I just posted on another OT thread,, so I thought I'd share to all with my own thread.

I picked up a welder to practice on. I found a really awesome welder on the pirate 4x4 website,, It can weld Mig/Tig and is a great plasma cutter too! It works on 110 or 220! and it was low priced too!. I am a CSOB like the rest of you. But this welder is just awesome for the $500~$800 depends on options. and pretty good cust service too!

if ya want an intesting read and decide for yourself,,
http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=534964

straight to the source,,
http://www.parkermetalworking.com/

My buddies here at work have tried my portable unit out and they can't believe how powerful my welder/cutter was or how portable.

I'm NOT an employee of parker or anything like that but I'm sure my post makes it sound like it. I just want to share an incredible new tool that many of us 914 heads might be able to use.

I've had one of the CUT40 plasma cutters for about 2 yrs now. It works 'ok' but definitely not as well as a miller or esab. It absolutely sucks at cutting painted panels (yes, we tried to cut a wrecked BMW E30 in half - it can't do it.) I've had it open to fix an air leak and its built like crap inside. While the draw of cheap dc tig + plasma is appealing, I suspect the quality is still on par w/ the price you pay. A cheap plasma is one thing, but a cheap welder is quite another. I usually have to trust my or someone elses life to the parts I weld together - no so w/ the stuff I cut apart.

Yeah, when it comes to electricity and compressed gases, you might want to reconsider cheap....getting zapped and/or burned ain't fun. Not too mention functioning correctly and lasting more than a year or two.

I got one too a few weeks back. Been too busy to play with it much. I have a small handful of projects that can use a cutter/welder. For the volume I'd use it, I couldn't really justify spending more. Looking forward to learning how to TIG. There's a surprising amount of stuff on the web.

I have used Harbor freight's Kung fu welder, Miller, Lincon, Hobart, Esab. Price, quality and ease of use are proportional

Im going to call and see if they will let me try it out for 7 days. the bang for the buck is tempting

One of my buddies at work does alot of fabrication for various departments. He swears by Millers, you could say he's a Miller mark. I respect his expert opinion when it comes to welding stuff. When I showed him my new "toy" he couldn't help but crap all over it because it was soo small and promised soo much. When he tried some Tig welding with it, he thought it was pretty controllable and stable. Next when we cut tome 5/8 with the plasma cutter,, he was starting to get impressed. He then proceeded to check the duty cycle rating of the machine and was again impressed. ( I believe it was 60% at 75%power @ 220) I don't plan on using my cutter for "production" type uses,, hell I didn't shell out for the aluminum option in Tig,, but I only plan on messing with my car and maybe some cages/exhaust. I know I got a dynamite machine for somebody who might want to dabble in welding at a great price. I drank the Parker cool aid and I believe that a small up and coming family run business will support me if I need help later with one of their products.