First question (of many)

[pcspike]

I want to learn to weld. The material that I will be using is 25mm x25mm square steel tube, to make up frames. I've been told that the best for me would be the MIG, but on looking at them there are different types (with gas)and different amperage. Which will meet my needs?
thanks

 

[Wedg1e]

Assuming you're only talking 2mm or so wall thickness (usual for say bench frames) then a 90A set would suffice... right up to the point where you suddenly get ambitious and want to weld up half an oil rig

 

[madkayaker]

Get a bigger one than you plan to need to allow for the daft projects (like the idea of oil rig might need some more rods)

 

[peterd51]

Hi,

I made market stalls for a while using that size of metal and I had a Clarke Pro90 to start with.

Then I upgraded to a Clarke 150TE which can manage up to 6mm.

Send a private message to Weldequip on the forum and he'll quote you a good price and give you excellent service. He can also supply consumables, welding masks, etc.

Regards
Peter

 

[pcspike]

Hi,
Thanks for your help so far, its appreciated. What about the mig with or without gas, would I also need the gas?

 

[Archie]

Welding without gas is perfectly possible using flux-cored wire. However you are likely to gain neater results using a shielding gas and plain wire. The advantage of gasless is that you don't need to worry about wind if you're welding outside and, obviously, you don't need to buy/rent gas. Personally I'd go the gas route. Depending on the amount of work you're doing you will either want to rent a gas cylinder or buy disposables. Realistically disposables are only suitable for very low volume welding as they run out quickly and are relatively expensive. Rental is not cheap either but you will get a vast amount more gas for your shekels. The middle way is to get gas from a supplier such as Adam's Gas. For this you pay a deposit on the bottle, rather than renting on a daily or yearly basis, so no matter how slowly you use the gas, keeping the bottle is not going to continue to cost you. Again, there is a downside and that's that these bottles are not enormous. Considerably bigger than a disposable but also considerably smaller than a bottle rented off Air Products or BOC.