Thread: A handy bit of kit.

Seems they have made this technology portable as I saw something similar on Richard Hammond's Workshop where they laser welded a couple of cracks in a Riley engine block, but he had to take the block to their fixed equipment at these premises.

I'm not saying anything against these. I am not a welder's left foot. But there's a welder on YT that I won't link to who reckons they're rubbish, no penetration. If he's right I would be disappointed because these things gave me some hope.....

The channel is 6061. com. Make up your own minds.

From my welding experience I would say penetration depends primarily on the technique not equipment - but any equipment will tend to have limits depending on what you are asking it to do.

Thanks, John. I've always though that if you want to know about welding, ask a farmer. Necessity and all that.

I have a little gasless MIG here that I can sort of trust myself with on anything not structural. I'm always on the lookout for something that would turn me into something approaching competent, but perhaps I should reflect on the fact that the Army wasn't able to teach me to weld, and those guys knew about incentives.

If you're trying to weld at the speed you see in the sub $100 ad, you won't get any penetration, you'll simply lay a bead. Penetration depends on getting heat into both pieces of material, that said, el cheapo machines must have limitations.

Yes. You have to actually understand what it is you are trying to do, and how to do it with the equipment you have.

As you imply, with welding, we are not "gluing" two bits together with the welding rod or wire filler, we are combining the metal of each bit of the job and the filler by locally heating the metal to a high enough temperature to melt the three together.

I'd like to hear Inc's take on them. One video I watched, said that it wasn't quite as easy as the ads for the Chinesium ones suggested, but the technique wasn't hard to pickup. He was however an experienced welder. The prototype machine that he was sent to test was expected to sell in the region of €5,000, so don't be expecting much for the little, cheap Chinese toy.

I should add, the vid I'm talking about had him welding ally, vs TIG.

Like I said, I have no opinion one way or the other, as I am not qualified to. Was just a point for discussion.