Tig Welder as Only Welder?

[MattMoore]

Hi all,
I've yet to buy any welder, and am curently evaluating my options for which welder to buy.
I've got some projects in the future that will require aluminium welding. So I'm wondering if its a possibility to buy a decent AC DC Tig, for all of my welding needs?
It seems that a reasonable AC tig is going to be £1200+. and a decent mig about £500+
I'm ondering whether or not it will be more cost effective just having a Tig, with only one gas needed for all of my steel ali welding etc.
I know that it will be alot more difficult learning to Tig rather than Mig, but I can live with that.

Anyone care to offer an opinion?

Thanks

Matt

 

[Shox Dr]

TIG will always be able to do what a MIG can and more, all be it a little slower.

 

[NTwoO]

Good results with Alu using MIG requires expensive kit. Tig is a joy to do. I've sold my MIG and went over to TIG. You can always place an electrode clamp on your tig machine and blaze away with electrodes.

 

[R Kraft]

It depends on what you are doing.
If you need to weld up a few hundred feet of metal panels Tig would take forever.
If you need to do precision welds on AL manifolds or similar, Mig would be a bad choice.
I don't work on AL and I have to repair things outdoors, sometimes using flux core, so a mig is what I have.

Robert

 

[Hitch]

A tig machine will work for MMA welding with nothing more than a rod holder and length of cable... easy setup for heavier steel stuff.
Tig will work for 0-3mm pretty well, the mma will take over at 3mm+.
Both will be slower than MIG, and the TIG consumables are considerably more expensive.

If you envisage doing a substantial amount of welding thin panels, 1-3mm MIG woul be my prefered choice, based upon ease of use, and speed.

 

[Luke]

Is positioning going to be an issue? There are times when i'm grateful for one-handed point-n-squirt with a mig torch, where a tig torch and filler would be difficult.

On the other hand, if you'll only do bench work, it's much less of an issue.

 

[NTwoO]

Switching between different metals is also much simpler with TIG.

 

[MattMoore]

Thanks for all the replies so far guys.
At the moment I can only see bench work, but I dare say there might be some positional work done, hard to say.
As I wont be welding for money, the speed issue doesn't really come into it at the moment, as long as it will do the job thoroughly.
At the moment, is seems quite reasonable to just have a TIG as a sole welder

 

[TheJoker]

MattMoore, I'm a newbie of welding too. I bought my TIG welder earlier this year with pretty similar premises as you. I want to do welding as a hobby as I always seem to have more projects going than finishing. I wanted to do "all three metals" (mild, stainless and alu) for different reasons. Mild because it's cheap and sometimes you just don't "need" better. Stainless for indoors (brackets, holders, shelves, etc) because it's tidy and beautiful. Some stainless for outdoors too, in places where I don't want rust. Perhaps even an exhaust system sometime in the future. Aluminium because I'm a biker and if I'd weld anything for the bike it'd probably be Aluminium. I also have a small milling machine which I use for Alu milling, I can see myself having to weld something to a milled part etc.
Either way, I bought a Cemont 150A AC/DC welder off eBay for £600 which included pedal, a bit of consumables and an almost empty bottle of gas (= I could go home plug it in and try welding).
If you're on the cheap, then I recommend sitting with the cash in hand and pounce on the thing you see either here in the For Sale section or on eBay.

Any complaints? Not really. I find it a bit difficult finding material for a hobbyist, but I think I've found a place near Oxford that can help me.
I also find the Argon situation a bit annoying. I've now got cheap bottles via one of Gasman's distributors (I believe) and whilst the service is excellent the bottles are small and filled to just over 100bar (whereas a big bottle can be filled to over 300bar - might have the units wrong btw). Each bottle costs me about £33 inc VAT to replace. Bottom line is they don't last very long, but they're quite cheap.

TIG welding isn't difficult. It really isn't. If you have any sense for when metal melts you'll soon get the hang of it. Getting the welds to look beautiful is a different matter. Good fusion is fairly easy, especially on a bench with a pedal.

Other things that you'll need apart from a welder is clamps, clamps, clamps and magnets etc. You might have these already. I've also gone and got myself a metal bandsaw and a huge disk sander. Along with the usual stuff, engineers square, scribe, egineers rule, angle rule, vernier calipers etc, etc.... sorry if you already know this, but as I kind of "started fresh" I knew I needed these things, but kind of suppressed how important they were.

Also, TIG welding is so peaceful and beautiful compared to MIG welding which splatters and fizzes a lot.

My vote is definitely for TIG!

Hope that helps you on the way.

 

[MattMoore]

TheJoker,

Thanks for the detailed reply. It's very welcoming to know I am not the only one who has the same train of thought!
Fortunately, I've already got a milling machine, pair of lathes, donkey saw etc as I started out engineering as a hobby. I've been by the metal bug, and now wish to weld too!
On the yard where my business is, and also my hobby shop I am currently creating there is a few metal guys, so sourcing metal isn't too much of an issue. The only problem is that the guys here mainly use migs or gas welding.
The argon problem is one that I'm going to look at shortly, but I figured one gas for all metals should pose less problems than several.

 

[TheJoker]

MattMoore, sounds like you're halfway there, just the TIG to go! Sounds like I need to be jealous of your setup. I still need a lathe, sadly they're quite bulky items and I've only got a "normal garage".

Good luck!

 

[rswinburne]

How would a tig work for car body work. Alot of spot welding and buttwelds, is it possible to use a tig for this. ofcourse it is, but is it a pita or ok. Kemppi's microtack system must be great for that, but what about the lorch T220 has that got microtack or similar.

 

[TheJoker]

As a newbie I'd say you can do it, and you can do it pretty well too. Nice joints, but, welding with a TIG is much more expensive than blasting things with a MIG welder. As far as my knowledge goes, price is the reason why the professionals use MIG on car bodies rather than TIG. MIG is also faster, AFAIK.

 

[rswinburne]

Ok. Welding price is not much of concern since I'm only welding on my project, not production welding. and I have all the time in the world. If someone on here has just tig for spotwelding on carpanels, do you use filler rod, or just tack without filler material?

 

[TheJoker]

Haven't done any car panels, but I've practised quite a lot on thin sheet. When you can, avoid filler. Just keep your pieces closely aligned and you can just melt the metal and fuse them. A tad of filler will keep the joint from "sinking". It depends on the type of weld you're doing too.
When I weld I always have the filler rod in my hand and add filler if I need to. Most of the time just a little bit of filler is needed.

I'm sure the more experienced welders will have better advice and better descriptions

 

[MattMoore]

thanks for all of the replies so far gents, it seems that tig only is quite a reasonable albeit slower way of doing thngs.
i've got my eye on a welder, and will let everyone know if I end up with it.
are there any books avaiilable on tig weldng? writtenn for a beginner?

 

[TheJoker]

There's a PDF book on Miller's website that I've been reading. It'll give you a basic understanding of things, but naturally no experience.
Good luck with the welder.

 

[MattMoore]

thanks for all of the replies so far gents, it seems that tig only is quite a reasonable albeit slower way of doing thngs.
i've got my eye on a welder, and will let everyone know if I end up with it.
are there any books avaiilable on tig weldng? writtenn for a beginner?

 

[Darbo]

this site has some nice tips and video's of tig welding
its a usa based site but has some nice info etc

http://www.weldingtipsandtricks.com/index.html

 

[NTwoO]

The Ron Covell vid is also nice and floats around on the web