welding

[EddieWalker]

It's real hard to beat the all around usefulness of an AC/DC arc welder. You can change your settings and rod to do just about anything. A decent arc welder and a cutting torch and you are set.

You might get a nicer looking weld with another type of welder in certain applications, but for general use, the arc welder is your best choice.

I learned on an AC welder and the first time I used a DC machine was amazing. The difference is huge!! I wouldn't own an AC only machine. It's worth the extra money. Guranteed!!!!!!

Eddie

 

[whodat90]

I'll throw in my three cents. I have a HF AC buzzbox, a lincoln weldpak 110v, a hobart handler 175, and a craftsman AC/DC stick. Each has different capabilities, each has different limitations.
HF buzzbox: It's like learning to drive on a manual trans car with no power steering. It'll do what you ask, but it's hard to get it right. I use it mostly to teach new weldors how to strike an arc and run a bead.
Weldpak: I have the gas mod to make it a true mig, but I run it mostly with fluxcore. It doesn't have great penetration, but is great for tacking stuff in place, which I then take back to the shop for the big welders to finish. It's also very good for sheetmetal work. One caveat to a 110v welder: You can't just plug it into the wall and hope for the best. I honestly think this is why most people that have tried them dislike them. You need to have a dedicated 20a outlet to run them at anywhere near full capacity. If you plug them into an outside outlet that also runs all the lights, etc. and it can only draw maybe 10a, you're going to get crappy welds. GIGO.
Handler 175: My workhorse. I've set it up with C25 and .030 wire. It'll weld from sheetmetal to 3/16 easily in a single pass, bigger with multiple passes, preheat, or fluxcore.
AC/DC stick: Big paperweight, most of the time. It'll do 180a DC, 240a AC. It works well, and the difference between AC adn DC is night and day. I honestly don't think I've had it on AC more than twice in the some years I've owned it. When I do use it is on metal where I need it to stick together, but not necessarily be pretty, or I don't have the time to properly grind every weld surface to shiny metal. I'm not one of the 'use 6011 and go through mud and rust' guys, but I am much less worried about it when using the stick welder. My preferred rod is 7014DC.
I run almost all (other than the weldpak) of these welders off of one, 50a plug. What I did was get a breaker, wire, and outlet all rated for 50a, and had that installed. Then I bought a bunch of dryer plug pigtails that fit it, and put a receptacle that matched my welder's plug on the other end. That way, I didn't have to modify the welders to fit the outlet, and I have a plug that's capable of running the biggest welder I'd ever likely have in my shop. I also had put in a single 110v plug on a 20a circuit with wire and outlet rated for a full 20a. This is what the weldpak gets plugged into.
As has been said before, your needs will dictate your welder, as much or more than your budget will. I make most of my stuff out of 1/8-5/16 steel, so I've got a bunch of welders that cover that range. If I was welding 3/8-3/4 stuff, I'd probably use the stick primarily due to it's larger capacity, but then again I'd probably sell every welder I have and buy a larger mig that could transition into spray arc, which would cover me from sheetmetal up to 1"+. YMMV, KDTTAH, professional driver on a closed course.
whodat

 

[TwinWillows]

Whodat - I liked your writeup. My welder is an old miller 180A AC machine. I've been wondering if DC would be worth changing machines out - sounds like you'd recommend it..

BTW, I get the YMMV but you loose me on the KDTTAH??

 

[sandman2234]

Probably something like
Kids Dont try this at home.
Which is what I thought about when fattyfat started talking about stuff they do at the shop. Most of us want to know about a welder that we are going to use at home, and most of them on single phase power.
Wish I was going to go fire up the Lincoln, but I am still in the "Let's tear down" stage.
David from jax

 

[gemini5362]

I know you have gift cards, but here's a used welder that will outlast you & do anything you could want to do. eBay: miller welder (item 300080082090 end time Feb-17-07 09:27:29 PST) and it's close. It's not pretty in that picture but look at the Miller website for specifications & you'll be impressed. And it comes with a water cooler & tig torch. MikeD74T

Mike you want him to start out learning to weld with a TIG. Isnt that kind of like having someone learn how to drive in a Hemi Cuda ?

 

[sandman2234]

My welding instructor did just that. He sat my tush in front of a tig torch and told me not to leave till I had it mastered. I got it about half way down pat and wanted to try the MIG. He told me to get my tush back in front of that tig, cause he could teach a monkey to run a Mig.
Never did learn to run a mig worth a durn, but that might be because I don't own one that is hooked up. I recently sold the mig gun that could hook to my Miller, but I never bothered to hook it up. Got it in a bunch of stuff at the shop and told the boss I wanted to take it home for my machine. He agreed, but told me later that he didn't figure I would ever hook it up. I didn't.
David from jax

 

[gemini5362]

We have a miller synchrowave 250 Tig at our shop. It is a very very nice machine and I have tried to weld with it a couple of times. In my opinion it is a specialty machine for things that are difficult to weld other ways. In the rate event I have to weld anything I use the Miller 250 mig. I cannot imagine any kind of welding being easier than that. I have on occasion used a stick welder but I am very bad at it. For the poster a mig machine would be the way to go. I am in agreement with a lot of people though that a Mig big enough to do him any good would be expensive. My wife bought me the Miller DVM it works off of 115 v or 230v In the 230 volt mode it is supposed to weld up to 3/8 inch thick. That is about the minimum machine that I would reccomend in a mig and they are not real cheap. He might be better off to invest in the stick welder and then try to take an adult edcuation class in how to weld properly if they are available in his area

 

[whodat90]

Yup, Kids Don't Try This At Home. TW, it's worth finding a good welding shop. A good one will have a welding bay set up and will let you run one machine next to another to see the differences, and that'll tell more than anything else whether or not it's worth the change to you. From a technical standpoint, DC energy flows one way, AC flows both equally. AC is less affected by corners and magnetized metal. DC lets you either put the heat into the rod or into the work, allowing a wider range of metal thickness than pure AC. AC has less options, which can sometimes mean less to screw up. I can run either (not well, mind you) but I way prefer the DC for the 'work' I do. And I prefer the mig over that. My HH175 with fluxcore will do most everything the stick will, with much better control and ease of use. If I could afford it I'd swap the whole lot out for a 250a class mig. That said, I wouldn't trade my experience and 'larnin with an AC stick machine for anything. Welding is all about controlling the puddle and the arc. In an AC stick machine, that's all you have. Going back to my manual car reference, if you can learn to drive a manual steering, manual shift car, everything else after that is easier. If you can lay down good looking, solid welds with an AC stick machine, running a quality AC/DC stick or Mig/wire welder machine is much easier. I can only speak of tig in passing as I have a scratch start tig torch for the stick welder, but never played with it with anything other than C25 which sucks for tig. Fun though, nice to be able to control the heat independently of the deposition rate.

 

[dbdartman]

Mike you want him to start out learning to weld with a TIG. Isnt that kind of like having someone learn how to drive in a Hemi Cuda ?

G, it all depends on the person. In my case, I learned to gas weld while at Class A school for the Coast Guard in late '73. To this day, I've never gas welded again. In 1979, after being out in "the real world" for a few years, one of the guys in the shop tried (operative word here is TRIED) to teach me to stick weld. After 3 or 4 weeks of frustration, he gave me the tig welder. Within 5 minutes I understood what I wanted to accomplish, & within one hour I was laying down beads as nice as his (& he'd been welding over 10 years). A week later I was out on a job welding stainless pipe. The place we were welding for offered me a job at $100/week more than I was making (of course I took it). About the same time ('77/'78) I taught myself to mig weld. Although I've gotten slightly better with a stick, over the years, I still pretty much suck at it.

So, it all depends on the person, not the process.

BTW, where in Ar are you? My GF just bought a place in Shirley.

Oh, & I'll take my lowly Dart, or (better yet) my bro's 69 Coronet 500 wagon (with the 550HP 493) over a Hemi Cuda any day.

 

[gemini5362]

G, it all depends on the person. In my case, I learned to gas weld while at Class A school for the Coast Guard in late '73. To this day, I've never gas welded again. In 1979, after being out in "the real world" for a few years, one of the guys in the shop tried (operative word here is TRIED) to teach me to stick weld. After 3 or 4 weeks of frustration, he gave me the tig welder. Within 5 minutes I understood what I wanted to accomplish, & within one hour I was laying down beads as nice as his (& he'd been welding over 10 years). A week later I was out on a job welding stainless pipe. The place we were welding for offered me a job at $100/week more than I was making (of course I took it). About the same time ('77/'78) I taught myself to mig weld. Although I've gotten slightly better with a stick, over the years, I still pretty much suck at it.

So, it all depends on the person, not the process.

BTW, where in Ar are you? My GF just bought a place in Shirley.

Oh, & I'll take my lowly Dart, or (better yet) my bro's 69 Coronet 500 wagon (with the 550HP 493) over a Hemi Cuda any day.

Hmm that would be a non stock 493 versus a stock hemi cuda
I live outside of Fort Smith, I am not shure where shirley is I will have to look that up. The people that I work with are not welders and we can all pretty much mig weld. To me tig welding is harder and a lot slower. The poster here though I believe was on a tight budget and a good mig machine is pretty expensive.