Which Welder would you buy?

[John yota]

I have just dug out my welder after a long time in storage only to find it is knackered . I need a new one but I don't need a pro spec machine. I have been looking at a few both ARC and MIG but I am flummoxed by the choice and variety of manufacturers that I have never heard of. I can weld both ARC and MIG (even oxyacetylene! That's how long ago I started welding! can't find the old man smiley)

Anyway, I am looking for your reviews of your own kit or anything you have used, preferably in the price region of £200 or less. It has to be able to go up to 7mm thick plate and it will not see huge usage, mostly to repair breakages and replace the occasional floorpan .

The sooner I get a new welder, the sooner you will see my new secret!

Thanks in advance,

Cheers, John

[LlaniPikey]

I have a Sealy 150 Mig which works fine on body work, I also have a Cebora 185 Boxer Mig which does everything you could ever want. You can find them on ebay for around £200 notes 2nd hand. I also have a Cebora 500 amp Mig that is more than anyone would ever need, unlesss you want to build an Aircraft Carrier! Best toy I have bought recently is a small 40 amp inverter Plasma Cutter, nice bit of kit if you like fabricating.
As you might see I am quite biased towards Cebora, I have used them for years and found very little goes wrong with them. Hope this of help?

Very usefull information on the MIGWELDING forum.

[John yota]

Thanks Llanipikey, I had a look at the Cebora stuff, almost drooled my keyboard to death!!! Unfortunately everything I could find was way out of budget. I am not the biggest fan of sealey stuff but I have never used their welding gear.

I have decided on a SIP T180P ARC welder as I got a shot of a mates one and it was a doddle to use, can weld thicker than I will ever need and fell perfectly within the budget. It needs a 20A socket if you want to run it on 230V. I have a 30 amp socket in the outbuilding with all the appropriate fusing and wiring to be safe, thermal cut out included (I made it with the help of a sparky mate, it's really handy being in the building game) Thanks for your advice though, and if I ever get some spare cash then I will be looking at a Cebora machine as they seem to be real high quality bits of kit but then I might need to consider building a buggy to justify having equipment of that standard

Cheers, John

[Rich.]

The main choice you have to make is between arc and mig. Both have advantages and both have drawbacks.
Arc's are brilliant for welding thicker metals, and quite a variaty depending on the rod used. Its a hard method of welding to learn, far harder than mig, however its a really good base to learn, its how i learn and it teaches the basics very well, i jumped onto a mig and could lay down pretty profesional welds really quickly, and now i can tig weld, which again i have no doubt some skills from that came from arc. However arc is pretty tricky on thinner steel, and it takes more skill to get welds looking neat. Its also a pretty cheap method of welding, sticks aren't too expensive, although stay away from the cheapy's, i only use BOC sticks, the difference is chalk and cheese compared to clarke rods or similar.

Mig is by far the better all round welding method for ferrous metals, mild and stainless is very easy, although ally welding with mig leaves alot to be desired, again this is where tig comes in if your going to be doing alot of ally welding. Mig however it quite an expensive welding process, especialy if your using disposable bottles or hireing and not using very often. The best solution is to buy a bottle from a company that will refill it, there are not many companys that do this, although fire extingushire companies are quite good, as they will fill bottles with CO2 for pretty cheap, its not quite as good as CO2 argon mix but its still perfectly weldable. Mig will also go down to some pretty impressivly thin steels aswell.

Personly i wouldnt go neer a cheap mig again, i have a clarke 150a and i have had so much trouble with it im getting sick of it and resorting back to stick for most jobs. If i were in your shoes again id be looking at the mikes of miller electric or cebora. Also New=arc are brill machines, i had 3 of there arc sets which i also use for steel tig welding, and there amazing, not cheap but fabulous kit, not sure if they do mig sets mind.

Rich

[jonkem]

I've had a SIP 171 MIG for about 9 years and the machine has been faultless. You need to buy a good torch but you'll end up doing that with most machines.
It'll weld anything I throw at it, from very thin body panels right upto 10mm winch mounts.

You can get them very close to your budget with a bit of searching or a newish 2nd hand.

[John yota]

Thanks for the responses Vitrich and Jonkem. I am glad to hear that there is hope for the SIP to last, that would do my head in if it only lasted for a year or so as many "hobby" versions of these kinds of machines often do.

Vitrich, that is some good advice for novice welders (and those out of practise like myself). I know how to weld (although I am a bit rusty these days), I learned when I was 14 working with my Stepdad in his garage making daft mini's building things like a 1750cc maxi engined mk1 mini pick up and a 1300 mg turbo powered mini clubman 1275GT with a Jack Knight straight cut 5 speed box as a couple of examples. I would be interested to know the manufacturer's of the equipment you would recommend as you clearly know your onions.

I was playing with my new machine today and other than it being a flimsy mask that comes with the welder (not important as I have a decent mask already) it all seems to be of pretty decent quality for hobby use anyway, I don't think it would last under a professional welders workload though, but it doesn't pretend to be a pro machine. I settled on the ARC over the MIG as I will be using it on thicker metals primarily. The thinnest thing I will be welding will be a new double skinned floorpan in my new Jimny. Mostly I will be fabricating up some heavy duty shock mounts and spring mounts and exhausts, that kind of thing. Another reason for going ARC over MIG was the ease of which you can change rods and current for different thickness's and types of metal. Another plus for me was not needing gas as I can not find anywhere near me that does a decent gas for MIG's (Halfrauds is the only place that stock any gas and it is clearly the "Asda smart price" of gases). For my budget there wasn't really any decent looking MIG's that could go the thickness I needed, there were a few but they all looked to be of a poor quality and after some surfing I found that they were getting bad write up's.

I won't be welding on the Jimny until I have had some practise to get my hands used to welding again, I am going to play with it a bit and knock up an exhaust before I tackle the important stuff.

Cheers, John

[Rich.]

[BennyMcK]

You should check out http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/index.php
It is a great source of info and there is a forum member who sells welders and equipment. He would be worth talking to. Check out his shop. its along the top of your screen "weldequip shop"