Paging the Welderisti

Looking to learn to weld, not for any mad reason other than I have a
Sealey Supermig 235 welder

However, it may indeed be overkill i.e seems a professional / semi
professional one and they seem to be heftily priced for a new one and
Im thinking of ebaying the bugger and getting something smaller

What I have noticed is that apparantly you can get £100 ish Gasless mig
welders, so im thinking get a few hundred for the big one, spend £100
on the small one and have some cash in my pocket then learn to weld

However, the question is, is a gasless one a gimmick / make do type
thing or are they really as good as the gas ones?

Im not intending to do any fancy welding just learn.

 

Keep the pro/semi-pro one if it's any good. And no, I don't have any
idea if it is.

Cheap welding gear is generally a bit shit and your results can improve
markedly by not using pikey kit.

 

Right. If you get rid of the Sealey unit, you'll regret it. Big
welders have more and better features, are more flexible in what
they're capable of, and are all around easier to use IME. The expense
with them is the gas - and the cost of the big roll of wire (but once
you've got the wire, you've got it iyswim).

Little welders are all well and good, but if you really want one, get a
top-end one. I bought a gas/no-gas Clarke unit from Machine Mart years
ago, and it is still going strong:

http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/product/details/150te-turbo-mig-welder
/path/diy-mig-welders

At the time it was their top DIY/midrange trade unit, so is quite
flexible, and although robust, is light enough to lug around in the
boot of a car. Not as easy to get consistent welds with, nor as
powerful as the big SIP that lives in the back of the garage, though.
Not as comfortable to use and quite stressy for extended welding jobs.

Gasless welding is all right for farmers who need to stick two bits of
mild steel to a tractor out in the wind, but fuckall use to somebody
who wants a decent-looking job on thin metal. The gas provides
protection for the weld from contamination by atmospheric gases and
without the gas shield, appearance, penetration and weld strength are
all affected. Yeah, they'll tell you that the gasless wire is
flux-cored or somesuch bollocks - and it will do the job with chunks of
angle, but you'd find it much easier to get good strong welds with a
bottle of gas on the other end.

If you desperately want to try gasless welding, buy a gas/no-gas unit
and give it a go. You'll buy a bottle of gas and thank me.

As to learning to weld, wait till September and sign up for a night/two
night-a-week college course. That's what I did and it turned out to be
a very easy way to do it: competent tutors, loads of decent gear and
the materials are all in the (relatively) cheap price. And a good
excuse to go to the pub on the way home to "lay the dust".

There was a huge age range, which is apparently typical: ranging from
the apprentice kiddies who need a welding ticket to old farts doing it
to fill in time before they die and others who just wanted to learn how
to stick metal together. Yes, there was exams too, but the learning
really helps to understand about why welds work or don't, a bit of
basic metallurgy and the reasoning behind the H&S requirements. A
multiple guess and a short written paper at the end of each year (I did
two years) and you could come out as a coded welder at the end of it.

Or buy a multipack of superglue. It's easier and cheaper and you don't
get burned.

 

The gasless is fine as long as you dont want to weld anything below
about 1.0mm , its very penetrating and will blow through even on the
lower settings

You can get gas and gasless machines now which give you the best of
both worlds

If you want to weld thin (down to 0.6mm )sheet then your definatly
going to need a gas unit , i tend to use a carbon argon mix on thin
sheet and get pretty good results , you also have the option of
welding stainless and aluiminuim with the gas units (you obvoisly
need the correct wire and gas)

Personally i would hang on to the welder you have

 

Some gasless are shit, but some are actually quite good.
Iiwy, I'd hang on to the big one, because it will be much easier to use
that later, once you learn to weld in the first place.
This is an odd thing about welding sets - the pro gear is a joy to use
and contrarily you need more skill to use the crappy cheap diy sets
well. Once you learn properly and can take advantage of the range of the
bigger set, you'll see what I mean.

 

Fixed.

 

Grimly Curmudgeon said:

Well general concensus is to keep what I have and learn to use it
properly, so that's what I shall do.

Like Pip's idea re getting on some form of night course as I am one of
those people that benefits from doing while learning rather than
fucking about and having a go IYSWIM

 

You might find this useful:

http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/index.php

I can MIG quite well[1] but it was ages ago since I last held a MIG and
I've been toying with the idea of getting one off ebay and this forum is
very useful for deciding which is good/bad and the site also has a good
guide on gasless - which put me off buying a gasless - despite the
saving on bottles.

I've got a RD tank that I got for free that'll make good practice and
I've not yet scratched my itch for a classic car project either. Just
ordered a conservatory though so might have to wait a bit longer.

Keep the Sealey.

[1] Or I could when I was doing it every day about 20 years ago.

 

TBQH, one welder doesn't fit all.

I interchangeably use MIG (with gas) , Arc/Stick welding and Oxy/Acet
Gas.

The Oxy/Acet is preferred for most sheet steel welding, as it's just
so controlled, and you get good heating of the job and good
penetration (oo err). I even fixed me exhaust with it.

(beware amatuer welding ahead

http://img262.imageshack.us/i/1sttacks.jpg/
http://img262.imageshack.us/i/cleanerup.jpg/
http://img228.imageshack.us/i/lastfillet.jpg/
http://img245.imageshack.us/i/doner.jpg/

Arc/Stick is good for gates, where overall strength isn't an issue, or
for trailers where neatness isn't and mig is good where you don't want
to heat up the surrounding metal too much (i.e. if you're welding near
car paintwork etc.

Cheers,

Paul.

 

In my experience the thing to look out for is a Euro-Torch.
These are normally found on more expensive units and have replaceable
liners and standard interchangeable tips. This bit of quality makes
a big difference, the cheaper ones are basically designed down to a
price. Nothing makes welding more difficult than a jerky or
unreliable wire feed.

 

If you must sell it to fund the training, fine, but replace it with a proper
MIG welder.

Don't get a gassless one. They're really shite. Now if you can get enough
cash to bet a TIG welder, it's what I'd do. TIG is much more versdatile and
welding ally is more "do-able" too and you'll find that lots of bike related
welding would be alloy.

Trouble is, once you learn, you try for a better and better looking weld
with the right amount of penetration along the full length of the weld. It
becomes an obsession.


--
Beav

VN 750
Zed 1000
OMF# 19

 

I agree; you occasionally get them on the middling units and well worth
the extra.

 

On Fri, 9 Apr 2010 01:32:56 +0100, "Beav"

snip>

This bit is 100% true (I've ignored the MIG monkey discussions) and
the bonus with a lot of TIG sets is that you can do MMA with them as
well.

 

And the best "side effect" of a TIG is it doesn't overheat the metal causing
distortion. No matter how you use a MIG on car bodywork, you're looking at
getting either the shirinking hammers out (so you may as well have used a
gas axe in the first place) or just a hammer to "lower" the welded area so
it can be filled later on.

TIG rules for thin metal and ally, but it's fucking expensive to buy even a
"cheapo" one when compared to MIG and they take a bit longer to get to grips
with.

We don't own one because we dont use one enough to warrant buying one, but
we have access to one belonging to one of our naighbouring firms. (They make
horse boxes


--
Beav

VN 750
Zed 1000
OMF# 19