im thinking of getting a cheep welder for any car jobs that come up at home, like welding an exhaust or whatever what ones are good?? are the gasless ones worth it as i will be using it outside 95% of the time if i get one that uses gas, how long does it last on them small bottles?? any way to blag the bigger bottle? also seen inverter welders...worth looking at or no??
I bought a clarke 130EN off a guy on ebay for about 380 delivered. Actually a gassless model, but i got a free a gassing kit with it, regulator for the small bottles, a small bottle and a spool of wire. Does everything i'l ever need to on a car anyway. The wee bottles last a fair while i've found. But you can fit the pub size bottles tot hem with suitable pipe and pressure reg
Buy a 60 stick welder and practice lots - you can do bodywork with them if you know what you're doing.....
Gasless welders are complete w*nk, inverter is no good for working on cars, but great for stick welding unless you're using a generator coz it fries them! How much do you want to spend on one? If you have a few quid to spend on one, you really want something around the 160amp mark to get anything that can weld thicker than a baked bean tin. Best bet is to look on ebay........ small (as in small in size) will be pricey, but if you have the space for it, get something bigger with a euro torch, and it'll last forever. If you find anything you think you like, pm me and i'll let you know if it's any good.
already got a stick welder, want something a touch better thing is i can get some sealey tools at trade price through work...i thought if i can get a 250 welder at trade price i may get it where would i get one of them half size bottles
clarkweld 110 is a good un for cars, or maybe go a little bigger, my old was a welsder by trade, and weve only got a clarkweld 150, which does everything the arc welder doesnt do, if you have a friend who works in a pub, or brewery etc, try and get a big bottle of c02, and get them to refill it etc, and get the pressure regulator for about 40, which will save you lots and lotsand lots in the long run (it has for us )
For doing cars, if the welder is around 130 amp, you'll get away with using just c02 for most bodywork which your friendly landlord will let ya have for a tenner....... anything bigger you'll need to set up an account with someone like BOC and get argoshield light, or messers (or air france or whatever theyre called now ) for a bottle of Krysal 5. You want about a 5% argon mix ideally. Dunno what you'd pay for a bottle though...... we pay around 16 a large bottle and around 7 a month cylider rental, but we do use a fair bit of the stuff!
I decided to save up a bit longer than I wanted to to get something a bit more likely to last a while and do anything I might need it to in the future. Then rang round a few places listed in phone book as selling CO2 and got a local place to hire me a big bottle, ie. 50.00 one off payment as technically it's mine and the guy said bring it back and they'll refill it while I wait for a fiver. It's safety checked etc. Took me longer to sort the connections out from the bottle to the tank than anything. Edited by: Claypole
I didn't fancy trying to explain to some landlord or pay monthly for one that's why I had a ring round a few small places that knew what I was talking about. Now I have a bigggg cylinder chained on the back that will last for a while. The little bottles are about 7.00 each and last no time so seemed a bit of a liability, ie. would run out when you didn't need them to etc.
