VERY fine description of the pros and cons
of beginners welding. :-) ...would actually make
a good preface for a book or user's manual!
Personally, I hadn't done any welding in over 30 years,
until I got back into LBC's. My first welding was gas
30+ years ago. For my LBC stuff I purchased a
Lincoln Weld Pak 100 Mig welder from Home Depot.
I think at under $200. 4 voltage settings, continuously
variable wire feed. I repaired two cars worth
of rocker panels and rear doglegs before I just recently
flipped for the gas add-on kit, (solenoid, hose, regulator,
new spiral core for 025 wire, etc etc) with ran about
another $130. An 80 cu ft. Argon/Co2 tank ran another
$86 for the first time (about $40 to refill). I was planning
on doing some aluminum welding which cannot be done
right without gas.
The flux core welding worked fine on all the bodywork.
It just required a bit of time with an angle grinder to clean
up all the weld splatter.
I was amazed, and in love all over again with my 'new toy'
after doing the first few beads with the gas. Clean, no splatter,
and better, more consistent beads.
An 80cu. ft tank is the 3.5" tall tank. Good for about
an hour of trigger time. That might not sound like much, but that's
one hour worth of continuous weld, at roughly an 1" every 3-5
seconds. So your talking roughly 75 ft worth of weld bead.
Anyway, to simply add to James statements, a wire flux
core will be more than enough to do LBC body work.
The Lincoln Weld Pak is a 110 AC portable unit, and easy
to work with. You'll already be handy with a grinder
having cleaned up your metal work in prep for welding to
begin with. So the flux spatter is no big deal.
Just keep a squirt bottle of water handy, to splash
out any little spark fires you start on nearby materials. :-)
Paul Tegler
ptegler@cablespeed.com
www.teglerizer.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "James Nazarian" <jhn3@uakron.edu>
To: <BarrMark262@aol.com>; <mgs@autox.team.net>
Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2004 1:29 AM
Subject: RE: What type welders please?
> Whatever you do, don't buy an arc welder. There isn't any material on an
MG
> thick enough to require an arc welder. Gas welding is still the best for
> sheet metal work, but the level of distortion that you will get doing it
> will require you to become an expert in body work, panel beating
> specifically. Mig welding is the easiest to learn, and if you buy an auto
> darkening helmet it will be even easier. A gas shielded rig will give you
> the cleanest results but a flux core rig will work fine. You will get
more
> splatter with flux core but you will want to protect anything worth
> protecting in the vicinity either way.
>
> Mig will leave a bead that is too hard to beat smooth, unlike gas which
can
> be hammer formed while hot. If you shop around you can find a flux core
rig
> for $200 or less. I would recommend that you find a mig welder that
grounds
> the tip when you release the trigger. The cheaper welders don't do this
so
> if you bump metal with the gun while positioning it will make a shower of
> sparks. If you learn to weld this way it isn't a problem, but in my case
my
> mig welder grounds the tip so I always forget this when working on my
dad's
> welder. I do gas weld my sheet metal, and I use .030 mig welding wire
while
> gas welding because most available gas welding rods are too thick for
sheet
> metal work.
>
> Unfortunately you can't cut with a mig welder. Most professionals will
tell
> you that no matter what kind of welding you do, you still need a set of
> torches in your shop, and I would definitely agree. The good news is that
> you can walk into any welding store and get a starter oxy acetylene set
with
> tanks for $300 or less and they will last you the rest of your life.
>
> Pretty much any 110 volt mig welder will be ok, most will weld 3/16"
single
> pass, some of the better ones will do 1/4". Most of the time you will be
> working in the lower 1/3 of the welder's capacity using a .030" wire. For
> sheet metal work you will want to use .023 but any welder should be able
to
> do this. The biggest trick in Mig welding is learning to set the welder
for
> what you are doing. My dad has a Craftsman flux core welder that uses two
> dip switches to set it. This gives you four possible settings, and there
is
> a chart on it for setting recommendations based on metal thickness. On
> higher end welders you will have 4 or more voltage settings and infinite
> wire speed adjustment. This gives more control but requires more
expertise
> to adjust correctly. For occasional use I would recommend a unit that has
> dip switches because it will give faster setups with less guesswork.
>
> Lastly, a flux core welder offers one more benefit. It is much more
> portable then a gas shielded welder because there is no tank. With a gas
> shielded welder you will really need to put it on a welding cart and leave
> it there. A flux core welder can also weld outside in windy conditions, a
> gas shielded welder needs to work in an environment where there is no wind
> or else the gas will blow away, and you won't get useable welds without
the
> shielding gas.
>
> If you have any more questions feel free to email me.
> James Nazarian
> 71 MGBGT V8
> 71 MGB Tourer
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-mgs@autox.team.net [mailto:owner-mgs@autox.team.net] On Behalf
> Of BarrMark262@aol.com
> Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2004 8:09 PM
> To: mgs@autox.team.net
> Subject: What type welders please?
>
> Hi List: Like many of you, I seem to be writing checks a lot to body and
> paint shops for repair and painting until I am "upside down" on my
projects
> before
> I even start.
> I may be a fool, but I really am going to learn how to "weld" and paint.
> I picked up a book on welding basics today, and in a quick read it seems
> that
> oxy/acetyline "gas welding" might be easier for me than arc or mig.
> I won't be doing a lot, but it would be nice to have a single system that
> did
> both cutting and "welding" as needed on our cars.( I hope that is how I
> understand the use of tanks and torches.)
> Any advice is most welcome as to the best choices given limited use.
>
> Thanks
> Dennis Barr
> Almost finished CB74 with a 66 waiting in the wings.
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