lord13
Part of things
Posts: 536
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Arc is a black art...been doing it for years and still very inconsistent, can do good clean welds one day and others I can barely stick one bit of metal to another :/ To be fair I get 'off' days with MIG too, I think it has something to do with 'pilot error' or 'micro changes in air density'
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Personally I would not bother with the used market or the cheap sub £250 range of mig welders I understand what you're saying mate, good kit = good work...and I think you've posted up some of your work and it's top notch... but you're a professional welder/fabricator/restorer, most of the guys on here are not. And if I remember correctly, this forum was set up to help like minded hobbyists sort out their old buckets of classic tin on a budget. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with 'mega bucks' rebuilds and 'sky's the limit' mods, I love to see what the more affluent among us are building, but a lot of us can't spend even £250- £350 on a welder, most of us struggle to spend that on a car! ( my viva was £150 ) So if the OP is like me and can't afford good kit, he might as well get a working budget or second hand machine and get proficient with that, if he ends up being good with it he can earn a bit on the side, save up and buy a decent machine and absolutely fly with it I think that you will find that this forum welcomes 'all comers' its has much a home to the novice DIY motorist whom prefers older vehicles has it is the semi professional through to the professional much has it's home to the £500 unloved motor has it is to the £25K high spec hot rod - My restorations are far from top notch and are no where near the mega bucks that you imagine - point being if you want to waste loads of time & money on cheap inefficient bits of welding kit then spend another load of time & money on dressing the welds back to make them look decent then be my guest - the cost between a poor quality transformer based MIG and a reasonable quality inverter based synergic MIG is £200 which is less than a weekends overtime to most classic / retro owners - my advice is just that 'advice' - so I am not that sure what you are getting all hot headed about - Chris
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Last Edit: Apr 7, 2018 3:27:11 GMT by Deleted
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A friend built a Renault Master camper and needed to fabricate all sorts of stuff. Having never welded before he bought a GYS welder and has had really good results.He inputs the material thickness and the machine works out feed and power. I use Hobbyweld gas, pay a deposit on the initial bottle then just pay for refills.
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Needs a bigger hammer mate.......
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^ would have bought hobby weld but there isnt a supplier near me. I bought a cheep arc welder if i need to do thicker stuff, c02 will do to 3mm apparently. Not tried it on any more than 1mm, seems good...
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FOAD
Scotland
Posts: 1,335
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My welding rig consists of an ancient Esab welder with euro torch and half sized co2 cylinder which costs me £16.50 a refill. DSC_9515 by srblythe, on Flickr I use whichever wire I can lay my hands on, at the moment I'm using 1.2mm mig wire but much prefer to us 0.8mm if I can get it. There have been some great points made already but I'd like to add the importance of wearing PPE, it's so much easier to weld accurately without the fear of getting burned. I wear overalls, rigger boots, hood and welding gauntlets along with a cheap auto darkening welding screen. Having all the gear on allows me to get up close with what I'm welding and I don't have to worry about being burned by spatter etc.
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1981 Vauxhall Chevette 1984 Mercedes S123 230TE 1988 Peugeot 305 GR 1988 Hyundai Stellar 1992 Subaru MV BRAT 1992 Peugeot 205 D-turbo 2004 Ford Ranger retroshite.wordpress.com/
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I understand what you're saying mate, good kit = good work...and I think you've posted up some of your work and it's top notch... but you're a professional welder/fabricator/restorer, most of the guys on here are not. And if I remember correctly, this forum was set up to help like minded hobbyists sort out their old buckets of classic tin on a budget. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with 'mega bucks' rebuilds and 'sky's the limit' mods, I love to see what the more affluent among us are building, but a lot of us can't spend even £250- £350 on a welder, most of us struggle to spend that on a car! ( my viva was £150 ) So if the OP is like me and can't afford good kit, he might as well get a working budget or second hand machine and get proficient with that, if he ends up being good with it he can earn a bit on the side, save up and buy a decent machine and absolutely fly with it I think that you willfind that this forum welcomes 'all comers' its has much a home to the novice DIY motorist whom prefers older vehicles has it is the semi professional through to the professional much has it's home to the £500 unloved motor has it is to the £25K high spec hot rod - My restorations are far from top notch and are no where near the mega bucks that you imagine - point being if you want waste loads of time & money on cheap inefficient bits of welding kit then spend another load of time & money on dressing the welds back to make them look decent then be my guest - the cost between a poor quality transformer based MIG and a reasonable quality inverter based synergic MIG is £200 which is less than a weekends overtime to most classic / retro owners - my advice is just that 'advice' - so I am not that sure what you are getting all hot headed about - Chris To echo your point you only have to look on ebay at the amount of gash secondhand mig welders on there that people have bought , had a go with and found them almost impossible to use .Anything with a name you have never heard of . Pay a little more and get something that will always be worth a fair amount of its initial cost and will be far far easier to learn to weld with and get better results .
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Usually, from what I've seen the very cheap MIG's don't cut the current when you let go of the button ( just stops the wirefeed ), which makes it pretty useless for Wahferthin sheet, IMO. And they usually have fluxcore wire, which is another drawback.
So if you get one, make sure its cheap enough that you are willing to put up with its shortcomings, or buy a slightly more expensive one.
( I have one that I bought for 1 specific job, and it did better than I thought it would, but I wouldn't use it on a car )
Stick welding on car sheetmetal is possible. I had a handbuilt Italian car that had stick welds on it ( where the original floor structure connected to the modifed inner structure) ( but that was brand new metal when they did it, and the guy doing it probably used that welder for 8 hours every day. And even then you could see where he burned through , in places...)
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lord13
Part of things
Posts: 536
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I think that you will find that this forum welcomes 'all comers' its has much a home to the novice DIY motorist whom prefers older vehicles has it is the semi professional through to the professional much has it's home to the £500 unloved motor has it is to the £25K high spec hot rod - My restorations are far from top notch and are no where near the mega bucks that you imagine - point being if you want to waste loads of time & money on cheap inefficient bits of welding kit then spend another load of time & money on dressing the welds back to make them look decent then be my guest - the cost between a poor quality transformer based MIG and a reasonable quality inverter based synergic MIG is £200 which is less than a weekends overtime to most classic / retro owners - my advice is just that 'advice' - so I am not that sure what you are getting all hot headed about - Chris Ahhhh mate, I wasn't getting 'hot-headed', sorry if you thought that, think of me more as the exuberant one down the pub that everyone ends up talking to but no one really likes that much and hopes that they don't come over and sit at their table Yeah the forum is for all comers, I thought I said that? I just meant it includes us poor people too right? it does doesn't it? Overtime? Overtime??? I'm lucky to pull 20 - 30 hours in a week let alone overtime All I mean is if you absolutely can't spare £250 on a welder, buy what you can afford, or use what you have... I have 2 MIGs an old sip we call 'orac' (open case, wires hanging out, flashy lights etc hence the name) on a big bottle, and a cheap Italian (without a name or brand that i can see) that uses disposable bottles. The Sip dos all the chassis and floor work, the Italian does all the fine cosmetic work and any outside jobs as it's infinitely portable being all 'compact and bijou', it is a brilliant little machine, cost me £50 and I enjoy using it. The Sip cost me £20 way way back and is a total to use at times, but gets the job done. I also have an ARC that i was given a good many years back before I'd even done any welding and I taught myself to use that, it's heavy, really heavy, and has a range from 30 - 140, will weld pretty much anything, but requires more time and effort and is quite finicky at times, but I've welded paper thin rusty metal with it, and cast iron with it... and everything in between. It's great for certain jobs and good for when you're in a tight spot. The thing is, you could spend hundreds on a decent machine, but if you only use it occasionally it would spend most of it's time gathering dust and the gas would probably leak away before you got to use all of it. Or you could spend pennies on a cheapo, or second hand machine, and you could leave it in the shed until next MOT time when you need to stick a plate on, buy a disposable bottle and be good to go. Everyone says 'buy the best you can afford'...well what if the best you can afford is £50? I'll get me coat . . .
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Last Edit: Apr 7, 2018 6:58:46 GMT by lord13
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Kind of what has been said recently is what I was asking when I said could anyone recommend a cheap one as I have no experience in the welder market so don't know which names to look out for and which are cheap Chinese copies, i'm sure a cheap good make is better than the same priced unknown brand.
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2nd hand market looks to be a dead end here, everything I've spotted so far is either incomplete, been in the back of a shed for years and years and/or advertised at the price of a new set.
Inquired about a couple of cheap MIG's sets that popped up at a bargain prices but they were both snapped up before I could get to them, makes me suspect the stuff that's been listed for a few weeks is junk and not worth the hassle.
Plan B I'll look at new sets, I have an old guitar I'm planning to sell so that could fill the hole in the bank. I don't mind spending a bit of cash on tools as they are an investment. I don't know how much the arc set would have set my dad back in the day but its certainly paid for itself and it's still good for battleship hulls/tractor bits. I do get wary of just buying stuff because I'm just not skilled enough to make full use of the kit I have though but looks like the results I want aren't going to be achievable with the arc set.
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I have a cheap Clarke 100amp jobbie, i would not call myself a welder,although i can join 2 bits of steel together. However my cheap Clarke is over 20 yrs old, and seems much better than the more modern Clarke stuff. So it appears like most things,they were better made then.
Why have i not upgraded? Firstly ... Cost . I do not weld that often, ( probably why i’m rubbish when i do use it) so cannot justify the expense of a “better” machine. Secondly .. Its not that bad a welder ..(I’m the problem) . my neighbour who built HGV trailers for a living, borrowed it one weekend last yr to sort his daughters Daf horsebox ..... well lets put it this way, i’ve never gotten welds that look like his, he said ‘thats not a bad bit of kit’
The only things i did to it were put a decent thickness earth cable and clamp on it, and put a thicker arctic cable mains lead on it and 16amp plug.
Have just recently switched over to Hobbygas Argo mix as my tame Boc man has stopped doing it now.
Most of us “weekend hobbyists “ have to weigh up what we can and cannot justify spending, I would rather someone get a cheap welder and have a go,rather than read all these great build threads and just feel that theres no point as they will never be able to afford to get involved..........
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Phil H
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,448
Club RR Member Number: 133
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I wouldn’t class myself as a welder by any stretch of the imagination but can stick 2 bits of steel together..and the amount of welding I do doesn’t really warrant any investment.
Something that has been becoming a theme is go for something good but old - way older than most people would consider. An ancient ESAB will probably be better than a new Chinese special (and you can probably still get the bits for the ESAB..). I’ve recently moved to the philosophy of buying 30/40/50+ year old tools and kit. It might look ugly and weigh a ton, but when it comes up for sale it’s generally cheap and even if not working, easy to fix as it’s from before the “consumerist” days of “cheaper to throw it and buy a new one”.
As well as having a cheap no-gas Clarke (and a couple of 140A stick welders that were more to post than to buy), I picked up a 30 year old SnapOn mig for the price of a round of drinks; listed as “non working” because someone had flattened the shroud by standing on it - which is a consumable.. they are out there.
Good points on PPE - I didn’t realise how much easier it is with an auto helmet. All those years spent holding a piece of manure “mask” were wasted! Firstly, you can see what you’re doing which is handy to say the least. Secondly, you’ve got a hand spare to either hold the workpiece or even just steady yourself.
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Last Edit: Apr 7, 2018 21:26:33 GMT by Phil H
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I personally think that it's more than just a money / cost issue - there is clearly a 'blind vision' you manage with a cheap inefficient transformer based MIG welder because you don't know any different - you have not had the use of an inverter based synergic MIG and the experience of just how efficient & easy it is to use - it's already been stated the difference in cost is few hundred quid - some of you are spending more than that on bits of coloured under bonnet hoses & air filters
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Last Edit: Apr 8, 2018 11:09:54 GMT by Deleted
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sounds likw I have the very same 100 amp clarke that Optimusprime has, its about 15 years old and has done a fait bit of work, ic you can get someone that can weld to set it up that is a big help.
I think my welder was 170 odd back then, probably over £200 these days.
the migwelding forum is definitely worth looking up.
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Usually, from what I've seen the very cheap MIG's don't cut the current when you let go of the button ( just stops the wirefeed ), which makes it pretty useless for Wahferthin sheet, IMO. The used one I bought was precisely to get away from that, and I can't agree enough on how much "better" everything got when I could place the torch against the workpiece without it striking all the time. And the next was when I bought my auto-dimming helmet. Sounds as if I was just lucky on the one I bought, though it's still well below the spec / description that most of you seem to use. thing is unless you have used new generation inverter mig welder of professional quality you can't really compare it to the cheap 15 year old Clarke / SIP / No name welder - Inverter MIG's of a good quality are available new from £250 if you hunt around a little - they are step less which enables you weld the thinnest of metals - spend a little more money £350 + and you will obtain a Inverter MIG Synergic and it will virtually do the welding for you - They are easy, quick & simple to use - treat it has an investment and not has something that will just get you out of the situation that you find yourself in at present. If I had another big project to do, maybe I'd look at upgrading. It sounds great.
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lord13
Part of things
Posts: 536
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I personally think that it's more than just a money / cost issue - there is clearly a 'blind vision' you manage with a cheap inefficient transformer based MIG welder because you don't know any different - you have not had the use of an inverter based synergic MIG and the experience of just how efficient & easy it is to use - it's already been stated the difference in cost is few hundred quid - some of you are spending more than that on bits of coloured under bonnet hoses & air filters Nope it IS just a money/cost issue, some of us cant justify £200 - £300 on a welder we will only use a couple of months a year, and in fact, the lack of use would cause problems with the very nice expensive kit as it gathered dust and absorbed moisture from our leaky sheds/garages that are held up with old door posts and a bit of fence paneling. It just simply does not work out the same way in our world, £200 - £300 quid is a months food whereas £50 on a bag o'wibblepoo welder is possible if you manage to cut back on the fags or don't go to the pub or whatever. Yes it's a fabulous bit of kit, big expensive welders make fabricators out of anyone, I have used such kit, I made security doors and gates for a living a while back ( was part of the team that built Adele's security gates when she got a new house, yes that Adele ) so I know a good bit of kit when I see it, but my welders at home are second hand or cheap imports, because they work, and they do the job. If I was still welding full time I'd get a decent one, but as a hobby...well...a hobby MIG does the job. We're skint mate, I'd rather feed the kids than buy a decent welder . . .priorities mate, priorities.
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Dez
Club Retro Rides Member
And I won't sit down. And I won't shut up. And most of all I will not grow up.
Posts: 11,714
Club RR Member Number: 34
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I'm a professional automotive welder. I have been for 15 years. Looking at this from the other side, I feel I need to say a few harsh truths.
Most of you will never be skilled welders because you are limited by sh1t equipment. The 3 biggest advances in my skill weren't a result of practice or some epiphany that furthered my welding technique. It was getting rid of equipment that was holding me back.
Number one was getting an autotint mask. even then there's a huge difference between a £200 mask and a £50 one, but the difference ain't as large as the difference between a non-autotint and an autotint. Being able to actually see what you're doing is a huge advantage.
Two was changing from straight CO2 to argomix. Sure you can weld with co2, but your welds will never be as good, neat or as strong as with Argo. Co2 welds are more brittle and spatter more.
Three was going from a 'top end hobby' Mig to a professional machine. I think I previously had a sealey supermig, a really old one, and it wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either. I changed up to a thermal arc that was about £850 at the time, 12 years ago. Ive just lost it in a fire and replaced it with an Oxford that was £750 with all the optional extras (spot weld timer and reverse polarity) without these it's about £650. Good machines aren't as expensive as they used to be.
Everything else was then a gradual improvement over time due to practice and experience. But I'd never be able to get that experience and grown in skill with my previous equipment.
If all you can afford is a couple of hundred quid then fair enough, but don't ever expect to be able to produce anything other than mediocre results.
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I would fully endorse what Dez has just said. You don't realise how curse word most hobby type cheapy mig welders are until you weld with a decent set. Seeing what you are welding makes a huge difference,so a auto darkening helmet is a no brainer 😊
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lord13
Part of things
Posts: 536
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I think this thread has lost sight of what the OP wanted in the first place, and I'm as guilty as the rest of you. The thread was started because the OP wanted a few tips on what welder to get so they can stick a few bits of metal to their car.. It's now a monster argument about what is best, good kit or cheap/second hand kit. There is no argument, good kit is what it is, good kit. It will produce fantastic results and is easy to use, I've not said anything to the contrary, we are all in agreement that it is the best kit to use.... However, my main point was that if the OP is on a budget and all they want to do is stick a few bits of metal to a car to repair it, the OP is better off getting cheap adequate kit and get the job done, and then decide if he wants to spend pots of cash on a decent bit of kit. My comments on ARC were there to illustrate that if all you have is that then it is possible to get good results on thin stuff with one... An auto helmet is a must though, that's for sure. Gusman_2286 , sorry for hijacking your thread with an argument, I hang my head in shame...
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I think this thread has lost sight of what the OP wanted in the first place, and I'm as guilty as the rest of you. The thread was started because the OP wanted a few tips on what welder to get so they can stick a few bits of metal to their car.. It's now a monster argument about what is best, good kit or cheap/second hand kit. There is no argument, good kit is what it is, good kit. It will produce fantastic results and is easy to use, I've not said anything to the contrary, we are all in agreement that it is the best kit to use.... However, my main point was that if the OP is on a budget and all they want to do is stick a few bits of metal to a car to repair it, the OP is better off getting cheap adequate kit and get the job done, and then decide if he wants to spend pots of cash on a decent bit of kit. My comments on ARC were there to illustrate that if all you have is that then it is possible to get good results on thin stuff with one... An auto helmet is a must though, that's for sure. Gusman_2286 , sorry for hijacking your thread with an argument, I hang my head in shame... It was a useful discussion though so the threads still been interesting. From what I've experienced of the 2nd hand market in the last few days is that you have to be super quick if you want something complete and cheap. Another SIP set appeared on gumtree yesterday that was sold by the evening, while another set that "only works at low amps and has no torch" is cheap but obviously needs more £££ spent and even then will be a pain, that's still there. I already deal with the limitations of the ancient arc welder I use, it doesn't even have an on/off switch and the in-rush current when you turn it on will easily trip a 30Amp mcb. It can tackle all the farm type jobs I've thrown at it though and I'm confident enough with anything >3mm. It required a steep learning curve to get decent results but after setting the Amps and picking a suitable stick everything else is kinda down to 'feel'. I started the bulkhead repairs knowing it was out of my comfort zone and going to be difficult but I wasn't sure if it was just my lack of skill that was limiting me. I'll let you know how I get on with the new set when it turns up. I've sacrificed my bass guitar to pay for it but I haven't played that for nearly a year so it was going to be sold anyway. I went for a Telwin as suggested by @grumpynorthener, they were the more reasonably priced inverter mig with a known brand that I could find, everything else was way more £££ 's or unnamed. I've got more jobs for it that just the Landvrover bulkhead, there were lots of jobs I wouldn't take on as I knew they would be a ball ache with my arc set so I'll hopefully be sparkling away for a while.
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