Advice for new hobbyist
John
wide, kenetic sculpture/wind sculpture, objects duh art) using found
objects mostly. These will often be rusty by choice. These may be
some pretty
thin stuff in the wind sculptures. I'd like some advice about which
welder to choose for starters. I have about $500 max.
Givens:
I have
done a little bit of stick welding in the past with fair results by
going in early to my college summer job as a laborer and messing
around with a huge old shop arc welder before the work day, that was
20 years ago.
My garage is under my house. Smoke from wire or o/a?
I'll use this equipment and then it will sit for weeks.
What about the balance between purchase price and on-going
consumables (wire, rods, gas, etc.)?
I have 220v service to the garage, if arc.
Mostly steel stock or thin sheet, but maybe a little non-
ferrous. Probably no stainless.
I can get a Lincoln 135 MIG at Lowes for about $425; a Harris
PortaWeld
o/a for about $325; a 220v stick welder for about $225 or cheaper
used.
This is hobbyist, not farm or production or life-critical
constructions (other than the wind pieces could whirl off
and....). Advice? TIA.
John
Ted Edwards
> thin stuff in the wind sculptures. I'd like some advice about which
> welder to choose for starters. I have about $500 max.
I'd say, given your price range and thin material, O/A is the way to go.
Ted
Ron Thompson
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Ron Thompson
On the Beautiful Mississippi Gulf Coast
USA
Email me for current special offers on items from
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"John" <book...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
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Steve
<g>
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"Ron Thompson" <thom...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
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michael
> Hard to beat a Lincoln 225AC.
>
>
> Ron Thompson
> On the Beautiful Mississippi Gulf Coast
> USA
>
Unless you give one to your brother when you get a *really* good deal on a 300
AC/DC Lincoln.<grin and gloat>
michael
Ron Thompson
--
Ron Thompson
On the Beautiful Mississippi Gulf Coast
USA
Email me for current special offers on items from
http://www.plansandprojects.com
Grave yards are full of people who thought the law could, should and would
protect them.
"Steve" <desertt...@lvcm.com> wrote in message
news:6FrAa.53792$MJ5.10296@fed1read03...
Thomas Kendrick
Go with the stick welder. Use 6013 rod on the thin stuff, 6011 on
the thicker material or when you don't want to clean off the rust.
You're going to make some smoke in most cases, so plan on having an
exhaust method to clear the air in the garage. Working on galvanized
metal with any process requires that you NOT breathe the fumes.
Recommend a 10' whip of #4 cable for the electrode holder to reduce
the weight of the cable to the holder.
Gary Coffman
>wide, kenetic sculpture/wind sculpture, objects duh art) using found
>objects mostly. These will often be rusty by choice. These may be
>some pretty
>thin stuff in the wind sculptures. I'd like some advice about which
>welder to choose for starters. I have about $500 max.
>
>Givens:
>
>I have
>done a little bit of stick welding in the past with fair results by
>going in early to my college summer job as a laborer and messing
>around with a huge old shop arc welder before the work day, that was
>20 years ago.
>
>My garage is under my house. Smoke from wire or o/a?
*Fire* due to sparks from any welding method. Plan on welding
outside. Welding under your house is stupid. If your O/A torch
is adjusted properly, there'll be no smoke. If you're using hard
wire, there'll be no smoke with MIG either. Smoke is mostly an
issue with stick and with fluxcore wire welding. But fire is always
the primary concern. Any welding produces sparks, and they
tend to go everywhere. One can smolder for hours before the
fire bursts to life, burning down your house, you, and your
family. Not good. Work outside, or in a separate shop building
from your house.
>I'll use this equipment and then it will sit for weeks.
>
>What about the balance between purchase price and on-going
>consumables (wire, rods, gas, etc.)?
You're probably not going to be doing enough welding that
consumables will be a major issue. Stick will be the cheapest,
and gas welding will be the most expensive. But typically you
won't be looking at much more than about $20 a weekend for
consumables unless you have a really big project.
>I have 220v service to the garage, if arc.
>
>Mostly steel stock or thin sheet, but maybe a little non-
>ferrous. Probably no stainless.
>
>I can get a Lincoln 135 MIG at Lowes for about $425; a Harris
>PortaWeld
>o/a for about $325; a 220v stick welder for about $225 or cheaper
>used.
>
>This is hobbyist, not farm or production or life-critical
>constructions (other than the wind pieces could whirl off
>and....). Advice? TIA.
You can do gates and such with a stick welder. However, you
say you also want to do thin and non-ferrous welding. The stick
machine won't be suitable for either of those. (You might eventually
want to get one for the heavier structrual welding jobs, though,
stick really delivers a lot of bang for the buck when you're doing
mild steel welding more than 1/8th inch thick.)
The baby MIG can do moderately thin steel (16 gage sheet up
to about 3/16ths inch angle and plate), but it'll be hard to control
on steel thinner than about 18 gage. It doesn't have the omph to
properly do aluminum (as well as being a push feeder that'll birds
nest with aluminum wire), and thicker steel will require you to build
up with multiple beads (very time consuming). Other non-ferrous
is a non-starter too.
Paradoxically, you need a bigger machine to do thinner or exotic
metal MIG welding. That's because you want to use spray transfer
for that sort of welding, and the little 110 volt machines can't get into
that mode (not enough voltage or wire speed).
Baby MIGs are easy to use, so they're popular, but one won't really
do all you'll be wanting to do. So I'm going to suggest an oxyacetylene
outfit. An O/A outfit can do heavy (say 1/2 inch) or thin (down to very
thin) steel welding. You can weld aluminum and some other metals
with the proper fluxes. It'll allow you to braze or solder what isn't practical
to weld. It'll allow you to heat and bend metal (probably important for
your "art" work). And you can cut mild steel with it too.
The O/A flame doesn't produce the volume of hazardous UV that
an electric process does either, so you don't need the helmet and
heavy leathers electric welding requires (safer for watching kids,
pets, or neighbors too). Shade 5 googles, or full face shield, and
decent gloves are all you need for protection.
Don't buy the Harris PortaWeld, though, the bottles are way too
small for any practical welding or cutting task. Go to your nearest
welding supply shop and get their house branded Victor clone set
(should be about $99), and lease a pair of 80 cuft or larger bottles
of gas (should be about $120 for a "lifetime" lease).
You want to lease the bottles because that makes it easy to swap
them for full ones any time you need gas, the supplier is responsible
for maintaining the DOT certs, etc. The 80 cuft size bottles should
last the hobby welder a full weekend (unless you do a lot of cutting),
but consider going larger. Gas suppliers are normally closed on the
weekends, so smaller bottles are a real source of frustration.
Also, you are limited to drawing no more than 1/7th acetylene tank
capacity per hour. Any more and you start drawing over acetone from
the cylinder. This isn't safe, and contaminates the flame. So any even
moderate gage welding or cutting is going to require bigger tanks than
the little baby ones. Refills are a lot cheaper per cubic foot with the bigger
bottles too. Basically, there's a "handling charge" built into any bottle
refill. That's fixed regardless of bottle size, so you get a better gas deal
on the bigger bottles.
While it makes a good welding project, I'd suggest you buy a cart
for the bottles. Harbor Freight and Northern Tool sell one that's about
$60 which has large bicycle style wheels which make it easy to move
about outside. Your first welding project should probably be a wheeled
welding and cutting table (again so you can work outside).
Pick up a copy of The Welder's Bible by Don Geary to learn how to
use your new toy. O/A welding does require a good amount of hand
eye coordination, so expect to have to practice a while before you
start getting reasonable results.
It *is* feasible to teach yourself how to O/A weld. It is safe enough,
and slow enough, that you can ramp up your skills in a relaxed way.
Some of the other processes can really benefit from more formal
instruction, either because things have to happen so fast that its
hard to work your way into them by yourself, or because the machine
parameters for achieving a good weld are non-intuitive. But O/A is
intuitive, and you can clearly see what you're doing. While there are
some errors in Geary's book, it is good enough to get you going.
Gary
Gunner
<thom...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>Hard to beat a Lincoln 225AC.
If one does a bit of intelligent shopping or scrounging, one can get
a decent A/O rig AND a Lincoln or similar welder for under $500
including consumables and accessories.
Heck..if the poster wants ok and cheap, Ive got a Westinghouse 225
buzzbox he can come and get for $50. It needs leads and a
stinger/ground clamp. I can probably scrounge up the leads for
cheap..I have a secret source...
Works pretty good, though is noisy as hell.. He needs to put the rest
of the screws back in the outside case, so it dosnt rattle all the
sheetmetal <G>
Located in Taft, California, just outside of Bakersfield. Its on a
cart with wheels. Not much of a cart, ..but it works.
Ive got a Lincoln 225Ac and a Century AC/DC rig both that Im quite
happy with. The Lincoln gets used on a very long extension cord that
weighs almost as much as the welder...<G> for work around the property
while the Century is fixed for work in the shop. I really dont need
the Westinghouse, oddly enough. I dont need 6 lathes either..sigh.
Gunner
jim rozen
>Heck..if the poster wants ok and cheap, Ive got a Westinghouse 225
>buzzbox he can come and get for $50. It needs leads and a
>stinger/ground clamp. I can probably scrounge up the leads for
>cheap..I have a secret source...
Gunner why don't you move to the east cost. Near to me.
Bring all the cools stuff like this that you want to sell,
cheap.
> I dont need 6 lathes either..sigh.
Trade ya a lathe for a welder.... :)
Jim
==================================================
please reply to:
JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
==================================================
Rich
That was the most informative piece of info I have seen on beginning advice
for oxy/ace welding!
Thank you!
Funny I came on here looking for info on them little bottle sets, glad I
didn't get em. I'm gonna start new in welding here very soon to compliment
my woodworking habits and decided to do the oxy/ace route. Would like the
skills needed to tig someday if possible. I'll be following your advice on
bottles, cart, and book etc, to get me going.
Thanks again, also its nice to chat with a fellow advanced class, now that
we are obsolete because of the no-code extra class (almost no code, wait a
few more years, hihi)!
Rich
"Gary Coffman" <ke...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:6bl4dvg3hrf1hljt3...@4ax.com...
Gunner
wrote:
>In article <vet4dv8ls0ac01ggs...@4ax.com>, Gunner says...
>
>>Heck..if the poster wants ok and cheap, Ive got a Westinghouse 225
>>buzzbox he can come and get for $50. It needs leads and a
>>stinger/ground clamp. I can probably scrounge up the leads for
>>cheap..I have a secret source...
>
>Gunner why don't you move to the east cost. Near to me.
>Bring all the cools stuff like this that you want to sell,
>cheap.
>
>> I dont need 6 lathes either..sigh.
>
>Trade ya a lathe for a welder.... :)
>
>Jim
East Coast? Only thing out THERE Id be interested in are shapers. Too
damned many Lefty nut cases out there. Ill just deal with the ones we
have here in the West, thankyouverymuch.
<G>
Gunner
Scott R. Keszler
[... some excellent O/A advice ...]
One additional piece of O/A advice, from experience. Always, *always*,
_ALWAYS_ shut off the gas at the tanks when you're done. Even if you plan to
be back in 1/2 an hour.
I didn't. I was going to be back welding after a trip to the store. Other
things happened, and I never did go back that Saturday. Sunday I left on a
business trip, came back the following Saturday morning. Getting ready to weld
again later that day, I noticed the guages read zero pressure. Valves on the
tank were open, but at the torch they were fully closed. Tanks should have
been 1/2 full.
After scratching my head for a while, I looked at the hose. Found holes
_chewed_ in both. Mouse, squirrel - don't know. What I do know is that for
some period of time (likely early in the week, as I couldn't smell any
acetylene) I had a nice mix of acetylene and oxygen filling my garage.
I'm really lucky that whatever did the chewing didn't knock over anything
steel on its way out. One spark...
Gary Coffman
>Gary,
>
>That was the most informative piece of info I have seen on beginning advice
>for oxy/ace welding!
>Thank you!
You're welcome.
Gary
John
thoughts and decision are:
Stick: easiest/cheapest to acquire and cheap consumables, but am
limited by access to 220v and now see need to work outside 8-) (Thanks
Gary) and don't want to hassle with moving the 'tombstone' outside
onto my steep gravel driveway on a heavy extension cord tether. UV
issues for self and young'uns.
110v MIG/wire: seems ideal for most things, but can't cut or heat
stock for bending. UV again.
O/A: start with this. Have access to someone who will give a little
coaching, can cut some, braze, weld to the extent I need now. Have to
hassle with tank issues, but I can figure that out and a supplier is
close. Slowness of the process appeals to me; a zen thing, too. No
UV. Buying a Victor set like a Performer from the welding supplier
and begin relations to get advice from them, rather than save a buck
at HD and be stuck later.
Like a beginner, I want a perfect compromise product and have found
out in other things (canoes, computers, cameras, backpacks, fire arms)
that it isn't out there. It is always buy the one for what you need
now and then buy more later or change my needs. I'll find an arc for
cheap at a sale and pick up a 110v mig in a couple years.