Newbie!

[Walrus]

I've got an old vehicle that need some work. I got quoted nearly £5k to put the worst of it right so I've decided to learn to weld myself - how hard can it be?? Most of the money is actually the prep work & painting but I need the welding bit in the middle of the job done too - parts are cheap, labour is expensive.

I've seen a 12 week evening course at Bracknell College I'm going to take after Xmas (I missed the Autumn intake) so in the mean time I've been thinking of what gear I'd need to buy and what bad habits I might learn before being told how to do it properly!

I dont have workshop space (will be doing it on the driveway) so I'm looking for advice on what to buy and what to do to get myself as ready as I can before starting the 'proper' project.

 

[Arclikeharrypotter]

Welcome to the forum. What you need and want is an ever growing list in this game my friend! But for Car you'd be looking at a Mig set, but without a workshop flux core. Could be worth the hassle and money to sort yourself out with a temporary pitch up garage. Sorry I don't know what they are called.. a big tent for your car. So you can work in the dry and out the wind. Welding cars is a very time consuming job. YouTube is your friend when it comes to welding! Weldingtipsandtricks is a great channel to watch.

 

[Badger1bear]

Diving in at the deep end is going to be a difficult learning curve of frustration, maybe there is someone on the forum near to you who can not only give you advice, technique etc but also do a bit of welding for you. You will get frustrated at your first attempts but it will come in time. Diving straight into a project with not much experience is going to be hard and I'm not over emphasising that enough.

Learn to walk first

 

[Miggy89]

Diving in at the deep end is going to be a difficult learning curve of frustration, maybe there is someone on the forum near to you who can not only give you advice, technique etc but also do a bit of welding for you. You will get frustrated at your first attempts but it will come in time. Diving straight into a project with not much experience is going to be hard and I'm not over emphasising that enough.

Learn to walk first

this is very true although it is achieveable (i learned this way) with time money & patience, if you watch plenty of vids of mig then get yourself a machine to practice with youll soon pick up the basics

 

[slim_boy_fat]

...need some work...

Welcome aboard, Walrus.

Can you be a bit more specific about the "work" involved? I'm still very much a learner at welding, but I'd not tackle chassis work or anything critical like shell work near things like suspension or seat belt mountings etc.