Anything welding

So I’m still struggling with tig a lot... I know it takes time and practice but I think the lift arc/scratch arc is giving me the most issues. I can’t get a consistent arc off the bat and can’t find my right height till I’ve already cooked the start of my weld.

My dad has a nice Miller with high frequency start and I’m going to be doing some aluminum work soon and wouldn’t mind having ac tig. Thinking of looking for a dedicated tig welder that won’t break the bank.

Any experience on everlast machines? I have their plasma with no issues and see good things on them on the land of the gram and would think it’s a decent entry level one. It’s either that or hold out for a used miller on Craigslist/facebook.

any suggestions.

 

To be honest, I haven’t seen many bad things at all about everlast, but I’ll never not recommend Miller/Lincoln/Hobart when it comes to welders. They’re worth the money

 

Define Aluminum work ?? your talking 1/8"and under maybe 1/4" plus ??

The bank sure does tend to influence decisions .

If I was looking for a lower Cost AC Tig welder my First Choice would be Hobart and the second would maybe be the Vulcan last I looked close problems return it to the Harbor Freight store.

These issues are in a constant state of change what is true today can change by Tuesday in either direction

One of the biggest complaints I hear is getting warranty service pack things up and send it across the country only to hear it was end user damage several weeks later . Then the end user is offered a refurbished unit a few percent off retail.

The best is when a End User brings in a machine like this we contact the American distributor at first being told parts and tech support not a problem . Two things tend to happen attempts to contact are just ignored or We are told you must send the machine to us for inspection and repair

 

I have the same one! Its been really good to me, 15 years old and going strong.

 

That’s good to hear. We had the older versions (square wave 175’s) at welding school a decade ago and I loved how simple they were. Now that they have the pulse and ac balance adjustments in these newer ones, I had to have one. Just enough adjustment choices without making it an over-complicated machine.

 

Yeah if your welding thin stuff, or soft stuff it's going to be a challenge. We scratch started on CM doing cages because inside of a jungle gym it hard to work a pedal. Chrome Molly is some hard metal so the arc can travel a little and not do any damage.
Zim

 

Check out the Lincoln squarewave 200.

I did quite a bit of research before buying my own. 3 year warranty with an additional option to extend to 5 years. Haven’t had it for too long but seems good so far.

 

Atleast I still know how to mig weld. Feeling pretty good today.

 

Well I fucked up my measurements and now that piece of metal is scrap/a paperweight lol. Back to making new templates lol

 

Does any of you have a CERTIFLAT welding table?

 

Been there done that. I tripped over a mistake today. Almost hurt my feelings...lmao
Zim

 

No, can't afford that. I've got a sortofwood table, and a harbor fright fold up cheapotable.
Zim

 

Thinking about getting one, maybe put it on top of my Snap-ON welding cart... Trying to keep things as compact as possible..

 

I have just the top. My dad has the fab block. Both really nice. No complaints.

 

So I started on my first Tacoma welding project, making mid and rear skid plates. Bought a 2x4 piece of 3/16" steel and have them cut out with the gussets tack welded. My URD y pipe runs low under the trannny so I couldn't run the gussets through like the rear skid, but should hopefully still work. Just need to fab supports for the back of the rear skid so they can connect to the "C" clamps on my Mobtown sliders.

 

I have the 2x4 pro top. It’s come in extremely useful and speeds up my projects a lot. I had to get one since my shop floor is really uneven and my workbench has a crown in it. Between those two I always had to rig something up to get a flat surface to weld on and that took a lot of time away from being under the hood. I’ve been thinking of getting a second one to link together for larger projects. They’re pretty modular so they’re easy to configure or store as you need them. Perfect for me since my workspace is pretty cramped. @Shmellmopwho has two of them and his shop is smaller than mine.

 

Don't make the mistake I made and weld the angle laying down like that. The strength comes from the vertical plane of the rib, and laying angle down like that will give you more to weld to but overall strength is reduced and it WILL bend.

 

Thanks for the feedback.
I might call them up and see about what might work on top of my Snap On welding cart, it seems like I saw on their site they may work with you to get something to fit your needs or something like that... Shouldn't be too big of a deal..
I don't have much space either, if I can get that setup, the foot print would only be roughly 2'x5'maybe6'ish... And as long as the new 205 Rebel stays alive I'd have a pretty versatile set up, for what it would be.

 

What about Fireball stuff?
Anybody have any of his tools, they look useful.

https://fireballtool.com
https://www.youtube.com/c/FireballTool/videos

 

His stuff is really nice I have a few squares and they are awesome. Real quality stuff.