Harbor Freight Welder deal..?

RPW · May 1, 2010

Also remember welder ratings are for single pass welds. You can do thicker but will need to do a different setup i.e. 45deg bevel and then you can to multipass with a cover pass as your last weld. BTW gates almost done and if interested I'll post some pics. The gate was done almost entirely with the little HF welder.

Gale Hawkins · May 1, 2010

WELDING DVDS FLUX CORED ARC (FCAW) VIDEO SERIES NEW MIG - eBay (item 110525021615 end time May-03-10 11:34:46 PDT)

This set of flux core wire welding training DVD's came yesterday. I hope to watch them in full this wet weekend but I have viewed some of two of the four disks just to make sure at the price they were for real and I am happy at the $4.99 +$6 price.

valley · May 7, 2010

HF shows about 3 of these small 110 wire feed welders. What is the which one makes sense? Are they pretty much the same? I found an $89.00 coupon for item #98871
It does show the wire capacity to be .030 is that what you cured by replacing the tip?

Gale Hawkins · May 7, 2010

valley said:
HF shows about 3 of these small 110 wire feed welders. What is the which one makes sense? Are they pretty much the same? I found an $89.00 coupon for item #98871
It does show the wire capacity to be .030 is that what you cured by replacing the tip?

Ours with the internal fan states on the box it handles .030 OR .035 wire. I bought a pound of Lincoln .035 wire for $10 to load first. The weather and other issues has prevented from getting it outside to test.

I will try to do that this weekend before my oxygen and acetylene tanks get here for the $99 HF torch special I picked up last night.

valley · May 8, 2010

I went to HF yesterday and picked up a wench also a 90 AMP wire feed. I put it together today and tried it out. I can see a person could get good at with practice. My welds were lousy no real bead but I welded and ground a shovel that had cracked almost all the way across the spade. When I'm in Carson again I'll pick up some Lincoln wire. I guess the fans were an addition, I was thinking I would install one but was pleased to see it had one.
I used only the min heat would have been nice to be able to turn the heat down lower, I punched through a couple times and had to fill. Maybe .035 wire might help. Has anyone used it on exaust pipe or fenders?

Gale Hawkins · May 9, 2010

Same here on the fan. Hopefully events will be so I can test ours tomorrow but I did bring it in the house right after we picked it up and removed the case to check out the guts. The fan does move some air too. I then put the case base on and let it just hum away for about 4-5 hours so I know the fan works.

As an update to the videos I mention in a post or two above. They do a good general job of showing the set up of a Lincoln wire welder (NOT a Lincoln promo however). The four parts equal about one hour of video.

They are great for a beginner like our kids and me BUT I had seen about the same type info watching company videos on Youtube so I am take it or leave it on the videos but at $11 total they are not a huge $$$ consideration.

HIGHLY recommended is the Haynes Techbook Welding Manual for $15 I picked up at HF this week. This covers Gas, Arc, MIG, TIG, and Plasma Welding & Cutting per the front of the book. While it is B&W it is FULL of helpful photos. I am a reader by nature and like a technical understanding of anything I work with. If I can ever grasp the WHY of something then the HOW seems to be less of a chore to learn.:thumbsup:

valley · May 9, 2010

I tried out the welder. The HF wire seems not so good, and it is twice the price of the Lincoln. I've heard good things about Lincoln wire, I plan to get some. I know you picked a roll up, like to know how it is. Did you say you had a Autodark helmet?

Gale Hawkins · May 9, 2010

Finally fired up the Harbor Freight Model 98871 90 amp flux wire welder this evening.

The 98871 is awesome and so easy a kid can use it.

Due to web posts I started out with the .035 flux wire and the .9 mm tip by Lincoln from Lowes. Wire feed worked best on 6 and amp setting on high we were able to run beads just fine.

Since we did not have any good scrap metal we just ran beads on the back side of front end loader bucket. it really was as simple as drawing a spark and squeezing the trigger to keep the arc going. The kids (age 12) had no problem starting and keeping an arc either. The daughter's second run was OK looking and the first would have held some stress. The son went too fast on the first run but keep the arc just fine. His second run was so so after showing down alot. They only made two runs on the bucket (3/16 thick). Today was their first time to see or do welding and it has been 37 years since I last tried to use a welder.

They came up with an old used very rusty metal fence post so I hit the anchoring tab with a hand wire brush and made a lap weld with some success. I am going to get a heavier ground clamp.

I got the welder mainly to learn myself and for the kid's shop class use but I can see it can do some real work potentially.

Since I picked up this welder I have been reading like crazy and watch YouTube welding videos so I had a mental understanding of what to do until the first spark. :laughing:

When I just held the gun in a fixed position until there was a nice silver pool then started to move very slowly watching the liquid puddle the beads started to look like a weld.

Oh the HF auto darking helmets (all three) worked great as was key in our highly successful first welding attempt.

yomax4 · May 12, 2010

For some odd reason, All Flux Cored Welders come with or are suggested to use .035 Cored wire. I have sold hundreds of these units and I can tell you that they have more capacity using .030 wire. Cored or solid wire. They will weld hotter with .030 than .035. Most 115v units are an 80- 90 amp output and .023 will not get the peak power out of them and .035 runs a little cold even when ran wide open. Try .030 and let me know what you think.:thumbsup: