Welding

Im looking at getting into welding as a personal hobby. I wanna do things like rocket stoves, little bbq pits, maybe fix a thing here and there. Im not looking into any of the more complicated fab type work. I was wondering if theres a welding kit Jr y'all would recommend for a beginner hobbyist. Like I said I just wanna weld some light stuff. Also a metal cutter. I would need to cut some pipes and what not to then weld together etc etc

 

The Hobart 140 is a good rig to learn on and it’s 110V. A decent chop saw will safely cut just about any metal project you may come up with (while learning and later on).

 

What kind of a welder is it? Ive been looking around and for what I want to do Stick welding is what seems the most up my alley.

 

Any of the smaller Hobart welders. They’re mig and you can run them with or without gas.

 

Stick welding is so 1960s. MIG welding is where it's at. Basically point and shoot. The hardest part is figuring out the settings on the welder. Play around with the settings on various thicknesses of scrap steel and you'll figure it out.

Stick welding is for welding on rusty skyscrapers with a 30 MPH wind.

 

Can I also suggest, some local community colleges do have welding classes and usually they will let you work on projects, things of your own design, etc. They'll have a lot of the equipment, and you can ask them what sort of starter set up you can put together once you finish up the class. Best part, classes won't break the budget.

 

The Lincoln Powermig 210 MP is a great starter kit. Its a dual voltage machine so it will run off of 110 or 220 with just the swap of a cable that plugs into the unit. It is a multi process machine so you can run it on MIG or Stick, and if you want to you can even run scratch start TIG on it. It has enough juice to do some good material thickness without needing to preheat. If you don't want to run shielding gas you can always run a fluxcore MIG wire.

 

When I took a course to learn welding, way back in the last century, the instructor would not let us use a wire welder until we learned to use the stick. Said it was too easy and it was better to learn the basics first. Bought a basic stick welder, then a simple acetylene welder and finally a 120 volt wire welder. With the wire welder I had to rewire the circuit to use 10 gauge wire and a 30 amp breaker. Kept tripping a 20 amp breaker.

 

We have a huge welding thread you might want to check out.

 

Probably a good idea. I don't follow the thread because it is a catch-all. I am more interested in a discussion of specific problems when they occur.

 

I have the titanium 140 welder from harbor freight. Runs $400. I really like it and have used it a lot on my truck. I too wanted to learn how to weld, so I watched A LOT of youtube videos and bought a shitty flux core welder off Amazon for $90. Got decent with that and upgraded to the one I have now. I've done 15-20 CMCs, cam tab gussets, rear shock relocate, etc. It's already paid for itself doing work for others, as well as if I were to pay someone else to do this fab work on my truck. It's an excellent skill to have.

 

You sir, that have used Amazon welders, what do you think about this one?

ZenStyle Arc Welding Machine DC Inverter 160AMP 120V/230V Dual Voltage IGBT Stick Arc Welder

https://www.amazon.com/ZENSTYLE-Por...ords=stick+welder&qid=1559322772&s=hi&sr=1-12

 

I would find a cheap secondhand welder on craigslist before i bought a new one from Amazon at that price point.

 

I think that while wanting to learn stick is commendable, I personally wouldn't bother. Mig is much more versatile (and easier) and you'll be able to weld a larger range of stuff.

 

Thats kinda why I want to buy that one. I wanna enter cheap into the game and then Ill realize "yeah stick aint good" and then Ill get my self a nice 3 way kinda thing. Like I said before, Im not interested in some nice as welds as much as Im interested in just welding some metals every now and then.

 

Again, I still wouldn't do that. My prediction is you'd get discouraged and decide welding isn't for you because stick isn't easy. I'm a pretty decent mig welder and I'm sure I'd be terrible at stick. I've never tried because I don't need to do it. Check out the eastwood 135 as that's a pretty good welder for the money. Shop around as you may be able to find it cheaper.

https://www.eastwood.com/mig-welder-110vac-135a-output.html

 

you wont be able to weld thinner material with stick so I'd go mig. Hobart is made by Miller but at a cheaper cost and they are great welders. What is your budget?

 

One problem with MIG that Ive seen in my short tim googling the different types of welding, is that you have to buy a spool of wire which can be pricey, and you need tanks of gas etc. I dont want to have to use the gases etc, and since I will only be doing small project every now and then I would like the ability to buy only a few iodes at a time. I also dont want to get thrown off buy all of the settings etc. I mean if theres a "farm" wire I can run on a mig thats good for pretty much "everything" and theres a mig welder thats user friendly on the settings then I would go for it.

 

Dont necessarily have a budget, but since its going to be a hobby type thing, not an investment, I would like to not spend THAT much

 

What you want is flux core wire. Think of it like stick welding, coming out of a mig machine. It's still point and shoot, but there's no tank of gas to deal with. This is nice as well because windy situations don't matter. With gas shielded, the wind blows away that gas causing porosity.

Pretty much any mig machine can run flux core wire. Then later on if you want to expand and try gas, the capability is there as well.

It's really not expensive. When I was just welding a little bit, I'd buy a 2lb spool for about $20 on Amazon and that'd last me a great while. Buy it in .030 diameter for the most versatile metal thicknesses.