Thread: which welder

Originally Posted by aquarangie

For the amount of times I weld, I was going to buy a MIG and decided against it. Too costly for the bottle rental, gas, wire goes rusty, etc.. if you weld a fair bit then a MIG is a good option

I have a crappy old CIG Weldmaster that's about 25 years old. I bought it for $40 from a garage sale when I was about 13, now 30 and it's been a great investment. It took me years to get the hang of using it but I perserverd. My welding isn't the neatest but it strong and that's all it matters to me.

Seen those new inverter arc welders, at $400 or so they look the goods. Anyone have one because I'm keen to upgrade to a bigger unit so i can weld thicker plate anyway.

Trav

The inverter arc welders are definitly worth upgrading to - you wont believe the difference I bought a BOC one for $309 which came second in a test of about 12 inverter welders ranging from $300 - $1500. I would probably recommend buying the larger one which is just over $400 if you want to weld plate over about 6mm.

Originally Posted by wannalandy

Hi Guys , I'm looking at getting an arc welder just for some small work in the shed and wondering what brands are the go ? what do you guys have ? and do you like them or should of got something else ?

Interesting how everyones perspective on welding starts from the cheap and works its way up to the expensive.

In my interpretation the key words are ' small work in a shed', a bit hard to justify an expensive mig with gas. Or even an inverter ( which are the ducks guts)
From my perspective, I bought a $89 GMC, not fan cooled, had an average duty cycle when using the larger CIG rods, so i went to the smaller ones the satincraft ones are perfect, even bought some ozito rods from bunnings to try and havne;t had a problem with the thermal cutout. I can use 3 rods one after the other and its fine no cut out.
Perfect for the shed, have welded thin steel and thick steel and as my welding teacher said if your not sure about penetration belt the weld with a lump hammer if it comes apart it wasn't hot enough.

Thats my 5 cents worth for a shed welder.

john

was looking on ebay and found a few fancy helmets ...... worth more than a bloody welder

get an auto darkening helmet, i would not work without one they make everything so much easier

Just used the plasma cutter on the 3in1 welder bought a $150 compressor from repco so far it has been brillant I have been making up a new bar for the front of the disco and needed to cut out sections of pipe for the winch fairlead and driving light mounts.

The brand is mitech not to be mixed up with the chinese copy mitec that you see on ebay done a heap of welding last 6 months

The thing is that with inverter arc welders these days the old style transformer type ARC is obsolete and in comparison is awful to use.

I had an ESAB ARC when I was out on road service (previous job) which when we bought it was around the $500 mark but then I upgraded to an inverter which is a 1/4 of the size and 1/10th of the weight as well as I can use it as a TIG as well or plug in a hand held wire feed hand piece/torch (which is gas compatible) it can be used the same as a MIG.

There are other Inverters that can be used as a Plasma cutter as well and they are great for sheet work.

The other advantage of an ARC is that you can use it to weld Steel, Stainless, Cast, and Cast Alloy with only minor changes as well as a change of rods so you dont have to completely change the machine to change the material you are welding as you do with MIG.

I have (at work) MIG for general welding, ARC for either when the MIG doesnt work or when I need to weld something other than steel and OXY for everything else and I find I use all 3 but would love an Inverter at this job as well so I could get rid of the Giant old ARC welder (which could weld anything) and be a bit more usefull for other jobs.

As far as masks goes, there are fairly cheap automatic masks (about $120)around these days, I have one at work which are fine, I have only had a minor problem of the battery going flat and it being a rechargable tiny little thing and the supplier just replaced the whole thing which was about 3 yrs old which I thought was pretty good.

Originally Posted by wannalandy

was looking on ebay and found a few fancy helmets ...... worth more than a bloody welder

My supplier sells the Millars for between $300 and $400 depending on whats on it, their standard helmet is cheaper to the personalised ones are pricey but they are the best in my opinion but my elcheapo does the best.

What did you pay for the 3 in 1 Stevo?
Cheers, Phill

Originally Posted by stevo

Just used the plasma cutter on the 3in1 welder bought a $150 compressor from repco so far it has been brillant I have been making up a new bar for the front of the disco and needed to cut out sections of pipe for the winch fairlead and driving light mounts.

The brand is mitech not to be mixed up with the chinese copy mitec that you see on ebay done a heap of welding last 6 months