blazemaguire
New Member
- Messages
- 4
Hello,
Newbie to the forum. - I've got a lot of practice and experience owning a small hobby MIG (owning a classic mini will do that) - My day job is as a secondary school design tech teacher - Also teaching engineering and product design A-Level.
We have a local company who anually donate some funds to our school, and hopefully this year are looking to dontate us £1500 towards equipment.
We already have a 160amp MIG welder which we use for the engineering and product design course. - I'm looking at using the funders to buy a TIG.
I have very little experience with TIG (try 30 minutes on my degree course!) - but I know the principles.
Can you buy a decent machine for these prices now (looking at invertor technology) - If so what would you reccomend.
Looking for the ability to weld box section Aluminium, and sheet Aluminium up to 6mm max (mostly 4mm). - Would be usefull if we could do the odd job with stainless sheet / pipe also.
Would probably still keep the MIG for the bread and butter mild steel work.
Most important things are reliability (i'm not sure about the cheap chinease ones on ebay!), easy access to consumable and a 'forgiving nature' (I hear there are strike start/ easy start etc and settings that control the start and end of the weld currents on higher models.
Please bear in mind our £1500 would have to cover our purchase/rent of the shielding gas for the first year, and maybe £100 on welding consumables, so I guess its more like £1200 - £1300 available for the welder.
A lot to ask I know, but i'm out of my depth with TIG tech, so any suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Rob
Newbie to the forum. - I've got a lot of practice and experience owning a small hobby MIG (owning a classic mini will do that) - My day job is as a secondary school design tech teacher - Also teaching engineering and product design A-Level.
We have a local company who anually donate some funds to our school, and hopefully this year are looking to dontate us £1500 towards equipment.
We already have a 160amp MIG welder which we use for the engineering and product design course. - I'm looking at using the funders to buy a TIG.
I have very little experience with TIG (try 30 minutes on my degree course!) - but I know the principles.
Can you buy a decent machine for these prices now (looking at invertor technology) - If so what would you reccomend.
Looking for the ability to weld box section Aluminium, and sheet Aluminium up to 6mm max (mostly 4mm). - Would be usefull if we could do the odd job with stainless sheet / pipe also.
Would probably still keep the MIG for the bread and butter mild steel work.
Most important things are reliability (i'm not sure about the cheap chinease ones on ebay!), easy access to consumable and a 'forgiving nature' (I hear there are strike start/ easy start etc and settings that control the start and end of the weld currents on higher models.
Please bear in mind our £1500 would have to cover our purchase/rent of the shielding gas for the first year, and maybe £100 on welding consumables, so I guess its more like £1200 - £1300 available for the welder.
A lot to ask I know, but i'm out of my depth with TIG tech, so any suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Rob