Just looking at the label tells me that it is a general purpose everyday stick welder AC only.
That's good to hear. So the OCV and full-load voltage are in the ballpark for stick welding then? Yes the apparent quality looks to be first-rate. The extreme weight seems to indicate it was built to be durable, likely for a continual production manufacturing environment.
Those things are probably collectors items. Back in their day they were probably used with a carbon arc stick for cutting steel also and baling wire and coat hangers for welding. They also made a double arc rod holder to do brazing and heating. My dad had one similar to what you describe, that worked good once you figured out the heat settings. We marked the plunger rod with a file -
Ron
I have a couple of those carbon arc heating torches! The first one came with my 1960's Montgomery Wards / Century AC230 welder that I bought a few years ago. So the old transformer welders were intended to be used like an acetylene cutting torch as well?
Yes I would need to mark the plunger when I find the sweet spot for various rods. I have a modern lightweight inverter stick/tig welder that I wouldn't want to push to its full rated output (130/160A), this antique would be for the occasional farm implement repairs or carbon-arc torch heating where running at its higher maximum isn't likely to hurt it. At a cost of $40 and salvage value of its cables and windings nearly that, I'm not risking much by running it flat out (keeping within the duty cycle).
That's some low ocv. Post pics of the whole thing. Many machines were just private labels of some big mfg.
Low OCV might be a PIA to get a weld started. Photo: not much to see, it's a 16" cube with rounded corners as shown. There's a plunger on top with a loop handle like a garden sprayer. Two ordinary welding cable push-in connectors. On/off switch, no dials or sliders.
Further research: Googling that name, P. O. Box, and address all I found in the modern era was a now-vacant warehouse, and a firm in the Midwest now using the Arctronics trademark for their line of specialty spot welders. I now think this unit was the dedicated power supply for a spot welder offered years earlier than what is shown in this 1960's (??) catalog:
http://www.sterlingmachinery.com/media/brochures1/file/Western-Arctronics-Spot-Welders-Brochure.pdf . Note the equivalent KVA spot welder in the catalog isn't rated like a stick welder. Instead it specs 7,000 amps for a half second, for each spot weld. I'll bet that dims the lights!
So I'm undecided about buying this. It would be a much more compact replacement for my Wards AC230 which has a bigger footprint than a Tombstone, and I use that one so rarely that anything that stores in a quarter its space and has the same capability (plus can be wired as a 110V stick welder) has got me thinking.
New toys ...
