Tom Orrow L
Member
- Messages
- 2,819
- Location
- Shropshire, UK
Evening all, I wanted to share with everyone my (probably) bargain of the year.
So the other week I was late night ebay browsing and I stumbled upon a NewArc RM1400 MIG going for spares and repairs with around 7 or 8 days left on it.. Looked nice, not too far from me in Birmingham, around 40 miles away.
I thought it might be worth a punt to buy it and pay a hundred quid or so to get the thing mended on top of what I was going to pay for the welder. Now I know these are British made welders with a real good reputation behind them so I was expecting to pay around £200~ for it even in broken condition. I threw up my max bid and thought nothing more of it for quite some time until I woke up one morning with a notification on my phone saying "Congratulations, You've won NewArc MIG Welder for X Amount of money"..
I was quite excited so I sorted out when I was gonna pick it up, grabbed a couple mates for a little trip and off to Birmingham We went. So after a trip up the M6 and driving through the worst traffic Ladywood has to offer I found the place, an MOT testing centre.
The lads were standing outside so I hopped out the car and started chatting with the lad I had bought it off, he was actually fitting and new 13A plug to the welder as his dad had cut it off not knowing someone was coming to collect it, much appreciated. The guy told me that he had taken over this unit around 18 months ago and found this welder in one of the back rooms & hes never done a spot of welding in his life and never even checked the machine to see if it powered up. We plugged it in and the fan started up, nice! unfortunately no wire to test the motor with. I'd bought it as spares and repairs so I was happy it even started up.
Guy pops round the corner and says I've also got this if you want it and pulls out a BOC Oxygen regulator, Harris Acetylene regulator with a BOC Oxy/ acetylene torch with all the hose it needed. Said he found that in the room too.
I snatched his hand off.
Load up the welder, pop to his loo and off we go back to good ol' shropshire. Side note - beautiful maclaren followed us home
Got it back to a mates shed where We set it up, 5KG wire reel, argoshield bottle, american lightning torch connected, the whole shebang. Pulled the trigger on the torch, no wire feed motor working. Shame..
I opened her up and took a look inside & I swear I've never seen a cleaner inside of welder in my life.. spotless. Looked over some things and thought, hmm that looks a little out of place; referring to the safety switch under the wire feed case that is used to complete the circuit so the wire feed motor runs. It was a little bent out of shape and not touching the metal when the case was closed. I bent it back into shape, closed the lid back up and pulled the trigger..
LIFE! The motor ran! I was chuffed. Now came the important question. Will it arc?
I popped the earth onto some 3MM plate and went to lay a bead, it arced! a bit violent but it was arcing! We played around with some settings and changed the polarity as we found it was set to be running FCAW.
We then proceeded to run some of the most beautiful MIG runs I've seen in some time. Perfect penetration, lovely look of the bead where you can just tell that its a good welder.
This guy had sold me a "spares and repairs" welder that, apart from the safety switch being bent out of place, was perfect condition.
I was chuffed to bits with it!
Go on.. guess how much I payed for it..
A grand total of £50 for the welder, torch, both regulators, the BOC cutting torch and all the cables.
Bargain or what?
Pics will follow!
Cheers, Tom
So the other week I was late night ebay browsing and I stumbled upon a NewArc RM1400 MIG going for spares and repairs with around 7 or 8 days left on it.. Looked nice, not too far from me in Birmingham, around 40 miles away.
I thought it might be worth a punt to buy it and pay a hundred quid or so to get the thing mended on top of what I was going to pay for the welder. Now I know these are British made welders with a real good reputation behind them so I was expecting to pay around £200~ for it even in broken condition. I threw up my max bid and thought nothing more of it for quite some time until I woke up one morning with a notification on my phone saying "Congratulations, You've won NewArc MIG Welder for X Amount of money"..
I was quite excited so I sorted out when I was gonna pick it up, grabbed a couple mates for a little trip and off to Birmingham We went. So after a trip up the M6 and driving through the worst traffic Ladywood has to offer I found the place, an MOT testing centre.
The lads were standing outside so I hopped out the car and started chatting with the lad I had bought it off, he was actually fitting and new 13A plug to the welder as his dad had cut it off not knowing someone was coming to collect it, much appreciated. The guy told me that he had taken over this unit around 18 months ago and found this welder in one of the back rooms & hes never done a spot of welding in his life and never even checked the machine to see if it powered up. We plugged it in and the fan started up, nice! unfortunately no wire to test the motor with. I'd bought it as spares and repairs so I was happy it even started up.
Guy pops round the corner and says I've also got this if you want it and pulls out a BOC Oxygen regulator, Harris Acetylene regulator with a BOC Oxy/ acetylene torch with all the hose it needed. Said he found that in the room too.
I snatched his hand off.
Load up the welder, pop to his loo and off we go back to good ol' shropshire. Side note - beautiful maclaren followed us home
Got it back to a mates shed where We set it up, 5KG wire reel, argoshield bottle, american lightning torch connected, the whole shebang. Pulled the trigger on the torch, no wire feed motor working. Shame..
I opened her up and took a look inside & I swear I've never seen a cleaner inside of welder in my life.. spotless. Looked over some things and thought, hmm that looks a little out of place; referring to the safety switch under the wire feed case that is used to complete the circuit so the wire feed motor runs. It was a little bent out of shape and not touching the metal when the case was closed. I bent it back into shape, closed the lid back up and pulled the trigger..
LIFE! The motor ran! I was chuffed. Now came the important question. Will it arc?
I popped the earth onto some 3MM plate and went to lay a bead, it arced! a bit violent but it was arcing! We played around with some settings and changed the polarity as we found it was set to be running FCAW.
We then proceeded to run some of the most beautiful MIG runs I've seen in some time. Perfect penetration, lovely look of the bead where you can just tell that its a good welder.
This guy had sold me a "spares and repairs" welder that, apart from the safety switch being bent out of place, was perfect condition.
I was chuffed to bits with it!
Go on.. guess how much I payed for it..
A grand total of £50 for the welder, torch, both regulators, the BOC cutting torch and all the cables.
Bargain or what?
Pics will follow!
Cheers, Tom
