Favorite welders?

[BGW]

Hi all,

Due to the vast amounts of experience on here (isn't Tad a professional welder?), I'm looking for some opinions. What are your favorite stick welders?

I saw this on CL: http://boulder.craigslist.org/tls/3439634438.html If I had the cash I'd be all over that thing right now.

[jaber]

That would be a neat machine to play with.
I have the standard Lincoln 225, the red box. It was the same model I learned on in High School.
When I went shopping for one, Millers new line up included a MIG that ran off of 110 or 220. I got a good deal on it and also got the spool gun to go with it for aluminum. I have ran many spools of wire through that little Miller and it is a very good machine.

Good luck with your search.

[jsinajeep]

For $800 are you planning go doing a lot of tig welding. If not spend a little of that $800 on a good used stick welder and the rest on a good Mig welder. My 140 Hobart Mig will weld the lighter metal and my Lincoln stick weld the heavey stuff.

[AwesomeJ10]

All you really need is two batteries and some heavy gauge cables to weld

Done it on the trail a couple of times

[Stuka]

Look like a nice unit. Nicer if you live in an industrial park and actually have three phase power. Although the description saying "Single phase" 240 would be wrong, as 240 is two phase. 120 is single phase.

When it comes to stick wleders I have only ever used licolns, and older ones at that. But they always worked fine.

But I would never spend that much on a stick wleder unless I was welding a LOT of heavy gauge material. For $800 you can buy a pretty decent mig.

[BGW]

Yeah, I don't know how to TIG weld, at least yet. I can weld stick pretty well, but I've never had much luck with MIG welders. We don't seem to get along very well. Perhaps it's because I've mostly used crappy MIGs, I think the only time I've gotten a really good weld with wire feed was when I was being taught on a motor repair shop's hotrodded/custom made welder.

I want an inverter welder because then I don't have to break my back trying to move it back and forth up to college and back. Once I have my own place I'd love to get a tombstone or similar welder- you can't kill those things.


Stuka, I don't mean to sound like a know it all, but I think you're thinking of 208v. 120/240 (more like 125/250 these days) is split phase power, it comes from a center tapped transformer running off of one phase of a high voltage line. 120/208 is one form of true three phase. Between any leg of the service and the neutral, there is 120 volts, but between any two legs of the three, you see 208.

To make matters more confusing, there actually is a form of three phase (called high leg delta) where 120,208, and 240 are all present. However, this is becoming increasingly rare and you'd never see it in a house.

[The PIG Smith]

I am compeled to say, Tad is my favorite Welder.

[rstep]

i would base it on what your plans are.how well you can weld and amount you want to spend. If you want to move it between college and home I would look at a small mig Hobart,Linclon,and Miller just about anything you want to weld can be done with these.Hobert has a nice 240/115 unit for around 900 and the same with some of the other brands.I had a Miller Blustar for along time gave it away because I was using the mig more and more.Duty cycle is big so may attention to that with what ever you choose.

[REDONE]

For stick welders (SMAW) I learned on a Lincoln power tower tombstone and loved the versatility and power, but I had to wire it to it's own plug and had to make a 50 ft extension cord and put it on a dolly which was a pain in the rear to get it near my work.

At work I use a Thermal Dynamics inverter that also powers my TIG (TGAW) rig when needed. It weighs about 40lbs and has a shoulder strap, and looks a lot like the one in your ad there, except the case is metal and has a tube frame around it.

What I think is more up your alley in portability, versatility and cost is my little inverter I use at home. I picked up a little Forney inverter for less than $200 a few years back. It runs DCEN/P and can power a TIG torch but doesn't have a built in provision to control gas flow. I consistantly use it with 1/8" 6013 and 7011 rod and have yet to hit the duty cycle. To be honest, unless you're working dirty or working with a fitter I don't think you can hit the duty cycle. After each rod, I clean the slag and notch the fillets, take a drink then burn another rod.

This is the closest one to what I have that I can find:
http://www.amazon.com/Northern-Industri ... rid_pt_1_0

Ooohhh. After a little looking around, this looks like a good deal. They used to sell this brand at the farm and ranch store in Mt Vernon a little north of me...
http://www.amazon.com/EVERLAST-PowerARC ... pd_cp_hi_3

[BGW]

Redone, thank you, that's a really helpful post. That sounds like really good advice. No reason for me to go overboard at this point.

[REDONE]

Glad I could share some of my experience with you. Another though I had is on board welding. That's the whole reason I picked it up since I already had a wirefeed rig at home. It's a lot easier to tote around a smaller SMAW inverter and it's also a lot easier to get 110v out of a vehicle; either by means of a power inverter or a small generator. My thinking before Ouray was to use junkyard AIR pump brackets to mount a second alternator, Ford externally regulated style, to use as an on-board welder. I decided that would be fine and good, until I needed to run a grinder. On top of that I know it can be a hassle to get a good bead right off the bat using a machine that you hardly ever use. Since I already had a small generator I just bolted that down in the bed and picked up the Fourney. I used it to build parts of my suspension and some random brackets to get a good feel for it, then packed it and some other choice powertools in the truck for my 2500 mile round trip. Lucked out not needing the welder, but the generator and grinder came in handy on day two.

[carnuck]

I had a lincoln torpedo that was sold to pay child support long ago. I had an old Sears stick 220V box until a year ago. SOld it because I planned to get a wirefeed, but that hasn't happened yet.