Cheap welders?

[ArdWrknTrk]

The Titanium line is their mid-range.

I haven't used a Vulcan welder yet, but I hope to.

Blue and red better be looking over their shoulder.
Because orange is stepping up the game.

[swampedout]

Bumping this thread....

So has anyone used their little FC boxes for body work? Is this a pipe dream?

[ArdWrknTrk]

I find my little Titanium welder can work okay if you're just making spot welds.
It will dial way down, but still hard to run a bead with 0.030" wire.

Maybe I don't practice enough on thin metal?

When stitching you need to constantly brush off all the soot and flux, so you don't end up with it imbedded in your weld.
And there is some spatter or bb's that need to be knocked off with a flap disc.

I would say it's fine for "cave 'n pave" but leaves a lot to be desired over a MIG welder.

[ArdWrknTrk]

What kind of 'body work' are you looking at Sam?

I'd say it's no problem for a floor or rocker.
Getting a wheel arch or cab corner looking good might be tough.

But if you have air you can always grind, punch & flange, then use body adhesive.
Your patch ends up in the same plane and you don't get any heat distortion.

[swampedout]

All of the above. Ive got 3 trucks that need some panels patched and one with bad cab corners.

I think I know that if Im going to buy a wire feed welder, it needs to run MIG even if I just use it as FC for a while. Ive learned the buy once, cry once lesson too many times to cheap out here.

I was just in HF last week and saw their 240 Chicago Electric MiG is about 200$ right now. Im going to see if I can fire up my big generator this weekend and see what kind of voltage I can get out of its 240 outlets.

I dont have any show trucks but my bigger maintenance items are slowly getting checked off the lists, so the body work might be closer than I think.

Thanks for your interest, I know I keep talking in circles..

[FuzzFace2]

They say if you have a stick welder you can turn it into a TIG welder pretty easy, do a Google search.
With TIG you should be able to turn it down low enough to do body work.
I don't have a stick welder so have not tried the TIG part.
Dave ----

[ArdWrknTrk]

Yeah... a "Tig" welder with no pedal control, scratch start only, no pulse and NO High Frequency so you can weld aluminium.

That ain't TIG, that is using gas instead of flux on a stick welder.

[FuzzFace2]

ArdWrknTrk wrote

Yeah... a "Tig" welder with no pedal control, scratch start only, no pulse and NO High Frequency so you can weld aluminium.

That ain't TIG, that is using gas instead of flux on a stick welder.

I thought you could add the pedal
I have not looked into this for a long time now so could be wrong too?
Dave ----

ps just did a quick search and you are right no pedal and you may not be able to turn down the machine to weld thin metal.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Sam,  you have a 240V outlet, what is important to the welder is that your genny can deliver enough amperage.
That is easy enough to determine from the nameplate or even the nema type of the receptacle.


And if you go for the Horrid Fate welder, make sure you grab enough consumables like contact tips and cups (or plastic shields, if you're using FC)

It sucks to be shut down for a $2 part that is a 2h drive away!

[ArdWrknTrk]

This is what we discuss at the start of this thread....

There are plenty of multi-process welders out there, but again, if you want the features most of us want from TIG (pulse, pedal control and Hi-Frec) then just buy a TIG.

A half decent multi-process welder is going to cost $1000, with various cables and a pedal.
A cheap POS (like I said I have on my watch list) is $300+ and it has next to no duty cycle at over 50A.

A nice Tig pedal is going to cost $200 (for Chinese!) forget American for less than 3, even if it is an "American" brand.
All those Red and Blue companies make parts and accessories over there.

[FuzzFace2]

The site I found said if you don't have a stick machine now and want to do TIG just get a TIG machine as you will get a lot more adjustability & better welds for your money.

Being I don't have a stick machine to start with if I want TIG I will get a TIG only machine just don't need it at this time.
Dave ----

[ArdWrknTrk]

Most TIG machines will easily do stick.
Adding high frequency, pulse, pedal and start to a stick machine is a hodgepodge of garbage, stacked atop one another.
If you want wire feed welding that's another whole can of worms.

Just like Sam can easily do FCAW using a MIG machine by swapping the polarity and using knurled drive rollers,
but adding gas to a FC welder is a bigger deal.
And a cheap FC welder won't offer DC.

[ArdWrknTrk]

I went and got another spool of .030
The HF stuff, not the Lincoln innershield I'm used to.



I found a leftover piece of patch panel.
It's 18Ga.



Then I dialed the lunchbox down to 3.5 & B



Let's try tacks and beads.
First on butt joints.







Then on laps





You can see how much more HAZ you get trying to run a bead!

It's about now I realized I needed to dial my helmet down to 9.  

Well, there you go!
It works.... not the greatest (and it would have helped if I could see)  but it does work on patch material.

[swampedout]

Thats pretty much the answer I was looking for.
Good lucking beads isnt a requirement. Im expecting a tack n grind approach.

My understanding of the TIG conversion is limited. Ive looked into it briefly and I dont think the material I need to work on will clean up enough for TIG. Its on my list, when I get more of an indoor workshop to work in.

I got my genny for the purpose of running a welder, its rated  for 8k watts, doesnt say if thats start up or not. Im house shopping this summer and fall so a new welders way down the list again. I might even sell this generator and be running something on wall power by the time I get around to it.

I appreciate you gentlemen bearing with me.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Glad if it gives you a better picture, Sam.

And good luck house shopping.
I don't know what this lockdown has done to the market in New Mexico, but things are insane in the Northeast.
Full price cash offers within the first hour of listing are being rejected as the bidding war escalates.

Cityiots (flatlanders) with more dollars than sense think they can hide, or that this going away.

[Gary Lewis]

The insane house pricing thing isn't just up there, Jim.  Our kids have seen the same thing in SC and FL, and my brother has seen it in KS.  I've not "seen" it here, but I have heard that houses are selling like hot cakes.

[ArdWrknTrk]

I'm trying not to let the big P enter the discussion, but it seems really knee-jerk that people would be fighting to buy, when we don't have a solid handle on the Covid pandemic, or what it means for the future.

I certainly wouldn't want a 30 year mortgage.
Obviously some have the sort of liquid assets to buy what would have been a weekend home, before the age of Zoom and telecommuting.  (This was the promise of the internet 30 years ago!)

But it's squeezing out lower middle class home buyers, and first time buyers.

[Danny G]

24-72hrs from being on the market in SC and the houses are gone. We are getting a lot of transplants from NY, CA, VA, IL, MI.

[ArdWrknTrk]

I was fixing up a house in Riverside for sale about a month ago.
Just lipstick on a pig, really.
New door and kitchen hardware, paint and a minimum of landscaping.

House sold first day for more than 100k over asking.

[Danny G]

Its kind of worrisome the way the housing market is acting right now.