[Mike]

i've been thinking that i need a welder but i'm not too sure what i need i want to fix the sill in my zook and maybe make up a basic tube bar and do a few bits and pieces like that
what would people recomend for what i want to do?

Cheers

[Cozook]

I dont know how and i haven't seen it done
but someone told me you can use...
(and this is only if your a tightass like me!)
2 car batterys, jumper leads and metal coat hangers!
Can anyone tell me if its true?
I gotta get a welder and fix my sills too so I'll let you stuff it up 1st

[guinness]

macgyver comes to auszookers

[steve]

I think there's a thread around here somewhere about this subject.

from my very limited experience...

If you have $1200 you can buy a nice mig welder, but you'll need to get gas bottles aswell.

I have a little gasless mig welder which is great for small jobs, although i find myself doing just about everything with it. It's just not as easy and pretty as a $1200 mig.

I use to have a stick welder, which is ok after you get the hang of it. I think they are about the cheapest. You just have to get experience with the sticks.

Also you want to get a half decent helmet. The cheapo $20 ones you get are ok if you're a tightarse but they make welding a lot harder. If you can spend maybe $100 atleast and get a cheapo adjustable helmet you'll do better welds because you'll be able to see what you're doing.

[twitchy]

Looking at a 3 in 1 at the moment, Plasma cutter, tig & mma welder. Have to talk to some people though to see if a combo welder is o.k.

[joeblow]

for normal mild steel applications a dedicated mig will be your best choice, with gas of course. but when buying one not only should you look at amp ratings but also duty cycle rating. duty cycle is the amount of time you can use the mig at a certain amperage before it will cut out and have to cool. the more expensive the mig, the better the duty cycle will be. stay away from cig and sip welders, they are shite.

[2stroker]

I am one of those fortunate people that has access to workshops with mig, tig, lathes etc. But for at home I have an Arlec stick welder and a Unimig 120. I know a lot of people that bag these small welders but they are surprisingly capable. As far as duty cycle goes that may be important if you are welding up the hole in the Titanic but for home applications you will not find it a problem.

The duty cycle defines the number of minutes, within a 10 minute period, that a welder can safely produce a particular welding current. On my Unimig 120 the duty cycle is rated at 10% @ 110amps, 25% @ 55amps and 100% @ 25amps.

That means that turned all the way up to 110amps like when welding a chassis it can weld for a continuous 60 seconds before you have to stop for a couple of minutes and inspect your weld so that you don't overheat the welder, it actually trips a circuit breaker as a safety and wont start again for a couple of minutes if you overdo it. But at 25 amps which is about what I would have used to weld a new floor pan in my mates ute you can weld continuously until you run out of wire. There are not too many welds that you will do repairing a Suzuki where you will weld continuously for 60 seconds without stopping.

This is my little Unimig it cost me $600 about 4 years ago. I use it gasless most of the time and have had no problems welding car panels or Suzuki chassis's


This is a gassless weld from my welder using CIG 0.9mm flux core gasless wire

[keechox]

ive got an arc welder and a mig, i prefer the arc on thicker steels (IVE HAD PLANTY OF PRACTISE ON IT) and for thinner metals i use the mig. depends what your welding with it...... zook panels are VERY thin

[steve]

yeapo keechox. I was at a 4wd park a while ago and bent a panhard rod and the office had an old arc welder and 5 sticks left. I was a bit scared, but welded a bit of star picket on to the panhard rod, it went of awesome, i was pretty proud of the welds and only needed one and half sticks, so didn't waste any. All those years of experience paid off that day i think.

[Cozook]

Macgyver would have used coathangers!

[Taff]

DC Inverter.

Can do tig and wont break the bank

[royce]

I will agree to DC inverter, get em for $500 for a good one these days

unless you want to spend $1000 dont bother with mig, you wont get anything any good these days and things like consumables will always be a headache later on, instead spend your money on a good quality Stick welder and a tafe course to use it, I have seen plenty of things glued together with a good welder fall to bits cause the operator has no idea

welding isnt jsut point and shoot either, you need to know whats happening in the weld and how to prepare it, outside neatness is a pretty poor indicator of weld quality

[joeblow]

get a good unimig for under 1000 bucks. had mine for years and has never let me down.

[2stroker]

Hi Taff and Royce, what brand and size of DC inverter welder do you guys have? did you get them in Brisbane? would you recomend the one you have or in hindsight would you go bigger?

Hi joeblow, mate I have thought of getting a bigger Unimig for home but I would keep my 120 as well because it has been so handy to cart around and throw in the ute to take to mates places. What size Unimig do you have.

[royce]

2stroker, I dont own any but I sell many of the 130 and 170 amp cigwelds and everybody loves them for what they are, a compact little unit thats easy to store and lug around and use on the little jobs (we are talking guys that weld all day so our major projects are little jobs)

no doubt bigger is better but only if you have the room and need for the money to be tied up, anything big I need done I farm out to people that can weld better than me

[Taff]

I don't have one, but I have done plenty of looking and asking around and it seems the best for what I want to do.

Two of my mates have Ebay chinese DC inverters and do TIG with them (We are all Fitter & Turners) and they seem to go great and have pretty good duty cycle. One has had his for over 2 years and uses it at least once a week for plenty or 4wd and general fab, also built a trailer. Its still going strong.

Also stick is very portable too.

Very similar to this:
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ALLMAX-200-A-AC- ... dZViewItem

[Fatzook]

I've owned SIP and unimig. Both were shite. My mates unimig 220 has blown up 3 times, and his uniplas actually caught fire so I try to steer most people away from them. I'm sure there are just as many happy customers out there as unhappy, but thats just my take on unimig/plas.

I currently own a 255 remote Lincoln ( redimig) and it has not missed a beat after years of solid abuse. Its even spent a bit of time bouncing around in the trailer, and still performs like the day I bought it.

As stated above, if you want a mig that you will be able to use, you will need to spend some money. When a cheap mig costs you $800 and lasts a year you will then realise that the $1500 mig was not such a bad idea.

JMO
Peter

[2stroker]

Yeah Fatzook, point well made, you get what you pay for, but Mike is looking for something that will repair the sills on his Suzuki and he can use around home from time to time. Your welder is industrial duty and an overkill for what he wants, they would be a few grand wouldn't they. I wouldn't mind finding out a bit more about those inverter welder that Royce and Taff were talking about, have you had any experience with them?

[Mike]

yeah i need something that i can use a bit on my zook and thats about it and it would be mainly body work, maybe make a simple front bar and thats really it, it would barely ever get used

[Lynda]

Yeah i think Aaron has the 130 amp Cigweld? ( am i correct royce) and i can tell you that for someone that can't weld well at all & everything looks like bird poop with a mig the cigweld one is extreeeeemly easy to use..

[Fatzook]

2stroker wrote:

Yeah Fatzook, point well made, you get what you pay for, but Mike is looking for something that will repair the sills on his Suzuki and he can use around home from time to time. Your welder is industrial duty and an overkill for what he wants, they would be a few grand wouldn't they. I wouldn't mind finding out a bit more about those inverter welder that Royce and Taff were talking about, have you had any experience with them?

Yeah we use the Kemppi DC inverters at work. They are pretty good. Still a bit of coin though, but there are cheaper ones out there.

Matt has a lincon 170 mig which runs 0.8 wire and is magic on sheet metal. pretty sure it was less than $1K with regs and everything.

[Damo]

Fatzook wrote:

2stroker wrote:

Yeah Fatzook, point well made, you get what you pay for, but Mike is looking for something that will repair the sills on his Suzuki and he can use around home from time to time. Your welder is industrial duty and an overkill for what he wants, they would be a few grand wouldn't they. I wouldn't mind finding out a bit more about those inverter welder that Royce and Taff were talking about, have you had any experience with them?

Yeah we use the Kemppi DC inverters at work. They are pretty good. Still a bit of coin though, but there are cheaper ones out there.

Matt has a lincon 170 mig which runs 0.8 wire and is magic on sheet metal. pretty sure it was less than $1K with regs and everything.

I started out with a Lincoln 170, they are a good machine.

[Mike]

how many amps do you weld 26gage steel with?

[Fatzook]

Mike wrote:

how many amps do you weld 26gage steel with?

Too many variables to just give you an amperage; such as....

Gas type?(argoshield light, argoshield, CO2, they all burn at different temps )
wire size (0.8 or 0.9mm)
type of join (edge, but weld, overlap, rosette, spotweld etc...)
surface ( clean, rusty, gal, zink ?)
length of weld?

I would say that the lincoln 170 would meet all your needs from 0.9mm to 6mm quite easily with argo light gas.

Pete

[Pubic]

i just bought my new ac/dc tig the other day.

its a weldmaster 160 amp unit. it only comes with a years warranty, but the guy who sold it to me is the guy who i order through for our work gear, so if anything goes wrong he is more than happy to fix it. even through in a cig auto helmet for nothing....

the welder can handle upto 8mm thick ally, does all of your standard tig and stick too. its a litlle bulky but about $3000 cheaper than a kemppi etc

so if anyone is looking for a decent welding supplier in the western sydney area, find rob at penrith gas shop. 0400 316 557

[jbonevia]

Pubic wrote:

i just bought my new ac/dc tig the other day.

its a weldmaster 160 amp unit. it only comes with a years warranty, but the guy who sold it to me is the guy who i order through for our work gear, so if anything goes wrong he is more than happy to fix it. even through in a cig auto helmet for nothing....

the welder can handle upto 8mm thick ally, does all of your standard tig and stick too. its a litlle bulky but about $3000 cheaper than a kemppi etc

so if anyone is looking for a decent welding supplier in the western sydney area, find rob at penrith gas shop. 0400 316 557

how much roughly would something like this set me back?

[Zook_Fan]

Our transition welding mask broke the other day so we need a new one so i can get the rest of the cage welded up. Went for a look around town today and was sort of suprised at the prices until we found this one:



It is Miller (same brand they use on Orange County Choppers) and is a very nice mask, (different pattern than this though). It is fully transitional, digital display and has different modes for welding (tig, mig, stick, oxy), cutting (oxy), grinding and then a completely user optional mode. It variates between 8 and 13.

It is on sale at the moment but was just wondering what other people have got, or any info on what to steer clear of.

[Damo]

I've got a Miller Elite and am really happy with it. I'm happy to skimp on certain things but spending the extra coin on a good mask is justifiable IMO. AND it allows a weekend hack of a welder like me do a much better job that I would usually.

[Zook_Fan]

is it part of the new digital range or is it all analogue? dials or buttons with screen?

[Rockhopper]

Damo wrote:

I'm happy to skimp on certain things but spending the extra coin on a good mask is justifiable IMO.

I agree. I bought a cheapo electronic mask a couple of years ago now (about $80 from memory) and whilst it did cop a hell lot of use for the first year I owned it at my last job, nowadays it just comes out every couple of months or so. It has no adjustable din settings (can't remember if its din 8 or 11) and when I used it the other day for a while, on more than a few instances, I'd be welding for 5 or 6 seconds before the bloody thing would switch itself on.