Welder for a Newbie

Hi Guys

So we've been hunting around for a while trying to find a decent welder to get started on. We've mainly been looking at the Clarke range as we have used there stuff before and know its decent quality, but after doing some Googleing, I have found that there may be some better brands to go for. We were also thinking that MIG is probably the type to go for as , in terms of cost and weld quality, its seems like the mid way point between ARC and TIG. Just wanting to know what welders people have used with success with Hardox (around 4mm) that doesn't cost a gazillion pounds.

Cheers

Personally I would go for an arc welder, with some practice it works well and you don't need to faf around with welding gas and there's much less to go wrong so tend to be more reliable. There also cheaper so you could probably get a high quality arc welder for the same price as a poor quality cheap Chinese mig welder.

But saying that MIG is so much easier so I can't understand your choice. I'm not so sure in brands though.

I have a Clark 160e arc welder used it for 12years now, they still sell them at machinemart but a good mig will be easier to use, BOC brand are good I used them on collage but there probably £500 ish

I have a Clarke 160 arc welder. Practice is the key word :)

Lol it also give you a rough amp to electrode size

Exactly Max, I think MIG is often thought to give a better weld because it is easier to use. Based on this I think I'll stick with MIG as opposed to arc. When ever I see people arc welding it looks a bit of an art, where as MIG looks a tad easier :)

Mig is a low penetration high volume weld so as long as you don't grind the world back to far then its fine, stick and tig give better weld penetion

MIG will only give a good weld if you are a good welder.

Get a cheap arc welder. I bought a dirt cheap one from macro for around £30. Did me well for a good few years then it went on to Jamie. Arc will do hardox fine.

Don't bother with MIG or TIG unless you go for a gas setup as the gasless stuff is crap. If you can get a decent weld with a cheap arc welder then it will set you up well to spend a bit more on a decent setup down the line.

Your other option is to look on gumtree for a cheap second hand one.

You might want to have a look at a combined welding/cutting unit (plasma/tig/arc) get the benefit of cutting as well.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-3in1-5...item43c92d76cb

I'm tempted myself to get one! :roll:

www.lasexpert.nl

Cheap MIG and TIG, as well plasmacutters.
I'm not unpleased with the stuff. My Youli AC/DC TIG does the job good enough.
Of course, it's no Kemppi or Oerlikon, but for the money, not a bad deal.

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.

Bought an AC/DC tig a few years back and it's an awesome machine. Only cost £500 but on top of that you have a bottle of gas, regulator for gas, mask, gloves and rods (ti rods ain't cheap!). A dozen or so settings for the weld itself, ramp ups and downs, gas flow etc and it's bloody complicated to set up and get running right.

Go with a dirt cheap Arc welder. It's essentially just a dirty power supply. Very little to go wrong and you can get welding to your hearts content.

how long did it take you to learn with the ARC Will?

I spent an entire morning doing nothing but Arc welding and by the end was reasonably competent, the key is to keep practicing because after a while you forget it and have to almost learn again.
On the other hand MIG took about half hour to learn and get reasonably competent it is just like using a glue gun if you can avoid burning a hole in the material!

Strike the electrode like a match and then it's all about keeping the same distance and moving it down at a steady rate. You'll get good at patching holes initially as well.

shame i didn't see this earlier- i had an arc welder i took to the tip, paid £40 for it years ago, just didn't use it anymore… arc is good for anything over 3mm really… i bought a 2nd hand mig for £100 and it works pretty well on stuff over 2.5mm up to 4mm and is much easier to learn than arc.

If you do go for mig dont bother with the gasless systems, their pretty rubbish.

As Gary pretty much said though a TIG is one of the best workshop investments you can make.

Anybody had any experience or know anything about the Migatronic LTD 140 TX TIG/ARC welder?

http://i1288.photobucket.com/albums/...psy66exxdf.jpg

Looks fairly reasonable to me + I can get it for a decent price so might be worth a shot?

Cheers

ive used there mig sets before and they seem quite good

Migatronic is a good make, duel voltage as well.

Should more than do the business for a newbie :)