best good old tig for cheap

[oceanobsession]

Hi all. im considering buying a tig it would have to be 240 volt. i have a mig at present its an old autolynx 100. great old piece of kit but i wont to weld stainless mainly tubing 3 to 4 mm. ive seen this done by feeding gas down the end of the tube and not using any rod this weld was hardly visable or was the guy just that good. anyway im told my autolynx 100 will last forever
can anyone advise of a similer machine in tig old cheap and will last for ever
i can gas weld good but have never used a tig i would wont neat welds i dont know if the machine has a lot to do with this or not thanks all

 

[Wozzaaah]

Hi Ocean, welcome to the forum .
I picked up an old Miller Dialarc AC/DC tig on ebay, runs off single phase but needs a pretty hefty supply. You quite often see them on there advertised as 3 phase due to the fact they will also run off 400v but a lot are purely single phase, you just change jumpers inside the machine to suit the input voltage.
I run mine off a 50A C rated MCB and it will run quite happily on all the medium settings. Mine also had a foot pedal and a water cooler.
If you can gas weld then you're already part way there, the main difference is that you have to avoid touching the tungsten on the workpiece and touching the filler rod to the tungsten.

 

[malcolm]

My first thought was Miller (I've got one too) but any AC TIG is going to be expensive secondhand even when it's 30 years old. DC is all that's needed for stainless which would be a lot cheaper. Other than that I'm stumped - I'd look at new invertors if I wanted a DC TIG.

 

[Wozzaaah]

It was the 'old, cheap and last forever' bits which made me think miller/murex etc. I got mine for next to nothing really considering what a lump it is. It's just whether you have enough leccy to run it .
If you definitely won't be welding aluminium then you won't need AC so like Malcolm says, a DC inverter would be a good idea, they weigh next to nothing and the smaller ones will run all day on a 13A supply. Inverter Fusion do some cracking ones, a few members have them and rate them very highly.

The technique you're talking about where you weld with no filler is called 'autogenous welding' where the arc is only used to melt and fuse the edges of the parent metal. Feeding gas down the tube is called 'back-purging' and stops the back side of the weld from oxidising.

 

[dutchman]

Those big transformer based ac-dc Millers are fascinating machines and apparently more reliable and easier to repair than inverter based machines. Having that said, I am very happy with my 12 year old Lincoln Invertec (inverter based dc) which I bought used. Welds like a dream

 

[Country Joe]

If you definitely won't be welding aluminium then you won't need AC so like Malcolm says, a DC inverter would be a good idea, they weigh next to nothing and the smaller ones will run all day on a 13A supply. Inverter Fusion do some cracking ones, a few members have them and rate them very highly......

The technique you're talking about where you weld with no filler is called 'autogenous welding' where the arc is only used to melt and fuse the edges of the parent metal.

Yeah, mine's an Inverter Fusion, and it's damned good! AC & DC too.

That autogenous title makes it sound trickier than it is, I think.
Not having to trouble yourself with the filler rod leaves all your attention on just the torch. It's almost - no I'll admit it,- it is quite therapeutic!
It just can't be done with very thick stuff without a filler rod. I once thought, "how handy if it did work", then tried it,- and it didn't!

Don't let that put you off having your own "can't see why not" moment - it's sometimes quite good to actually see why things won't work for yourself, even when someone has already said it cant be done!

I'm starting to ramble - so I'm off!

All the Best,
CJ

 

[matt1978]

Autogenous or without wire welding is certainly much easier, but it depends on what the joint is and what its going to be used for, with Autogenous welds, they can sometimes crack as there is no filler wire added......and as CJ just said, on thicker material, you will get undercut on a joint such as T-Fillet.

You could get a good German quality DC inverter for about £800ish with 3-yr warranty or the Inverter Fusion ones are also good and a little cheaper, personally I would avoid the Chinese stuff off Ebay, but thats purely a personal opinion, some members have took the gamble and its paid off, they have not had any problems.

 

[Kiwi K]

Imho i personally think it depends what your expecting from the machine and how quickly you need one?.
There are some bargains on that egay site from time to time,(cheap ac-dc machines if you wait).
But take time to read peoples replies of different machines and set budget accordingly,any questions just ask on here and people will help out!!!