Help with welders

Eamon

Eamon

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Feb 23, 2005
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Eamon
I have an arc welder & an Oxy-Acetylene set up. I am ok with both these but not to too great.

I want to start doing some sheet metal work on some old cars.

I've used a MIG welder years ago, but I dont know how the new ones are & I forget what a TIG welder is.

First what would be the best type welder for attatching pieces of sheet metal together and filling small rust holes to be ground back flush.

Do the new gasless migs work as good as the gas ones?

Sizes of wire and setting.

Anyone?
 
Well E the best welder for what your doing would be a TIG,alot of body shops use MIG they work too.as far as gasless dont know much about them. Hope this helps ,and someone else can better advice you .
Dave G
 
Eamon,

I've got the MIG from Sears. Works pretty good without gas, you just need the flux core wire. I would think that would do the job of sticking shhet metal together a whole lot cheaper than a TIG, but I'm no expert. As far as small rust holes go, I usually just braze them with oxy-acetylene but the MIG might work. Again all my welding knowledge comes from the pamphlet they gave me with the welder ( and I read most of that with the Grateful Dead blaring in the background ).

Mike
 
My understanding is that TiG allows far more precise work than MIG w or w/o gas, but it takes a lot more time to become skillful with TIG. I've never actually used a TIG welder, just stick welders and MIG, but a guy I used to work with could darn near create art with his TIG unit. I know you can become "productive" with MIG in about half an hour and I suspect it takes a lot longer with TIG.
 
Eamon, I use a Hobart "Handler 180" at work quite often. It's a 220 volt unit, about $600 including a rollaround cart from Northern tool (I think it was). They offer a pretty nice 110 volt unit as well.
http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_200306073_200306073

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=91887

I use fluxcored wire and no gas for steel and have been really pleased with the results I've had the last two weeks with alloy wire (.035") and argon shield gas on 1/4" thick Aluminum. Made me almost look smart to the boss.
With some practice, you can do a pretty nice jog on sheet metal, but be prepared to burn a few new holes during the learning process.
Hope this helps.
Keith
 
I'm thinking about getting back into welding after 30+ years away (Lincoln 220v stick welder is the last one I touched). The local welding supply shop in Denver hosts welding classes as a way to get us old farts introduced to the MIG and TIG equipment - hoping to get into one of those classes soon. What I've seen on a few TV shows (Trucks, Extreme 4x4, etc) confirms what's been said above. TIG takes more practice, MIG makes respectable welds pretty easily. Haven't heard a thing about gasless MIG - I thought it's the gas covering that makes MIG MIG?
 
The secret to a good weld is to do it standing in water while barefoot.

Yeah, I've tried it.....ugh.
 
gkainz said:
I'm thinking about getting back into welding after 30+ years away (Lincoln 220v stick welder is the last one I touched). The local welding supply shop in Denver hosts welding classes as a way to get us old farts introduced to the MIG and TIG equipment - hoping to get into one of those classes soon. What I've seen on a few TV shows (Trucks, Extreme 4x4, etc) confirms what's been said above. TIG takes more practice, MIG makes respectable welds pretty easily. Haven't heard a thing about gasless MIG - I thought it's the gas covering that makes MIG MIG?
Click to expand...
Greg, Here's a pretty good website for welding info.

http://www.weldingengineer.com/1mig.htm
Iit has some pretty good descriptions of various welding methods and such.
Keith
 
Eamon said:
I have an arc welder & an Oxy-Acetylene set up. I am ok with both these but not to too great.

I want to start doing some sheet metal work on some old cars.

I've used a MIG welder years ago, but I dont know how the new ones are & I forget what a TIG welder is.

First what would be the best type welder for attatching pieces of sheet metal together and filling small rust holes to be ground back flush.

Do the new gasless migs work as good as the gas ones?

Sizes of wire and setting.
Anyone?
Click to expand...

I have used both MIG and TIG pretty extensively for the type of work you are talking about Eamon, but the MIG is the way to go. It is a lot faster and much simpler to deal with. Both are pretty picky about being clean, so you have to remove all paint and rust as much as possible. As far as wire size, sheet metal I used .028 wire. I haven't tried gassless, don't know how well it works. I have always used BlueShield which is an Argon and CO2 mixture. I don't like pure CO2 because it splatters quite a bit. With the TIG, on mild steel, Argon is the only choice. You will probably end up with some MIG welding and some brazing as others have suggested.
 
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