Welders

[Evoman]

I am looking to get a welder, my parents are paying as its a birthday present. They dont seem keen to spend more than £300.

I have spotted this one:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sealey-150AMP ... 3639wt_952

Opinions? Suggestions? Please.

The things I have been looking for are:

a range of atleast 30-150
Non-live torch
Automatic wire feed (dont think the one above has it)
Gas/Gasless conversion, seems a conveient thing

Next level up seems to be between 400-600, not sure I can go to that much

[Nimminz]

Looks good enough to me mate, Don't think You'll need much better than that for tinkering with cars. I'm using an old Clarke 90 gas/gasless at the moment.

[Evoman]

Would you say this would do all automotive jobs? and landrover work?

[Speedy88]

Yes dude. Also sealey make great kit. One thing is try and find a model that they do around the same price which doesn't have the gasless option. I try and encourage people not to be tempted to do gasless welding. Sure you might think "it will be better to finish that job if I run out of gas". No, doesn't quite work like that. You'll have to suddenly change your technique and your welds will be brittle and weak.

Get over here for advice http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/index.php

[Evoman]

I heard gasless is good when outdoors and that gas is difficult to use. as I dont often have access to a workshop I thought it might be useful. How do you guys think welding with gas outdoors?

[Speedy88]

Used to do it. Yeah fine, in a steady breeze it's going to be bad, but then you shouldn't be welding anyway (as you won't be able to paint it properly). Either way, you're going to get shitty welds. I don't want to sound negative but I really don't think it's worth spending £300 on a welder and ending up with sub-standard welds!

[Evoman]

So you suggest that really a gasless feature is pointless?

[Speedy88]

Not pointless, you just really don't want to get into the habit of using one. Once you do that you'll never have neat or strong welds. If you're welding on a ship in a gale, maybe yeah. But then you'd use stick welding instead.

In short, gasless migs are the best welders for certain situations. Welding up your sills isn't it.

Also try and avoid CO2 if you can, go for an argon mix. Literally night and day between the two.

[Evoman]

Some good advice, cheers mark

[Nimminz]

aye, Speedy knows the crack

I use gassless but thats just down to me not being able to afford / justify the cost of a gas bottle, regulator and gas at the moment. I also use stick if i can as it's cheap but not really suitable for many car jobs.

I think that welder you have there is pretty perfect. You can use gas and in the event of a dire emergency you could use gasless. As Speedy says always try to use gas as gassless is shite. We use argon mix at college rather than pure argon, it has helium in i think. Not really sure on how / if its better though.

[Speedy88]

Yeah sorry, should have said argon mix. I've not heard of helium being used but I think the reasons for using a mix over pure argon is pure argon gets too hot for steel. Good for alloy though.

I dunno, I just click on the welder and fiddle with the gas until it does what I want it to

[Nimminz]

aye they use pure argon for most of the TIG stuff up at college

I'm sure he said helium, pretty sure argon mix has co2 in it too.

[Evoman]

Fooking love that new sig nimmiz

Well It looks like I might get that one, I will keep looking and asking for abit longer. See what I can find it that price thats just gas like mark said

[Nimminz]

Cheers

Aye it's always best to research things first.

[classicswede]

Not new but probably the best DIY mig welder you can buy

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/cebora-pocket ... 4603480099

You should be able to buy one of those new with all the bits you need for around the £300 mark.

I have personaly found both Clark and sealey welders compltely useless as the wire feed starts before the gas feed making the start of teh weld porus.