welder ?

[The83RangerMan]

Ok well ill find out tomorrow if the deal for my parts truck falls through if it does im gonna be in the market for a welder. ill be buying it at harbor freight, now i have never welded before, so what would be a good entry level welder i could use to learn and get some projects done front bumper light bar and so forth

 

[Iron Ranger]

Well, first off: Not to slam you or anything, but don't buy a welder of any kind at Harbor Freight. Trust me when I say that "you get what you pay for" applies 110% in this situation.

The best welder to get that's afforable, super reliant, and works fantastic is a Hobart 140.

Sure, it costs more than the HB ones, but it'll out perform it 10000000/1. And it's very, very easy to use and very smooth running.

 

[Snoranger]

Buy the best welder you can afford. A cheap welder is just going to turn you off to welding.

The first welder I bought was a Linclon SP-175-Plus. Yeah, it was an $800 welder, but its so much nicer to use a good machine then a cheap (HF) one.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

The best you can afford flux core wire feed welder. Get a knowledgeable friend to help you shop and do look at used. I'm still using a used Lincoln weld-pac 100 that I got over 10 years ago in a trade, it cost me the equivalent of C$200.00. It does most welding I need, bumpers, brackets,etc. The one bad thing about it is that I can only weld about 1 1/2" and then have to let it cool down.It may be a problem with the 110 volt/15 amp circuit that it's on, and not the welder.

Richard

 

[88_Eddie]

i had a welder from harbor freight for about a month, sold that shit on craiglist as fast as i could.....only buy something from harbor freight when you are planning on using it a handful of times, everything in there is shitty

besides that one, the only thing i ever used was a lincoln 180 (i think, it was in our shop at school) that thing could weld 1/2" plate in a single pass, it was awesome.

i'm buying a hobart 140 or 187 with my tax return, still havent decided. i cant see how i'd need to weld anything thicker than a 1/4", but you never know....we'll see

 

[gman]

have a hobart 140 love it great welder i like it more than the miller matic 140 ive got at school

 

[disciplerocks]

No problems here with my HF flux core welder.

 

[Yellowsplash]

I have a Miller 180 mig and it works beautifully. You cant beat the quality in Miller or Lincoln, especially if you plan on using it more than a few times. The extra spent is worth it...

 

[--weezl--]

it takes a very good welder(person) to use a cheap welder (machine)

i've got a 200$ stick welder, and had i not had several years of experience welding semi truck frames, there is NO way i would ever have been able to get an arc going... it actually took me 2 days to get the first bead run with this welder... little 120v stick welder from home depot, and even it is a lincoln

get a wire feed welder, you can get a half decent 120v (arc requires 240 for a decent one) and they are much easier to learn on... i started learning stick, once i learned stick, i was pro at mig (wire feed) the first time i picked it up...