how much should tig welding cost per cm

[Henrik]

I'm looking into having a custom fuel tank made for my car project.

I'm decent enough with a mig welder that I'm confident I can do it in mild steel with the mig, however for ultimate bling, an aluminium tank would be better.

If I was to bend all the bits etc from aluminium sheet, roughly how much should I be looking at paying a fellow hobbyist with an ac-dc tig to weld it up? I'd probably use 2mm aluminium sheet, if that makes any difference

It looks like there's about 280cm of welding in total, plus a couple of AN outlets and a filler neck to be attached.

I haven't bought/bent any bits yet, so if it's prohibitively expensive, I'll just stick to mig, or start saving for an ac-dc tig set myself (i realise this will not be cheaper especially with all the training etc I'd have to do, but it'd give me a new skill).

 

[pedrobedro]

It's not usually the length of weld it is the type of weld, gauge of metal and time taken and how much the operator values their time plus it will probably need purging so will cost a fair bit in gas. There are too many variables for anyone to give you an answer on a forum, you can get a tank made by someone like http://www.mkengineering.co.uk/ or someone more local to you.

 

[hotrodder]

As said too many variables, especially when the quality of the fabrication/fit up is unknown. Take a simple little header tank for example... if i fabricate it from scratch the welding might only account for 15 mins. Virtually an identical thing fabricated by someone else could (and has) easily taken 2 or 3 times longer than it should because it's often not 'just' welding it up, nothing fits properly and they've used some manky piece of ally that was kicking around after running a DA over it using a part worn disc that was last used on some rusty old car. That aside it's still not just 280cm of weld + a couple of fittings. Even when i know it won't leak it still needs testing etc...

I'm flat out busy at the moment, if the job i've just priced for Guy's Hospital gets accepted then that's the rest of this year accounted for probably. That aside i'm only down the road from you, PM me a phone number if you want to discuss it further. Couple of fuel tank examples in my albums

 

[Henrik]

That's some seriously good looking welding there hotrodder