mig welding

keepittoasty wrote:

Paul,
Thanks so much for the info!!!

I really want the combo rig you checked out.  But probably will find a Buzz box and do just what you said... start laying some beads and practice.  AS my first stove will probably be a heavy monster and over time I will hopefully get into some of the finer stuff like I see T2H doing, i will get the Buzzer, then want a nicer unit with more versatility.

This has been a great conversation to be part of, In three days, I have learned so much!

anyone else care to share their welding experience in regards to equipment?

From what experts have suggested some I have consulted with when deciding on what machine to use all suggest not buying a combination machine due to the long term troubles they encounter with over heating of the electronics.
I did not see what combo welder you are talking about or if that was what you were implying, sorry if I misunderstood.

heres the one Im drooling over...


http://www.lincolnelectric.com/en-us/Equipment/Pages/product.aspx?product=K3963-1%28LincolnElectric%29

But I do agree in principle, Single use things that do a good job tend to be better in my pinion, than say something that does three things. It just makes sense to me. But It is a purdy lil machine :)

Here's a good forum I forgot to mention. I don't go there enough - I haven't the time.

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


It's a UK forum but the reading is applicable to anyone. There are many topics other than just welding and some really neat ideas on there. T2H might like to look at this too, for various home-builds of engineering kit.

I haven't researched too much and it's a while since I did but the Weldequip link seems very good. I think the proprietors are members of the forum and can arrange sales from there. There's possibly (don't quote me) slight discounts on equipment for forum members.

Btw, I'm sorry to hear that Cebora machines aren't what they used to be. I would of course research very heavily before I went out buying. All my information and advice is 'old school'. That's because all the old school kit is still going strong and I haven't had to replace them

Here's one for you. I have an air-cooled 1929 AC arc (stick) welder made by the London Electric Power Company and supplied to the British Army as new. The machine did service throughout a world war (WW2 of course) and then was sold off as surplus at the end. The two old chaps I got the workshop from got hold of it and brought it back to civilian life (they were both conscripted in that war and served some time in Palestine and the N African desert). They used that machine for the best part of 40 years, probably daily. They left it as part of the kit and fixings when they retired in 1987. I stripped the machine and dusted it down and tidied up a bit of insulation and wiring in 1988. It's STILL going strong and will burn rods off all day if needed. Masses of heavy copper winding inside and two immense magnets. It's either 200 amps output on standard control or 100 amps with finer control. The input voltages are many - 120, 200, 240, 380, 440 and 500. Gosh they knew how to make good stuff in the old days.

lol

paul im on there as well hence why i linked to it in the post

t2h info unknown on the mig welder he uses or arc welder

That's a good point about multi-function machines and appropriate to many things.

Jack of all trades, as they say ... and Master of none!

But don't worry about a MIG/Stick combo or a TIG/Stick combo. The technology for stick welders is quite basic (by now) and there's little to go wrong. Most machines have the stick facility attached as an easy by-product.

It's the TIG welders that are the most technical and expensive. So any machine that has TIG attached as a secondary might be viewed with more caution.

Having said that, there are some damned fine machines now. As good as the old-school kit might be, there have been some very good technical advancements.

Our man at Tips & Tricks has reviewed one or two machines if I recall. I would listen to what he says - he knows his stuff big-time. And of course he's appropriate for Americans with regard to buying equipment

One thing I find curious in the American MIG welding scene is they don't use 1mm MIG wire, but rather 0.9mm. They have 0.6mm (very fine) and 0.8mm but not then 1mm. It doesn't matter at all, it's just a curiosity.

Look for Kevin Carron on YouTube too. Another good American welder with good videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD8ThPlK7cs

There's one that looks interesting, that I haven't watched yet. Gosh, I'll be here all night now!

Yes you are correct Paul, that was what I was referring to but did not clarify sorry about that guys.

Stick mig combos seem to do just fine, it is when you cross tig with mig and stick that things seem to go south.

Given time I am sure they will get that worked out as well and won't that be nice to have a machine that can do several typs of jobs metals and materials and be robust.

I have been subbed to Kevin for quite sometime, great guy with a good deal of fabrication knowledge.

There probably is a decent multi-machine out there now, but you'll have to pay decent money for it too.  Top-notch TIG units alone can run to £2000 and more ($3400 approx) so a machine that is a good MIG and TIG, with all the features could be $5000 or more.  Having said that, would you feel confident spending so much money on something that is inevitably very complex?  Better to buy two dedicated units, MIG and TIG, for a similar amount.  In that way, you would probably end up with two stick welders too.

The Cebora MIG that I have was purchased in January 1990 and cost £1250 at that time which was (or is) about $2100.  The same machine today would no doubt be £2000 or more.  But it's still going strong after all those 25 years, so there's the moral of getting what you pay for.  I'll be honest and admit that the digital display (volts and amps) ceased to work about 10 years ago, but I never used or relied on that in the first place.  Also, it doesn't have a stick facility either.  If I had bought the same rated model but with separate wire drive and cable/gun arrangement, then the base unit (main transformer) could be used independently for stick welding, but that machine was another £100 or more extra.  I already had about three stick welders already, including the fearsome 1929 model, so it was unnecessary.

Here's what you're looking for when you get to stick welding.  This is an anvil stand that I only made last month, for the double-bick Mousehole anvil.  The rods were just general purpose 6013s - 3.2mm roots and 4mm capping rods.  You will see the slag just lifting off of its own accord.  This should happen (usually) when you get it right.

The top plate is 25mm (1 inch) thickness and the sides are 12mm plate. Anvils are rarely flat on the bottom, especially at this age (it's dated between 1896 and 1912) so my take on this is to bed them on a sheet of lead. After a few days pounding they settle onto the lead and are stable. The lead is poured from molten and is about 1/4 inch thick. Yes of course, I wore a decent fume mask while I was doing this.

thanks for showing that. I'm combing local ads looking for a stick welder everyday!
The dates you have for the anvil are when the little mining town I"m located, had its boom. I'm really into the amazing engineering they were able to pull off with such little technology. I explored some old high altitude ghost towns this summer, and live in one from that era. It's just incredible what humans are capable of.

Good luck with your search Toasty. Something will surely turn up. Do you not check ebay for available stuff?


I agree about the skills. There is of course some amazing technology today and undoubtedly some very skilled people, but it does sometimes seem we are all a shadow of yesteryear. Back then, everyone seemed skillful in some way. When you find out how anvils were made, wrought and manipulated by hand, it blows the mind.

The Mousehole anvils were made at the Mousehole Forge in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England (once home of steel, now another shadow of past glories) and production began in the early 1600s. The forge closed in 1930. They had a water-powered drop-hammer and allegedly used 20 tons of coal per month!

Mostly checking craigslist as its person to person and sometimes quite local. Im being patient as the right unit is out there collecting dust, waiting to jump into my garage, at a bargain:)

20 tons?!?!?! wowzers.

Most people now have digital skills, not really many trades people around. I just ranted on another post about this. I feel lucky to have made connections with folks like you and others here. even if its a just a shadow of the past, at least its staying alive. The bits and pieces, pics and vids are helping bring it alive. take for example your post on the anvil....

You poured lead?!?!?!? holy crap man, thats crazy, never heard of anyone doing anything like that. But I grew up on space invaders.
You have a connection through your upbringing and work that kept that alive. now you are passing these ideas on and sharing with future generations. ha, i even showed this posts to my kids, now they have the idea.

Keep the posts coming bud, we are gobbling it up!

Lol Toasty

Space Invaders eh? Dear me. But no, it's not as if I didn't watch TV as a kid in the 60s and 70s and go on the odd pinball, though there was no digital stuff then. I remember that simple calculators became affordable in 1974 and my parents bought me one - for school. It was amazing - but we weren't allowed to use them in exams and tests. You had to do everything in your head and on paper, and show how you had achieved the answer.

Space Invader machines hit the UK about 1980 I think (mainstream-wise). I was 17 then and at college and was completely fascinated by them ... for a short time - a year or so. Not that I was perpetually on them but I admit to getting quite good at such games (within a year there were dozens of variants).

But before all that, my boyhood in England was completely hands-on. We were melting lead as boys (I would say aged 7 onwards) over open camp-fires in empty baked-bean and soup cans - washed out of course - usually in a stream! We used to cast things into damp sand and even cardboard matchboxes (the card combusts just as the lead has solidified enough not to collapse) and then when they cooled fully we had little ingots of lead. It was like the tribal treasure of our little group. A gang really, but not in the sense of today. We never did any criminal acts - apart from maybe stealing apples off trees and the odd trespass through farmers' fields - which isn't specifically a criminal act in England - it's a civil offence.

We used to get the lead of old houses that were being demolished. There was mass-demolition and rebuilding of housing in this part of the world in that era, of entire streets of houses that were then 100+ years old and in poor condition. The lead might be off the roofs but there was once also (now gone) a big tradition of leaded windows, in ornamental patterns. A lot of chaps back then actually used to do their own window-leading and do some for old ladies and other people. I remember my Dad doing it occasionally. So there were definitely loads and loads of strips of lead, about 1/4 inch wide. It was everywhere on the ground on demolition sites. We used to collect bundles of it and be off to make a fire!

We always wanted to melt brass and I remember spending hours taking the tiny screws out of appliance plugs that were scrapped at a nearby electrical works. Huge skips of broken plugs outside and we would trespass into the yard at weekend and squirrel all these screws away. No matter how much we tried and no matter how many boys were furiously blowing into the fire, we never did melt brass. Lol.

Of course it sounds horrendous now, or would be made to sound so. Boys. fires, molten metal, fumes of course. There wasn't quite that awareness then of the dangers of lead and fume but it's not as if we leaned over the fire or can and deliberately inhaled. And we were well aware enough of the sheer danger of molten lead. But imagine the outcry today. It never did me any harm - I'm as crazy now as I was back then.

We played endless soccer (all the time), cricket (in summer), tennis (in the two weeks of the Wimbledon finals when tennis fever took over) and all manner of games. We loved Nature and were all over the now-diminished countryside, with dogs and ferrets and fishing tackle. I knew the name of almost every tree and all fish and birds. We were expert tree-climbers, stone-throwers and den-makers. We would go berry-picking in autumn and our Mums would bake pies with them.

We also made boyhood weapons, such as hand-arrows, bows, spears and slings. We NEVER shot or threw them at people or animals (except rats) and nobody got in trouble. Why have them? Don't know, but there is a deep, visceral instinct in boys connected to hunting and defence and bravery. Or there was then. I'd better stop there.

We made some things on a whim and in half an hour that I couldn't make now with such facilities as we had. How is that? It seems like another world now.

Talking of Sheffield and its history, I recently found by accident that way back in sheffields glory days of knifemaking I had a relative by name that was a cutler, I found a beautiful boxed set of knives up for auction in a gallery in the USA with my surname as the maker, I was quite gobsmacked that somewhere in my past I have a connection with making Knives.

ha! its in your blood