The long time list consensus has been the MIG welder. I don't know much
about welding although I always wanted to learn so I could restore my
71BGT. Twenty years passed, the BGT rusted away, and when I dissected it
out, I had a rusted 72B body waiting in the wings. By then, I had money and
I paid a professional to do the welding and the paint on the 72B.
Meanwhile, with a little encouraging and the purchase of a rusty 65B, I was
able to encourage my son to learn welding in high school. He even got to
use the 65B as a class project. He actually did an excellent job welding
the floor pan and sill on one side (actually looks better than the
professional job on my 72B did).
Now he has a MIG welder and the car sits in the garage waiting for him to
do the other side. Hopefully, he'll get to it one of these days. But as I
know from my 72B, I still had to put it all together and early on, when
there was lots of work left, it was hard to get motivated and keep the
project going. But its now 90-95% restored and tomorrow hopefully will be
my first top down cruise of the year (temps in the 60s in the afternoon).
But back to the welder - a decent MIG welder can be bought for as low as
$500 (my son has a Hobart). But welding is still an art so the best option
is to take a class, maybe a night course at a nearby vocational school. I
may still very well do this before I get too old so I can resurrect a few
more rusters before they meet their end. But then I'm still trying to get
used to driving a pretty car since I've been driving rusted MGs for most of
my life, starting in college.
David Councill
67 BGT
72 B
At 08:09 PM 3/23/2004 -0500, BarrMark262@aol.com wrote:
>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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