whats a good inexpensive welder?

J.McDonald Knives

J.McDonald Knives

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im looking to buy a welder in the future for making hidden tangs. whats a good inexpensive welder to get? is it easy to learn? ive done oxyacetaline back when i was in middle school (about 10 years ago) i welded on angle iron and decorative flat bar. can you link me to the one you are talking about?
 
For the most control and usefullness alot of bladesmiths reccomend a small mig welder.You can get one just about anywhere,gas or gasless 120 v or 220v depending on your budget and personal tastes.Lincoln,miller or hobart are all good brands though some people have sucess with HF or "cheap import" welders. If you already have access to a oxy acetylene outfit just silver braze your tangs.
 
i'm sorry joe but i'd have to disagree on the control and usefullness part :o i'm willing to bet just about anything you can do with a mig welder (besides continuos welding and aluminum) i can do just as well with a stick welder, plus you can weld thick cross sections easier, I got pretty good at stick welding sheet when the mig welder at school went out for the umpteenth time, which brings up another point, I think the stick welder has much less parts to go wrong with. just my opinion though
 
PimpinSquee said:
thanks. how easy is it to learn either of them?
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I was getting welds that held and penetrated well with both arc and mig within the first few hours of first starting. However, I would not by any stretch of the imagination claim that I was a welder at that point. Even a few years down the road now I am still learning. Heck, I'm still learning that I have more to learn about then I even realize. And structural, weight bearing, welds is another thing entirely. It can take a long time to truly become competent at it.
 
im a plumber by trade but am going to get out of it. i can solder copper to copper and brass to copper with some of the best. with that in mind what type of welding do you recommend with all of my experience in making two metals into one?
 
You could learn to weld with a mig welder in about 20 mins tops, and for a newbie it's probably a better idea. Yes more parts to break but still pretty simple. There is a reason guys in the fab shops are making 10$/ hr pushing wire... ANYONE CAN DO IT!
Matt Doyle
 
PimpinSquee said:
im looking to buy a welder in the future for making hidden tangs. whats a good inexpensive welder to get? is it easy to learn? ive done oxyacetaline back when i was in middle school (about 10 years ago) i welded on angle iron and decorative flat bar. can you link me to the one you are talking about?
Click to expand...


The words inexpensive and good seldom are found in the same sentence when discussing welding equipment.

For knifemaking Tig would be the best system. It offers the most control, you can weld any kind of steel, (stainless and tool steels need to be welded with stainless or tool steel wire)

Stick is old school, mostly it's used outside where wind would effect the shielding gas. Stick makes the most and hardest to clean off spatter. Stick is strong but it is the least precise of the three. It is also probably the least expensive for a good unit. No shielding gas needed
so it's less expensive to operate.

Mig is all automatic, The machine does all the thinking. All you need to learn is how far away to hold the gun and how fast to move it. The poster who said it takes 20 minutes to learn was exagerating, It should only take 10 minutes.

Mig requires spooled wire and shielding gas, and a variety of copper components Tips, nozels, gas difusers, and steel liners, all of which wear out perodicaly. If you change wire size you have to change everything from the feed rollers to the tips to use the unit. Mig is probably the most expensive to operate due to all the spares you must buy.

Tig makes the strongest welds because you control the heat and the wire. You can make very small precise welds and not spread heat too much, That means less warping. You might be able to find a small tig unit for a reasonable price. Tig also makes very clean spatter free welds.

Avoid those 110 V. gasless mig units. They use a flux core wire. They all say you can weld 1/4" steel, You don't get even remotely enough penetration to weld 1/4" They are made for automotive body sheet metal. The heaviest steel you should weld with those units is maybe 1/16" to 3/32".


Something else to consider, Fumes. In order from most to least Stick, Mig, Tig. Stick uses flux coated rods, (I'm sure you can imagine) Lots of smoke!

Mig uses steel wire that is electro-plated with a thin copper coat. (To prevent rust and better conduct electricity) Most of this burns off when you weld. It's not good to breathe burnt copper. Less smoke than stick but still substantal.

Tig uses Thorated Tungsten electrodes, You can get non thorated but I don't know how well they work. Thorated tungsten is slightly radioactive. There is a very small amount of erosion of the electrode when you weld so you are probably getting some tungsten in the fumes. But there is almost no smoke or fumes in Tig.
 
The nice thing about Tig welders is that they will do stick too. This gives you access to two very different processes. Tig is great for precision work and stick is the optimum process for heavy iron that is more often than not a little rusty, mill-scaled, or what have you (like building press frames from 10-inch H-beam with 1/2 inch flange of better, not to mention 3/4 or 1-inch plate or better. There's just less cleaning and set up required. You can deliver a lot of power with great ease.

So with one machine (like a 'cheap' Lincoln Squarewave 180 or Miller EconoTig), you can get a whole lot done.

You can get pretty good with stick. I commonly use stick on 1/16 steel. I'll go with Tig for really tight or clean work or aluminum.

Mig is usually cleaner than stick (you have to chip flux off a stick weld), and that would be great when doing production work on clean steel.

I find stick very easy and versitile. Tig can be very rewarding too. I've used Mig least, though I've had application for that process in constructing forged balustrade lately. I really, really could have used a Mig for that.
 
Well, folx, God, In concert with PROC, has anwsered our prayers !

One can now buy the Cadillac of a TIG welder, http://www.grizzly.com/products/H8154, for prolly 30% of
closest competitor.

Or it's little bro (no AC): http://www.grizzly.com/products/h8153

AC is only used for Alum welding.

Now, if one's willing to live with with scratch start, HF's little TIG gem:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=91811 ,
goes on sale for $199. Minus 15% and you got a pretty good deal.

MIG is good for depositing lotsa metal in a hurry, not so much for
well-controlled, low-splatter, point-welds.

In a manly man's shop (like mine :D ) , one can (should ?) see both TIG and
MIG .

TIG requires a gas flow regulator and bottle of argon . With MIG, you can
use self-shielding flux-core wire or CO2 mix + regulator.

It is important to befriend local welding supply store :), by buying an overpriced regulator from them. They will shower you with freebies for
the rest of yer life ! :)
 
mdoyle said:
You could learn to weld with a mig welder in about 20 mins tops, and for a newbie it's probably a better idea. Yes more parts to break but still pretty simple. There is a reason guys in the fab shops are making 10$/ hr pushing wire... ANYONE CAN DO IT!
Matt Doyle
Click to expand...
Hot glue gun anybody :)
JCaswell said:
The nice thing about Tig welders is that they will do stick too. This gives you access to two very different processes. Tig is great for precision work and stick is the optimum process for heavy iron that is more often than not a little rusty, mill-scaled, or what have you (like building press frames from 10-inch H-beam with 1/2 inch flange of better, not to mention 3/4 or 1-inch plate or better. There's just less cleaning and set up required. You can deliver a lot of power with great ease.

So with one machine (like a 'cheap' Lincoln Squarewave 180 or Miller EconoTig), you can get a whole lot done.

You can get pretty good with stick. I commonly use stick on 1/16 steel. I'll go with Tig for really tight or clean work or aluminum.

Mig is usually cleaner than stick (you have to chip flux off a stick weld), and that would be great when doing production work on clean steel.

I find stick very easy and versitile. Tig can be very rewarding too. I've used Mig least, though I've had application for that process in constructing forged balustrade lately. I really, really could have used a Mig for that.
Click to expand...

So can I change my vote to Tig?? :D I never tried it but it is starting to sound good.
 
my TIG welds are butt ugly. I don't get to practice with it enough to get good. One of these days, if I ever stop buying knives, I'm gonna by myself a good square wave just like JCaswell suggested.
 
TIG is very useful but is also considered the most advanced of the common welding processes. Also, even a "cheap" tig from a decent brand will set you back about $1500. Its difficult to learn because it requires alot of dexterity and includes a lot of variables. With stick or mig welders you pretty much set your perameters and weld. With tig, you make adjustments as you weld via a thumbscrew or footpedal and varying how you manipulate the electrode.

MIG is fairly simple to do basic welds with. It would probably serve you well for basic shop use. The thing that comes into play here is capacity and duty cycle. Lower priced wire feed/mig welders just aren't capable of welding anything over 3/16" to 1/4" material without beveling and multiple passes. They also have a low duty cycle which means you can't run them hard for long periods of time. You can weld for a minute or two and then the machine has to cool for a couple minutes. For your basic knifemaker this is not a big deal, but its something to keep in mind if you think you're going to wind up building a hydraulic press or getting into other big projects. Wire is also fairly expensive and changing it is sort of a pain in the ass. If you're content welding only steel, its not a big issue.

Stick welding offers the most bang for the buck. A lincoln AC225 has more capacity and duty cycle than a MIG welder costing 2-3 times as much. They're very simple to set up and use and will last a lifetime. Electrodes are fairly cheap compared to mig wire, and you can stock up on several different types for different materials. The downside is that they aren't as well suited for intricate work as they are for larger fabricating and repair projects. They also require alot more clean up after welding because they lay down a layer of slag over the weld bead. Stick welding is also what is generally recommended for beginners and is what you would have to learn first in any arc welding class you took.
 
for the money, a buzz box stick weldor will get the job done for around a hundred fifty bucks. It will have a service cycle of around 20%. This means you can use it for 20 minutes out of an hour before it gets too hot to use. This sounds bad but in practice it's hard to actually weld 30minutes out of hour with a stick even if you are trying hard. Between chipping slag, switching sticks, checking whats up, scratching head, etc. a cheap fluxless mig can be found for $250. it won't weld anything near as thick at the cheap buzz box. you can get a gas mig, 180amp that will weld most anything you want to throw at it for $800 and it might be one of the best tool investments you make. Oxy/acet gas will weld anything and can be rented for a song. Tig is awesome and I practice when i can but I usually reach for the 180mig.
 
Tig is not that expensive, I see torches in the pawn shops for around a hundred bucks and a flow meter for the argon and a bottle will set you back another 250. Then you need some tungsten at about 10 bucks a piece put it last forever. For knives you don't need a very big cup and I use 1/16 tungsten to tig stainless on knives. I even tig some of my bolsters on. You can learn very fine control with tig. You do need a power source and most any dc welder will do the trick. I run as low as 35-40 amps to tig a piese of 304 to high carbon using 309 stainless wire. For aluminuim you need AC (or mig) but it should be hi frequency ac not the AC of a normal buzz box welder, plus you have to ball the end or your tungsten as opposed to the sharp point used on most other processes. You can also tig brass, copper and tig either to steel just like brazing. For most of my home tig work I use the same welder I use for most of my stick welding. I have a couple migs also, but except for aluminium and very tin gauge metal and very small .023 wire I consideR mig to be down and dirty production welding. Not dirty as in filth though but mig does tend to have larger grain structure than other methods. Heat treating of course can fix this. I can personally do some very nice percision welds with stick and 3/32 rod and even 1/16 rod. With a good tig torch some guys can weld gum wrappers and thats no BS. If I could only have one welder I would get a decent dc stick machine then later add a dry tig torch and a bottle and regulator. A dry torch hooks right up to a power source. A wet torch has a cooling system for high powers or long duration and usually a foot pedal to control the amount of power to the torch. Very
cadilac units you can control every facit of the power. Oh yea I am a pipe welder by trade and some of my welds are very critical and in severe service and many get xrayed.

Another point is that any time you are welding stainless or crome alloys and in reality almost any metal welding you should have good ventilation or a resperator. The fumes from the flux on the stick are only part of the picture and I am Now required to wear a resperator when working on any alloy steel. The respretory problems among older welders is epidemic, plus who knows what else but, half of us are nuts to start with.
 
PS. the great thing about tig is that you can fire up a very small arc and direct the heat to a very small area and can push the existing metal around with it, You do not have to add filler unless you want or need to. With a stick or mig unit as soon as you strike you begin to deposit more metal. You can clean up and adjust the placement of metal with a tig setup nearly as much as you want. Remember welding is all about the puddle of molten metal and with a tig you can have and keep a very small puddle, WATCH THE EDGES OF YOUR PUDDLE, no matter what your process, that is where you are welding. I have built several knives that go from a damascus blade that was slid inside a slot in a piece of stainless and then completely tig welded at the joints and it looks like a totally straight line change over of material after grinding and polishing and etch. After welding I aneal the assembly before I go to another step. Now mostly I heat and forge weld my bolsters so that I have true one piece assembly. I am now builting a set of machined 2"x4" x 12" blocks that bolt togeather then I will upset the billet to form a fat spot then drop the blade part of the billit (cool this part) down into the blocks slot and when the fat spot stops the billit it will be setting in a wide spot machined into the blocks and I believe that I can then hammer down on the rest of the billit to upset it more and fill the void machined into the blocks slot and use this formed big spot in my piece to further forge the area into any shape I desire. I have been at knives now for over 3 years. just a puppy at knives but I do know metal, as it has been my life for almost 40 years.
 
I just have a Harbor Freight oxyacetaline outfit and it does all I need to do. I had before the fire an HF wire feed but felt like spit would hold things together as well if not better. I find the oxyacetaline has alot more uses at least for me. Now if I could just teach it how to make its own gas. I've been keeping my eyes open for one that will run off beans. :D
 
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