recommend MIG welding for ease of use, as it's not really much harder than using a glue gun! That being said, the MIG welder I use is a huge industrial grade one that we use to weld agricultural machinery back together with, so I couldn't comment on the quality of cheap ones.
I've used a stick welder before, and it was pretty easy to use and I'm sure wasn't very expensive (though having not bought it myself I couldn't say for sure).
It all depends what you can find; our big MIG welder was bought second hand relatively cheaply from an old factory that was closing down, and after a few quick repairs has been very reliable .. Worth keeping an eye out on ebay and the like to see what comes up cheap.
I'm in the same boat as Sam. BBQ needs fixing, and I figured for the price of a new BBQ I could get a welder. Then use that to make/fix.
Is TIG welding the sort that will do Ti/Ali?
My thinking right now is to go the Arc route assuming you can do Stainless with it?
You can do ti/Ali with tig and you can weld stainless steel arc
Also I've tried a cheap sip mig welder and its rubbish if you can anyone can find a large 200+ amp set that takes the 15kg spools of wire the I would get to it
Tempted by one of these Arc/Tig/Plasma Cutter ones.
ummm, so maybe ARC is better to go for in the long run? Thinking about it, surely a MIG weld is the same as a ARC weld just with the addition of gas? or am I just being stupid...
Also, I read somewhere that ARC's generally used for thick metals and MIG for thin metals.
I'm not a welding pro but I think MIG's better for thin stuff as you have more control over it and can get a better weld. You can weld thin stuff with arc too but if you have the current set too high you risk blowing holes in the metal.
Arc is high penetration compared to MIG so yeah, it can weld thicker stuff pretty well.
I'd say go for arc. I've had Gary's old welder for a few years now and it's still going great. I don't weld regularly enough to get really good welds but I can get by for robot stuff. Barely spent anything on consumables in that time and I don't have a tank taking up space in the shed. Plus since arc's harder to pick up, you'll probably find it easier to transition across to the other types, something that might not hold true if you learned on MIG then had to switch to arc. But like I said, I'm no pro.
I got told by my local Blacksmith that if you dip the welding rods in water on an Arc welder and crank up the amps you can essentially use it as a Plasma Cutter.
PJ-27. That waterlogged welding rod idea has it's uses, but it ain't accurate nor neat.
Also, I have a seperate CUT 40 plasmatorch. It has its uses. Especialy when cutting curved shapes. For £200, you don't hear me complain, that's a yearbudget* of cutting disks that you can save in the end.
@ SamO. Depends on budget, but arc is cheaper in aquiring and use, but it's a lot more limited, and takes a lot of practise to get any welds that don't need a lot of anglegrinding to look decent.
*for me that is
We have both an arc and a MIG welder but we nearly always end up using the arc as it's so simple to use and far quicker to set up. Ours is an inverter type and we used it for all the welding on Manta and Maelstrom with no trouble at all.