Let's see your Welders

[scotts90ranger]

For just general welding as long as it doesn't have to look pretty, the silly little harbor freight flux cores are handy and work fine, but if it's in the budget get a name brand wire feed with gas... Stick is ok and is what I have (other than said flux core, my new garage isn't wired for 220 yet), and will do pretty much anything you want but it's messy (slag, if you can find one get one that puts out DC instead of AC, much nicer... 7018 makes pretty welds without trying and is easy cleanup...), and you're probably best off going used on craigslist as the older ones are usually made better

 

[scotts90ranger]

That said, I have a couple friends with the Harbor Freight 220V wire feed welders, and once you get used to their quirks they do do fairly well and make decent welds.

 

[clifford97]

mostly going to be used for light fab work on the truck and around the house, but i do want to build a winch bumper that will be strong enough. and i know its a tool you buy for one or two things and suddenly EVERYTHING needs to be welded!lol but on the tech write up on the expo 8.8 swap it says to weld the tubes using a low hydrogen rod. i have some friends that have wire feed welders and i have more experience using rods(not what it sounds like) but all the arc welders i see on craigslist and etc are either ancient dinosaurs rustier than my old spring shackles or out of my price range. its hard to get a straight answer on whether its ok to use wire for the axle swap,tubes and spring perches (current project) or not. called my local 4X4 shop, they want $300+ just to flip the spring perches for 300 ill just get my own welder. i just want to get something i know can handle patching frame and eventually building a cage

 

[brentmc]

Look into the Lincoln sp series of wirefeeds if memory serves me correctly the sp145 can run 110 or 220 depending on how you wire it. Buy E70S4 or E70S6 wire it will give you a 70,000lb tensile strength weld provided everything is clean. Remember the welder doesn't make a good weld is the prep and fit up that makes a good welder. I used to weld with stick only for many years and now its 99.9% wire. Theres been a few things I had to use a 11018 rod on like a fork on a fork lift we broke while lifting rail cars...

 

[scotts90ranger]

My perches were originally welded with a wire feed, they stayed on when I did the tractor pull run that bent a leaf spring, twisted an axle tube, and bent/twisted the driveshaft... when I had the axle out fixing that I just rotated the spring perch on the twisted tube, and used my stick welder to reattach and weld the tubes to the diff, for that I used the 7018 on DC like I said, it's a drag rod and I got full penetration in both sides with a little preheating with a propane torch, but that said I have a friend that welded his tubes to the diff on an 8.8 with a wirefeed and it seems to be working fine, anything is better than nothing there...

 

[TheMainer]

I have a Hobart Handler 140, mostly been used for sheet metal and body work so far, but will weld up to 1/4" plate. I really like it so far. 20% duty cycle, I use flux core due to the cost of a new gas bottle and the portability of flux.

 

[TxDarth]

302 powere

New to Rangers but I have been playing with cars since the sixties...retired in 2004, now I have time to play. I have been welding almost as long as well. I started with Acetylene/gas welding back then, never really did any stick to amount to anything. Started Mig back 15-20 years ago with a Lincoln 155. Several years ago I decided to try Tig since everyone I talked to said it is just like gas welding only it is electric and the heat is more concentrated on your work. Found that was not quite true, or at least for me. It takes some getting used to with a lot of practice along the way. I went with Miller welders this time because of the local support from my AirGas distributor - he met online pricing and was very helpful in several other areas. Bought the Syncrowave 200 first, then replaced the Lincoln with the Mig 211 Autoset and lastly with the Exreme 375 plasma cutter... I am still learning to Tig tho - I can manage to glue two pieces of metal together but it is not always the purdiest bead. I made this cart for the gear with MIg mostly and all the exhaust of this project - Ford 302 powered Miata with Tig.





Miata...

 

[ghunt81]

I have a little Craftsman 80 amp gasless mig that has served me well for 10+ years now. Doesn't make the prettiest welds all the time, but I've used it for everything from tacking patch panels in sheet metal to welding subframe connectors into my old Thunderbird.

I generally do pretty light welding and fabrication and I don't have 220 in my garage so it's great as an all-purpose welder for me.

 

[scotts90ranger]

Lets bring this back to the top...

Just for fun I'll show my current dumb welding situation in my shop... A Titanium Mig 170 and a 4kw generator... I have enough power for lights, not enough for welding... should be better in about a month... After I get power I'll invest in two bottles, one 75/25 and one full Argon for tig since my Unlimited 200 supports it and the spool gun for aluminum will need it...

For the record I'm extremely impressed with these two Titanium welders, I have been beating the living dog snot out of this Mig 170 for 3 or 4 years now just trying to kill it and it doesn't care... super smooth welds, works fine on a generator, I've ran it hard enough to stall the generator, I've killed a GFI outlet, popped breakers, it's been ran on two or three other generators while camping... I got it for $125 so worth testing , I've more than got my money out of it...

 

[Eddo Rogue]

My home setup is a 20 year old Lincoln 175T MIG running 25/75 gas and .030" wire. Does paper thin sheet metal up to 5/16" on single pass, thicker with multiple passes or flux core setup.
My TIG is recently purchased Lincoln TIG 200, set up for aluminum on 100% Argon gas. Haven't used it much, but so far so good.

My work setup is big budget, all high end digital Miller stuff. The MIG welders are a 252 and a 211, and the TIG is a Dynasty 280 w/ the liquid cooler $10k setup .

Whatever you do, don't buy a welder from Home Depot or HF. I will pay you not to buy one from a big box store lol. Go to a welding or steel supply shop.

I would not recommend a budget machine to start with, it will just makes things more frustrating and difficult.

If I had to choose or buy one welder today, It would be the Miller 211. It is the perfect small yet powerful MIG welder that makes me look like a hero at work lol.

I would start with mig welder, multi process is ok, but try to avoid the all in ones. Later you can get a stick/arc and/or tig machine, depending on what you wanna do. I pretty much only use the stick welder for thick heavy structural stuff outdoors, and the TIG for aluminum, stainless, or other fancy metals (chromoly, ti etc). MIG works for 98% of what I build.
Dont forget to factor in a tank, some replacement tips and nozzles, and roll of wire. You wont need a new liner for awhile, so hold off on that. I would run .030" wire, its a good all round middle ground thickness.

 

[ericbphoto]

My home setup is a 20 year old Lincoln 175T MIG running 25/75 gas and .030" wire. Does paper thin sheet metal up to 5/16" on single pass, thicker with multiple passes or flux core setup.
My TIG is recently purchased Lincoln TIG 200, set up for aluminum on 100% Argon gas. Haven't used it much, but so far so good.

My work setup is big budget, all high end digital Miller stuff. The MIG welders are a 252 and a 211, and the TIG is a Dynasty 280 w/ the liquid cooler $10k setup .

Whatever you do, don't buy a welder from Home Depot or HF. I will pay you not to buy one from a big box store lol. Go to a welding or steel supply shop.

I would not recommend a budget machine to start with, it will just makes things more frustrating and difficult.

If I had to choose or buy one welder today, It would be the Miller 211. It is the perfect small yet powerful MIG welder that makes me look like a hero at work lol.

I would start with mig welder, multi process is ok, but try to avoid the all in ones. Later you can get a stick/arc and/or tig machine, depending on what you wanna do. I pretty much only use the stick welder for thick heavy structural stuff outdoors, and the TIG for aluminum, stainless, or other fancy metals (chromoly, ti etc). MIG works for 98% of what I build.
Dont forget to factor in a tank, some replacement tips and nozzles, and roll of wire. You wont need a new liner for awhile, so hold off on that. I would run .030" wire, its a good all round middle ground thickness.

Did someone say Miller 211?

 

[scotts90ranger]

My home setup is a 20 year old Lincoln 175T MIG running 25/75 gas and .030" wire. Does paper thin sheet metal up to 5/16" on single pass, thicker with multiple passes or flux core setup.
My TIG is recently purchased Lincoln TIG 200, set up for aluminum on 100% Argon gas. Haven't used it much, but so far so good.

My work setup is big budget, all high end digital Miller stuff. The MIG welders are a 252 and a 211, and the TIG is a Dynasty 280 w/ the liquid cooler $10k setup .

Whatever you do, don't buy a welder from Home Depot or HF. I will pay you not to buy one from a big box store lol. Go to a welding or steel supply shop.

I would not recommend a budget machine to start with, it will just makes things more frustrating and difficult.

If I had to choose or buy one welder today, It would be the Miller 211. It is the perfect small yet powerful MIG welder that makes me look like a hero at work lol.

I would start with mig welder, multi process is ok, but try to avoid the all in ones. Later you can get a stick/arc and/or tig machine, depending on what you wanna do. I pretty much only use the stick welder for thick heavy structural stuff outdoors, and the TIG for aluminum, stainless, or other fancy metals (chromoly, ti etc). MIG works for 98% of what I build.
Dont forget to factor in a tank, some replacement tips and nozzles, and roll of wire. You wont need a new liner for awhile, so hold off on that. I would run .030" wire, its a good all round middle ground thickness.

I hear you on the HFT welders, as my first wire feed welder was a 100A flux core transformer unit from HFT, you had to throw everything anything says to do out the window to get that thing to work right... If you stick to .035" wire and use the wire speed opposite of what everyone says to do for heat (slower is more penetration on this thing) it's usable... don't even try .030" wire on them, way too much cussing, the voltage output is too high

On the other hand the Titanium and Vulcan lines aren't a whole lot of price savings over big brands but they are night and day in performance, I'm still on flux core but the Titanium wire feeds are working great... I get the whole replacement part and support thing, but I've been trying to kill the one in my picture and it just keeps on chooching... I bet it's had almost 20 pounds of wire through it and thousands of miles of being drug around camping just in case...

 

[Eddo Rogue]

I can't count how many rolls of wire has been through my Lincoln 175 or how much money it has made me. Been through my share of liners, nozzles, trigger and tips as well. Expendables replacements availability is where a name brand matters. I can still walk into any airgas store and walk out with parts for my 20 year old Lincoln.

 

[scotts90ranger]

Conveniently liners and tips they kept the generic style apparently, gas shields they did different stuff, but yeah...

 

[Eddo Rogue]

Conveniently liners and tips they kept the generic style apparently, gas shields they did different stuff, but yeah...

The tips/nozzles are different now...My bosses Millers are fairly new, the tips have this weird short and extremely coarse thread on em. Forgot what they're called but its the new style.