The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk What type of welder is best

I'll be doing body work on my 52, floorboards,cab corners, that sort of thing, what is the recommended welder for this sort of thing? Dave

check out the tool chest or paint and body shop forum.

also,

http://www.hotrodders.com - would be another place to poke around and look... they have a 'knowledge base' section with all kinds of how to articles...

-W

EXPERIENCED!

Sorry Homer52, I couldn't resist.

What type of welding machine would the experienced welder use for general body work.

homer52,

The easiest to use would be a MIG welder, it welds good but the welds are a little harder to hammer out than they are when you're using a TIG welder. A TIG welder is the best, but it is harder to use than a MIG, and requires a little more experience. The majority of the people use a MIG welder. As far as brand names go, I prefer Lincoln Electric, but Miller and others are good too. Hope this helps.

Jed : HA!

-W

i have a suitcase wire feed (miller) welder. so far i've had excellent luck with it. just welded up a new bracket for the truck tonight. it works well and doesn't take up much space when i'm not using it. it's not the least expensive welder on the market, but a friend went in on the purchase so i ended up getting more for my money in the long run.

I'd vote mig. Tig is probably better but cost enough more that I doubt I'll ever buy one.

Could you do it with plain old oxyacetlene?

Yeah you can, but this is verry different old school craft and you will need an old hand to teach you how to do it.

I got me an "inverter rod welder", wich you don`t need gas or oxygen bottles, yust the rods.

It has the size and weight of an ladys hand bag (no big and heavy trafos anymore), was cheap ($200)and works real fine.

It took a while till I learned how to handle the rod but now I like it much more than my old MIG/TIG welder plus I have the option to buy an WIG update.

Frank

I repaired a bunch of rust on a 59 3100 with oxy-acet and metal coathangers. It really is not that hard, if you know the basics. the heat zone is larger then other methods, but that can be dealt with too.

Eastwood sells an oxy-acet torch that limits the heat zone, and it is a lot cheaper then migs and tigs.

But now I have a Millermatic 175 mig that I have yet to use for body work.

I've been using 110V Lincoln MIG welder and I have been very happy with it so far. Make sure you get it with the shielding gas setup, it gives cleaner welds and allows you to reduce the amount of heat build up on your welding surface.

I agree with Cujo8. I have a flux core wire feeder. It's great for 1/8"-1/4" stuff but forget sheet metal. I wish I had ponyed up for the Mig with gas. :rolleyes:

I think what these guys are getting at is that the skill of the operator matters more than the equipment. If you are just learning to weld the best way to do it is to take a class at a community college or high school. You can usually borrow the equipment or bring the truck to the shop to work on it and get help from the intructor at the same time for a pretty reasonable fee. It will save you time and money in the long run.

I'm experienced with stick welding, oxyacytlene, and TIG, but not MIG, I was trying to find out what others used and what would be best since I have no experience with body work. Dave

Thought I knew how to weld after 25 yrs.
took 3 classes at community college just out of boredom and multipied my skill tenfold.

Anyone needing a welder.. I saw a MIG welder on sale at Harbor Freight for $200
NOW it says it can be used "with or without gas"... fill me in on how it would react different the two ways. (I see you all mention heating up the metal, etc)
What do you all think about this for a deal..??
Looked pretty good to me??
Maybe I'm not informed enough??

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ct...ricetype=S&categoryname=MIG%20WELDER

New Guy .A MIG welder is a wire feed welder and can be used either with gas or without. Gas ( Argon) is a shield or envelope around the weld point. The gas is from a pressure tank attached to the welding tubewire feeder.
and reduces oxygen to give you a cleaner weld. No gas means you must change the wire to a flux type. That will produce not as good a clean weld.
37 lookin.

You will find that the wire feed setup without the shielding gas does not allow you to go to the smallest size of wire. The result is too much heat for thin metal like 18 gauge. With the MIG setup you can use .025 wire. I have been using my 110V Lincoln for about a year and have been very happy with it.

One thing though is the MIG won't work outside in the wind because the shielding gas gets blown aside.

But you can use a welding spoon to help. I did a bazillion holes on my cj2a. I put a backing plate, a big hunk of copper, and a magnet to hold the mess on then went and welded it from the other side. The copper will wick away the heat and the weld wire won't stick to it. If its a clean hole you can even use just the spoon. I made the spoon out of a hunk of copper (like for an electrode) about 1/4 thick by 1" wide by 4" long, heated it up, flattend with a hammer, and then mounted that to a busted screw driver handle.

There's a good tech article in the November issue of classic trucks. They used a Lincoln MIG PAK on an old truck.

I think that for a beginer mig is the best and brand wise defintly miller.

I bought a Miller, I think the drive mechanism for the wire feeder is a better design that the Lincoln. Mine is a 175, will weld up to 3/16 thick with full penetration. I have used it quite a bit and really like it. Next I will get an instant darkening lens for my welding hood, the are really neat.

I just bought the miller also. They say it has the most settings for voltage.

I used a miller at the railroad museum - it has one big advantage (at least the one i used). The wire is cold until you pull the trigger so you can stick the wire where you want to start welding, drop your hood and go. My century is cheaper but always hot - so the auto dark lens makes it much easier to use.