Probably for the millionth time - Which welder??!

[Goldfish]

I have read loads of stuff about what to buy and what not to buy and the things that keep cropping up (quoting dannyp) are:

whatever welder you buy it wants a euro torch and wheels and get the biggest welder you can get your mits on.

buying carefully 2nd hand is often better than buying new

bigger machenes tend to have better wire feeds a good wire feed makes massive differance on thin pannels

My problem is i dont have the money to spend on a new clarke 150 or 151 (te or en or whatever they are) and when they come up for sale second hand they are still a bit pricey. I dont have a lot to spend, probably £150 absolute maximum. I only need it for old vw welding, so not exactly heavy duty stuff so would a small clarke be worth a punt? 110 or 130? or would i be wasting my money?

Sorry for the same question being asked again but everyone else seems to have a much bigger budget than me

Thanks!

 

[shenion]

The 130 will do fine. I had one and had no complaints.

 

[Goldfish]

Good news thanks for that. They are closer to my price range, particularly second hand ones. Are the smaller ones harder to use or more importantly learn with?

Just need to find a good second hand one!

 

[shenion]

The Clarke 130 is not really different than the 150. We havre recommended it on the forums many times.

The 130 can just do 1/8" steel well. The 150 has a bit more power for things like roll cages.

For bodywork, the Pro 90 will even do fine.

There are gasless Clarke models and they are not as useful. The gas+gasless and gas-only models are more useful.

 

[Goldfish]

The thickest id ever plan on doing really would maybe be chassis related. Although i appreciate chassis work is a little bit more important than a bit of the wing needing a patch so i think id be a while away from that.

I think il have a look for a decent priced 130 - 150 power clarke machine as they seem to be popular with a lot of people. Are SIP or Sealey ok or am i better going for clarke? I have looked at some of the clarke ones on vat free days at machine mart but il need to save for a little while for that.

Certainly gas too. I have a fairly big (empty for now) bottle of argoshield universal from a local welding supply company so might as well use it!

Thanks again!

 

[shenion]

SIP welders are discussed here often. Lots of wire feed problems.

Sealey has some decent welders but they also have Chinese junk.

 

[Frosty]

Why mig weld it, oxy acytelene works just as good and the tips last forever!

 

[shenion]

Why mig weld it, oxy acytelene works just as good and the tips last forever!

And also way over his budget.

 

[Frosty]

We could probably pick up a Victor set and send it to him for less than 150 francs!

 

[shenion]

The bottle deposit and rental would be a fortune and a big bump in his home insurance.

It is not cheap like it is here. My Chinese set cost $60 and picked up some used small bottles for $55. Filling O2 was not much but i never filled the acetylene, oxy/propane works for my uses but not for welding..

 

[Frosty]

Oxy/propane is great cheap way to cut, but I have to weld all of our 2" and smaller natural gas lines with oxy/act.

Never realized how fortunate we are on just running down the road to pick up bottles. I have 3 sets sitting around my house.

 

[shenion]

Yes, gas has been easy and cheap here. My last argon fill was $40 (125CF)

The two places I have used are closed now. They changed from Holox, to Linde and Air Products. The bottle I have is marked Hillman Gas with an Airco cover.

The second was a small branch office. The first was a large distribution point (they actually filled bottles.)

Now the only place anywhere near is Praxair. Hope they still do retail.

My argon tank is down to 200PSI. So need to start looking......

 

[Goldfish]

You lost me!