More welder questions

[greenthumb]

what are others opinion on the type of welders would work best for making light duty 3 pt tools. stick, wire feed, mig, arc etc. What is the smallest size and price range a person could get by with once the correct welder is determined. I am going to take a welding class this spring and of course I don't have money to buy a welder right now I would just like to see if welding is possible for me and if I even like it.

 

[PaulNakamura]

Stick would be cheapest, MIG (wirefeed) would be easiest. TIG is considerbly more money and takes a fair amount of skill to use. Stick AC buzzboxes (tombstones) are dime a dozen and can lay a decent bead down. 220V welders have a lot more capacity and duty cycle, you can weld thicker for longer. If yu're interested in a nearly new MIG welder let me know, I've got a Century 175GS I'd like to get rid of. I'm in SE MI also.

Paul
pnakamura@ucntc.org
.

 

[wallyand]

I'd vote for a stick machine and DC if you can swing it. I've got a Miller Thunderbolt 225 AC - 150 DC. Built a lot of stuff with it. Wirefeed generally lacks the penetration that stick has and the material needs to be clean.

 

[pruntyc]

I'm retired, with a lot of welding years behind me. I would, like the man said go with a AC/DC. The DC runs smoother, by far. The wire feed might be better if you had a lot of experence and was going to use it all the time, like to make a living with it. Most of the big welding places use them and they are nice, but not for home use, for you won't use them that much and you wouldn't know just how to get the best out of them. Stick is easier to use around home.

 

[Bob85355]

I've got a Lincoln wire feed and use it once a month or so. I've used others but this is the handiest and easiest welder I've ever used. I bought it after talking with a couple of guys who did welding professionally. They recommended it. I've also read in Farm Show that it was easy to use.

Bob

 

[bobsedor]

Can you weld on rusted metal with this welder?

 

[RJohnson]

No welding process is totally good at welding over rusting metal. The flux bearing processes such at SMAW (stick) and FCAW (flux cored) are better than the solid wires. You should always remove the rust and try to weld on sound clean metal. Rusting metal will also give you a bad time with your ground lead and make it harder to start your arc. That is why a grinder is sometimes your best friend when welding /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif.

Randy

 

[JonLeonard]

A welding rod such as 6010 can be used to weld under "less than perfect" conditions. It burns hotter than alot of others and just vaporizes some surface residue.

Im no expert, I just took a welding class, like some of the others here. When I asked what to use to weld older metals the instructor told me to make a pass with 6010, use a wire brush to clean up a bit, and make additional pass(es) with something like 7018 to increase the strength of the weld.

We tried it in class on and old garden cart I had. I used a brush to remove any flaking rust and paint, made the pass with 6010 and then brushed again. The surface was relatively clean, but the weld looked bad. Two passes with 7018 and I had a strong join that looked as good as a student with 2 months experience was likely to produce /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[pruntyc]

I am not one of the welding class guys, that learned it in a school. I welded for a number or years for a living, like for Fruehauf, and the railroad. And I will agree with what Jonleonard had to say. There is a lot of other real good rods, but those he mentions will do the job just fine. Even if the job you do doesn't look perfect with 7018, it will probably hold good. It is one tough rod. Runs better with DC, but there are AC 7018 rods, but I believe the DC rods of it are better. But you should have a DC welder to run regular 7018 , I can run it with an AC, but you may not be able to. /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif