Need a welder..

[XcumminsX]

When i was up north this weekend i saw some custom rollcages, bumpers, axle supports, etc that were all done by the truck owners. Id really like to buy a welder so i can weld my own stuff on my truck (yes i know i cant weld to the frame on mine) im talking about my K30 i have. Id like a welder that will allow me to make a rollcage, bumpers, axle trusses, etc. Can anyone recomend me a good quality welder that is good in price?



TIA



Nick Oo.

 

[Turbo Tim 1]

A small mig welder would work just fine for that type of stuff. The biggest 125 volt jobbie would be the easiest to use and do that type of welding and would be plenty strong.

 

[CIverson]

Get something that can weld up to 1/4" and you should be good to fab bumpers, and cages, etc. Although you should take a class and make sure you know what the hell you are doing before you fab a roll cage.

 

[XcumminsX]

Well i found out we have a welder at the shop that isnt ever used and i can have it . Its an arc welder, all the materials i need are there. Here is what its called. Sureweld SU-180. I tried yahoo and cant find any info on it. I know mig welders are the easiest but how do you think this would work for me? Ive got the book on it and everything and looking threw it this thing is from 1962 it says this company was in chicago. Cant find any info on them now. .

 

[HoleshotHolset]

Nick:



Learn the basics... then worry about the details.



Go to the hardware store and buy about 5 pounds of electrodes for that old stick welder. Then go to your shop and get some scrap steel. Work on starting and maintaining a good arc... then worry about running a good bead with good penetration, etc.



Once you can run a good bead... worry about fitting up the parts and getting them ready to be 'glued' together.



If you want good quality results - spend a LOT of time preparing the parts you are about to weld... that way - welding them is the easy part.



Once you get good at welding and if you're in the market - Miller makes the best welders, IMHO.



I went from knowing very little about welding at all - to being able to run a pretty good bead with a TIG machine in about 2 weekends. It's going to take some practice... but it's worth it.



I've only MIG welded twice... and it was pretty easy since I had TIG experience.



Matt - welding junkie that recently sold all of his welding stuff to buy a house. :{

 

[XcumminsX]

Hey matt congrats on the house! and thanks for the advice

 

[wes reeves]

I took a welding class at the local community college back in high school. Now a junior in college that is still the most useful class I have taken. Most recently I built a headache rack for my truck. I think I have pics of it in my reader's rigs. The welding on it was done with a millermatic wire feed MIG. Wire feed MIG is good if you can weld indoors or without wind. Wind blows your gas away which is also your flux on a wire feed. They make flux cored wire, but I have never tried it. I usually weld outdoors with a Miller Bobcat 225 NT arc welder.

 

[HoleshotHolset]

Thanks Nick.



Matt

 

[CChase]

As said, get somebody to teach you the basics, then play around before attempting anything you want to look good.



My one bit of advice... . get a good helmet and use it religously. Don't think that by looking away you can shield your eyes, even temporarily like for tack welding... . learned that one the hard way. An auto darkening one would be nice, but they're spendy.

 

[mike r]

Your welder was probably made by one of the bigger manufacturers for some smaller company and sold under their name. The nameplate inside will tell you this and unless they had done something to damage it it probably still works well. The older units were pretty tough. Like these guys said, get some cheap rods and a decent helmet and start practicing. There are some good videos out there that will teach you how to start and run an arc. This will speed up your practice and get you going in the right direction so your not guessing if you are doing it correctly. It will make your projects turn out alot nicer. Good luck, Mike

 

[Paychk]

Shopfloortalk has alot of regular joe type welders and are happy to help newbies get started in the welding.

 

[XcumminsX]

thanks all

 

[SRadke]

I would agree, there are only a few BIG comapnie tht make welders of quality, yours was probably made by one of them. Get a picture of it for us, it may be recognizeable. Also find out if it is just AC or AC/DC.



My personal opinion is that you will get fustrated with an arc welder and opt out of the whole deal. They work well but with the advancement of wire feed their time is passing, especially in fab applications. The MIG (short arc) welders are very user friendly and easy to get used to, I would suggest that route. Also keep in mind one machine doesn't do it all. In our welding shop there are 7 welders and only one guy working. Diffrent tools for diffrent jobs you know.



My . 02$ ... ... Millermatic 125. If you want to go up to 1/4" plate step up to the 185.



-Scott

 

[nickleinonen]

As said, get somebody to teach you the basics, then play around before attempting anything you want to look good.



My one bit of advice... . get a good helmet and use it religously. Don't think that by looking away you can shield your eyes, even temporarily like for tack welding... . learned that one the hard way. An auto darkening one would be nice, but they're spendy.

i flashed myself pretty good yesterday was stick welding up a brake cylinder pipe on an sd75 loco that had been butchered by a shop down south [of the usa/canada border ] that was an illigal and dangerous repair [can not have threaded pipe fittings on the hard piping for the air on the truck, and no rubber hoses other than the one flex going from the truck to the carbody, they had both ]



i had all my piping and fittings welded up on the ground as best as i could, so i only had to make one weld on the unit, and when i was getting into position to start my weld on the underside of the brake pipe [1/2" sch 80 pipe] my rod touched and flashed me... man was it hard to see what i was welding after that, so by feel i had to weld it. didn't leak air though so it was ok [only one of my welds leaked, and it was an easy fix of laying another bead over the one spot]

 

[NPloysa]

Yeah flash burn sucks. I haven't had the sun burn type, but the "HOLY CRAP MY EYES ARE FULL OF SAND" type! When it happened I wasn't even the one welding. Just glanced at a neighbors arc for a split second 30 feet away.

 

[CChase]

Yeah flash burn sucks. I haven't had the sun burn type, but the "HOLY CRAP MY EYES ARE FULL OF SAND" type! When it happened I wasn't even the one welding. Just glanced at a neighbors arc for a split second 30 feet away.

I've gotten a slight sunburn, not bad. I did have a friend in high school that spent a full day welding with a face shield (the type without the part that cups under your chin) and a white T-shirt. His neck and bottom half of his face looked like he had been baking in the AZ desert for about a week.....



Edit: Forgot my 2 bits for X, wear full length sleeve shirts, something with a tight neck on it and don't tuck it in. Nothing like a hot piece of slag in your shirt with you... ...

 

[Paychk]

Don't wear any clothes made with any amount of synthetic cloth, cotton only! Oo.

 

[nickleinonen]

Nothing like a hot piece of slag in your shirt with you... ...

done that too... i get small burns on my arms weekly and they don't bother me too much. i wear t-shirts at work, but i slip on cotton sleves to protect from the UV that the arc produces, but the sparks do burn through the sleves... they arn't too bad. i was doing some overhead welding last november on some really rusty metal and i got a big glob down my shirt [i was actually wearing a welding jacket that time]. that one hurt. it left a pretty bad burn on my chest [1"x2"] took about 2 months to heal up, and i still got the scar from it...





... the main reason for the bad burn, it got under my t-shirt and my t-shirt was tucked into my pants, so i held the slag there to have time to get shirt out of pants. i'd rather have the burn there on my chest than down low in my bits if i had remembered to untuck my shirt, i could have just let it roll out and it would have been a little burn instead of a big burn

 

[HoleshotHolset]

I've been lucky enough to not get too many flash burns... but I have had a few slag burns and a couple of 'Hey... is that thing cool enough to pick up yet?' burns.



Stick welding puts so much heat into the weldment that it glows for quite a while after you break the arc. When I did some really light TIG work... the workpiece cooled off quickly and I got a few very minor burns from trying to move stuff around when it was too hot.



I got a piece of slag in my Reeboks before too... burnt my ankle and the cotton sock. That's what I get for stick welding with shorts/sneakers...



Matt

 

[Bob Wagner]

one of our members is selling the following, if anyone is interested



3. Lincoln 135 110V mig welder used once $400