Welders: If you had to choose one...? Options

[Danny_Ocean]

I have yet to learn to weld. I would like to purchase (and learn on) a welder that will be most useful to the average "car guy"...welding sheetmetal, repairing broken mounts, adding brackets to rollbars/frames, etc. Nothing exotic, just basic repairs for the average mechanic. My shop has 220v if that matters. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/welder.gif)

[Richard Casto]

Here is my 2 cents...

Stick vs. MIG vs. TIG

Get a MIG unit. IMHO they really are the easiest to do and will probably cover 100% of your needs.

110v vs. 220v

If you plan to every cart this unit elsewhere (i.e. goto a friends house to weld something form them) then this is where a 110v may be more of an advantage. The 110v are slightly less expensive than 220v, but frankly if you factor in stuff like mig gas, helmet, gloves, etc. the total cost difference is going to be pretty small. The 220v unit will weld heavier metal without needing to do multiple passes.

I personally don't think 220v is going to cause more problems with thinner metal. For a given lown end 110v and 220v from the same manufacture, I think the settings are pretty much the same. The 110v may have four voltage settings while the 220 may have five with settings one through four being pretty close for both units and the fifth setting on the 220 being the one that gives it the extra power that the 110v doesn't have. I think technique and not 110 vs. 220 is going to determine how well you weld thin metal.

Gas Shield vs. Flux Core

Get a unit that can do shielding gas. That same unit will be able to do Flux core, but frankly you should be using shielding gas for what you are looking to do as it will be easier to see the weld pool (it is for me at least) and there is not as much mess to clean up (slag)

Learning to Weld

While learning it the hard way (lots of trial and error) is fine, you may end up with some bad habits and not really knowing how to weld correctly. My suggestion is to look into an evening welding class at a local community college. That is how I did it and think it was a great experience.

With this being said, I have a cheaper Lincoln 220V unit (like what you might find at Lowes of Home Depot) and have been pretty happy with it. If I was to do any more than just hobby welding and I had the money, I might buy a unit that had infinitely variable settings vs. 4 or 5 settings for voltage and 10 settings for wirespeed. I learned on a much nicer unit at class and can see why they work better than the cheaper unit. But I have been able to do a lot of good stuff with my cheaper unit at home. I also may look into getting a cheap HF TIG inverter because I did some TIG in class and loved it.

Oh, and welding is fun! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/welder.gif)