Budget TIG

[Mark E]

Hi guys,

My Dad got me a Clarke 151TE for Xmas and I am sure you all know it is a MIG and it appears to have some good reviews.

He did some asking around and as it's related to my car, the sales guys suggested a MIG. However, most of the jobs I plan to do will probably be stainless or aluminium so I'm not sure that the MIG will be ideal.

I've seen a few small inverter TIGs like the Clarke AT100 and similar and wondered what your experiences are?

I was thinking of welding the odd 1-2 mm 304L stainless downpipes/exhausts and 308L sensor bungs and the odd 2mm aluminium intercooler/turbo pipe to BOV flange etc. The last guy that did an aluminium job for me was not spectacular.

I haven't got the budget to really spend much more than £250 all in so I wondered what you might suggest.

I plan to get some SS MIG wire from weldequip and I already have an Argoshield canister so maybe I can have some practice on SS first but it seems like the advice thus far is to spend some money and get the right tools first rather than making it hard on oneself.

Does that sound feasible?

Ideally I would be able to trade in the Clarke (assembled and 30 minutes of runtime) and trade up for a versatile MIG/TIG machine. Any thoughts?

I am just a hobbyist and only want to work on my own car and the odd friend's.

Thanks for your time.

Mark

 

[madkayaker]

For your £250 your going to struggle to find a second hand dc machine and that is going to be no use for Ali as you need AC to make it practical. Mig SS is quite common in industry as its fast and done right neat, Ali can be done with mig as well with the correct wi and a Teflon liner

 

[Ragnarok]

you won't be able to find any tig welders that do what you want them to for £250, have a look at the price of AC/DC tig machines, the cheapest half way decent ones (ones that don't come direct from china with no UK support often not up to EU standards) are the likes of R-Tech and Tec-Arc, R-Tech AC/DC tig machines start at about £800-900 that's a 160amp, which would probably do what you want it to, although intercooler/turbo pipes and manifolds usually have quite thick sections of aluminium so it may be a bit under powered for that, the 200 is usually the preferred option from R-Tech at about £1000-1100.

the 1-2mm stainless is another story though you'd only need a DC machine for that, but you'd want HF start at least, £250 is still a bit unrealistic but for the stainless you'd get something decent for £350-400.

you'll also need a lot of argon to practice with, it's a lot more expensive than argoshield and you get through a lot more of it.

good luck with it

 

[keith19]

I have one or two odd friends, too.

You have to think carefully about what you are going to be doing before you leap into TIG.

A lot depends on what you want a machine for. The 151 you have been given is ideal for car repairs, welding plates in, patching, etc. But the items you mention as being more suitable for a TIG are more in the line of being improvement projects.
So when your Dad's friends advised using a MIG for car work they would have been thinking of repairs and home restorations rather than s/s and alloy work.

First, does your or your friend's cars need repairs? Will you have plenty of thin steel work to get used to the MIG with? Do you have a resto' in mind that will certainly need the MIG? Advice on here is generally to get to grips learning with MIG, which is relatively easy, before going on to the more specialised TIG work.

I would say the exception is if you are an experienced gas welder you will find TIG much easier to adapt to, than if you had never touched a gas torch.

If you haven't done much welding of any kind, stick with the MIG, learn to use it properly in all positions, not just on the bench, and this will give you a good background to start looking at TIG a bit later on, in a year or two.

For home use, TIG is mostly bench work. If you want to learn welding, you should at least be able to do passably good welds in all welding positions. You won't get much of that working at home on a TIG. Car repair and resto' with a TIG is almost out of the running unless you are an experienced TIG welder, and even then it will take much longer than with MIG, and some jobs will be almost impossible.

Learn with the MIG, have fun, and slowly save up for a decent TIG inverter for later on; get a decent one that will be repairable.

 

[jonnyBMX]

yeah, as above really... i have been mig and stick welding for a few years now, done many different kinds of cars etc welding underneath etc etc... even did a bit of gas welding after id finished the MMA course early...

but i have now just brought a TIG machine and its going to be a steep learning curve as there is so much that needs to be thought about...

BUT you can actually weld ally and S/S with a mig if you have the correct wire... gas and lining for your torch so maybe this would be a better option for yourself?

 

[hotrodder]

The Clarke inverter TIGs aren't TIGs, they're stick welding inverters and like pretty much any DC stick welder offer very basic TIG welding aka 'scratch TIG'. The torch is permanatly live and as they have no gas solenoid a valved torch is used to turn the gas on and off. They are fine for welding heavier wall stuff say for example the root pass in pipe welding before switching to stick to fill the joint but are about elevnty billion times harder to use for delicate stuff like automotive sheet metal/thin wall tube

Forget welding thin ally/ally tube with MIG, especially more basic/DIY type sets. Thin ally and basic MIG kit does NOT go together, especially if you need airtight welds. Thicker ally is where MIG is more useful but many DIY sets ain't powerfull enough to cope and even where they are the small (in the grand scheme of things) diameters used in automotive stuff are still more TIG territory really- leaks due to the cold start that's inherent with MIG, torch manipulation at the speeds associated with ally MIG etc

The type of stainless jobs you're talking about can be done with MIG but to do it properly means a different flavour of shielding gas than for mild steel (ally would mean 3rd flavour of gas) and TIG still ticks more boxes for thinwall and or small diameter tube that needs airtight welds.

 

[FranV8]

Mark, is it your GMC typhoon? Cool motor. I remember talking with a custom car builder in the
late 90's who reckoned this V6 turbos were going to be the end of the V8, such was their potential.

Anyway, I was probably in a similar boat when I started coveting cheap TIG's when they appeared a few years ago. Sadly the price of them to get you to a point where you can do basic steel welding adds up, many of them are not supplied with the TIG torch or the regulator, so it's all more cash, and you'll need a bench grinder for sharpening tungstens.

Not trying to put you off, and bear in mind if you're into these things you'll have them for years, but I made me go down the route of an RTech ac161, and I'm now on BOC argon. Not a cheap cheap set up, and I sometimes wonder if I should have gone for the 200 amp, but it seems to have more capability than my skills allow!

Most jobs I can think of can be tackled in some way or other by the TIG, although I'll get some gas for my small MIG if I need to do rust repairs I think.

Don't know if that has helped much, I know it's out of your budget, perhaps better to save a bit more now than spend £250 to end up disappointed.

 

[Mark E]

Thanks guys - I really appreciate you all taking the time to respond and give me your advice.

As I am a total novice, it's clearly not sensible to jump straight in with the TIG setup and truth be known, I probably can't justify needing one other than being impressed with all the shiny projects that people do and wanting to be one of the gang!

I have a small basement here in London where I am at uni and would like to practice down there (ventilation and safety notwithstanding) so perhaps I'll do that.

My friends are a bit odd now you mention it - buying 20 year old American cars and maintaining them (read - "pouring money down the drain")

I will get to grips with the MIG over the summer, hopefully at least the basics. I have a V8 engine cradle which is too big for my new V6 so I am going to weld up that to accommodate the smaller engine. That seems like a sensible beginner project.

I also hope to make a jig to drill my new cylinder heads to match an older intake. The intake actually needs some aluminium material welded to it, another reason I was thinking having a TIG might be a good way to go.

I think if I am honest, I am trying to run before I can walk so will see how the engine cradle goes with the MIG.

I also have some thin steel bodywork to fix as the paint is bubbling so maybe I need to cut it away and weld in some replacement. I've never done cosmetic stuff, mainly assembly, diagnostic and procrastinatory work.

Another thing - I looked for courses in London but there don't seem to be many. Is there anyone around that might fancy teaching me some basics or perhaps can point me in the direction of a course/college? I live in Clapham, London and have a bit of a holiday while I take time off from studying (Medicine).

If you're interested, here are my two projects - I hope you find them interesting!

1992 White/Grey Saudi Typhoon 0546
1991 Black/Black Saudi Syclone 2612

This is what the Typhoon does

boost launch

Thanks again everyone.

Mark

 

[langy]

Budget & TIG are not words usually used together

 

[busastars]

I've had my chingchongchiniese Tig for a number of years now, still working, HF Start, Pulse mode etc ( more features than I care to use ). Only a DC but welds nice.

 

[printcom]

I've had my chingchongchiniese Tig for a number of years now, still working, HF Start, Pulse mode etc ( more features than I care to use ). Only a DC but welds nice.

My mate has had a Cobel WSM 200 for three years now and after 6 large bottles of argon it is still going strong, I think he is waiting to find out if this 3 in 1 super200p I have got works for more than a month before he outs it and takes a risk.
But we all know that buying a Chinese welder is a bit like playing Russian roulette. They must have sold many thousands of them but generally we only hear of the faulty ones.

 

[Shox Dr]

But we all know that buying a Chinese welder is a bit like playing Russian roulette. They must have sold many thousands of them but generally we only hear of the faulty ones.

That'll be all of them barr your mates then

 

[FranV8]

Wow! Those Typhoons launch hard! I guess it can cook the transmission fairly effectively. Total sleeper.

On the Chinese sourced stuff, it sounds like they follow a failure curve high in early life, then they'll probably be okay. Sounds like the Russian roulettecn be significantly reduced by a quick check round inside for loose/poor connections.

 

[printcom]

That'll be all of them barr your mates then

Oh ye of little faith

 

[Mark E]

Wow! Those Typhoons launch hard! I guess it can cook the transmission fairly effectively. Total sleeper.

Thanks!

The stock transmission is destroyed on other vehicles with tedious regularity but I have upgraded it (along with everything else) so it is "almost" bullet proof. The current trans is a GM 4l80e and with the GT35R turbo and some tuning, I should comfortably run 600hp with about 500-700 ftlbs of torque. I have methanol injection and may be able to push 700hp at some point.

One day I'd like to have a 10 second truck in the quarter mile.

Getting insurance is the current sticking point.