Cascadian Fox
New Member
- Messages
- 3
Hello,
I'm the founder of a 100 percent volunteer and DIY community bike workshop in Lyon France. In recent years it has grown from repairing bikes to building them. For now we build cargo trikes, recumbents, bike carts and other human powered vehicles. I learned how to arc (stick) weld when I was in high school so all of the welding has been done with a little "tool up spark 130 inverter". We can get decent welds that hold great, but we're ready to move on from primitive stick welding so we can start producing more professional HPVs (we're not in it to make money, although to cover shop expenses we do need to have a tiny revenue stream, and a professionally made HPVs can do this better than selling rebuiltbikes).
We have a budget of 800 to 1000 euros to buy a welder. I have stick welded fro 15 years now, but only dabbled a little bit in MIG welding. I would like to buy a unit that I could learn on quickly, then be able to teach others. We weld only steel and alloys, because we rarely get aluminium frames, so we are interested in the best welder that could weld bike tubing, which is very thin, and well as thicker stuff for when we are building bike carts or bigger HPVs (cargo trikes). I've read the basic tutorial, but I would like some advice on what makes might be available in France. I guess with our budget we'll be able to get a decent welder. Maybe a TIG welder would be better ?
thanks,
Cascadian Fox
I'm the founder of a 100 percent volunteer and DIY community bike workshop in Lyon France. In recent years it has grown from repairing bikes to building them. For now we build cargo trikes, recumbents, bike carts and other human powered vehicles. I learned how to arc (stick) weld when I was in high school so all of the welding has been done with a little "tool up spark 130 inverter". We can get decent welds that hold great, but we're ready to move on from primitive stick welding so we can start producing more professional HPVs (we're not in it to make money, although to cover shop expenses we do need to have a tiny revenue stream, and a professionally made HPVs can do this better than selling rebuiltbikes).
We have a budget of 800 to 1000 euros to buy a welder. I have stick welded fro 15 years now, but only dabbled a little bit in MIG welding. I would like to buy a unit that I could learn on quickly, then be able to teach others. We weld only steel and alloys, because we rarely get aluminium frames, so we are interested in the best welder that could weld bike tubing, which is very thin, and well as thicker stuff for when we are building bike carts or bigger HPVs (cargo trikes). I've read the basic tutorial, but I would like some advice on what makes might be available in France. I guess with our budget we'll be able to get a decent welder. Maybe a TIG welder would be better ?
thanks,
Cascadian Fox