The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Tool Chest buying a welding machine

Lots of good advice here. If you're serious don't buy a crap machine. Get a Lincoln or Miller. You can get a good 220 Lincoln machine for $500 at home depot depending on where you live in the USA.

I learned to weld in HS on a stick machine and pce of 1/4 inch steel 6"x6". We just ran beads side to side in slightly overlapping rows, like you would spray paint a surface. With a mig this will be much easier. Suggest starting without gas while you are learning and save a dollar or two. When we where finished the 1/4" steel was about 2" thick. Weld 4-5 rows, clean slag, take a look, improve, repeat. Finish one side cool it off in water, turn it over, rotate 180 degrees, repeat. Get a nice comfortable position where you can focus on the puddle and your arm movement/position. Don't skimp on a helmet, you only get one set of OE eyes. Enjoy !!

Just yesterday, I repaired a pressure washer frame and made a 6 ft chemical stirrer for mixing chemicals in a 55 gal barrel I use to clean my vinyl fences. I'm bad at golf, and don't enjoy playing it. I'm bad at welding, but still get huge satisfaction at building heavy stuff out of steel. Like Jerry says, first you make it effective, then you make it pretty.