Harbor Freight FCAW welder

[Buggs67]

Thanks Oliver. My BIL is a self taught welder but his friend is a pro and willing to give me some help and pointers. I'm gonna practice, practice, practice.

If I get half good I have some rusted out spots on my jeep I'd like to fix. I think sheet metal might be a challenge.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Gary did you get a .035 tip and wire for it? Do you happen to know if these tips are interchangeable with other brands? I saw tips at TSC and they looked the same. I can get tips at HF but I won't be by there for awhile.

And would .035 wire be better when welding thicker steel, say 1/4?

As far as I can tell, they interchange with some other brands, Hobart brand seems to work. Just take one with you to compare the threads which might be different on some brands. I actually had one of the guys from Welding Site send me a 10 pack that he couldn't use. A couple of them had wrong threads for some reason (the rest were OK)which I just used a thread die on to fix and then, they all worked well. I think that he got to bad thread ones when he tried them so he believed they were different tips but were actually just a quality control problem.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Gary did you get a .035 tip and wire for it? Do you happen to know if these tips are interchangeable with other brands? I saw tips at TSC and they looked the same. I can get tips at HF but I won't be by there for awhile.

And would .035 wire be better when welding thicker steel, say 1/4?

If a machine has the power to run it, .035 or even .045 will work better for thicker stuff but for 1/4" thick , .030 will be fine and the HF Titanium 125 will run it all day long without overheating. You really dont want to try to fill a 1/4" groove in one pass anyway, just make multiple passes and clean the slag really well between passes.

 

[Oaktree]

Another thing make sure helmet has replaceable batteries.... Bought $89 helmet 7 years ago when I bough welder.... Even with solar cell recharge batteries died, unit was sealed, could not get at batteries and when I did unit was pretty well destroyed and batteries were put in in a way it made them to difficult to replace..... Well it cost me $39 for new lens unit (which manufacture discounted by about 50% (according to them) when I purchased replacement ).......

Agree on replaceable batteries. Most of the lower priced ones aren't (or at least not easily).
Another thing to consider is an adjustable helmet. The Hobart I have is fixed, 11 I think which is a little too dark to see the bead easily for me. I end up having to use a lot of spotlights on the work to see what I'm doing.
My next one will be adjustable.

 

[Buggs67]

Thanks Gary.

 

[yomax4]

Looking at the HF Migs, I'd say they use the Tweco 11 Series "style" tips. They are available everywhere. Miller tips will not fit but Tweco, Lincoln and most import welder tips are the 11 series copies.

 

[GeneV]

Thanks Oliver. My BIL is a self taught welder but his friend is a pro and willing to give me some help and pointers. I'm gonna practice, practice, practice.

If I get half good I have some rusted out spots on my jeep I'd like to fix. I think sheet metal might be a challenge.

Hey Buggs, as a fairly new welder myself, the only advise I'm in position to give you is to just start welding stuff. Just dive into it...since you want to do bodywork on the jeep, get some thin gauge steels to practice on a little bit, and then just dive into work on the jeep. The welds don't have to be perfect to be good enough, and good enough is perfectly fine for what most of us here are doing with welders. Just make sure you have an angle grinder with both cut-off and flap sanding discs, you'll be using all that. Some people will call you a grinder, not a welder, oh well. All self-taught welders start off as grinders, it's fine. Go on Youtube, there's a lot of welders out there sharing great tips. Strange Garage and Love2boat92, those guys on youtube have some good fcaw vids, check them out.

Here's vids I have on my favorites list on youtube, for welding (instructionals), there's some real good flux core topics in there: welding - YouTube

 

[DXN1EL]

I want to try flux core as i have to weld outside.
What size machine do I need to weld 1/8" to 1/4"
Have anybody bought a cheap machine of ebay? Like this one Mig Welder Welding Machine 27A MIG MMA TIG 3 In 1Welder Combo 11V/22V | eBay
Maybe i should just wait and buy the Everlast I mig 200

 

[user.69169]

Bunch of things DON'T exist in welding are "good enough" and cheap.

Either one get somebody dead easy or bad hurt.

 

[GeneV]

I want to try flux core as i have to weld outside.
What size machine do I need to weld 1/8" to 1/4"
Have anybody bought a cheap machine of ebay? Like this one Mig Welder Welding Machine 27A MIG MMA TIG 3 In 1Welder Combo 11V/22V | eBay
Maybe i should just wait and buy the Everlast I mig 200

Century FC90 (that's what I had) or Titanium Easy Flux 125. Around $200.