my wife bought me an old general electric portable gas welder. it has a 6 cylnder engine. does any one have any info on this animal? the model number is 6wd34c15 and the serial is 2043155 any help/info would be greatly appreciated! thanks hoagy
Hi Hoagy, The information I received is not going to do you any good, but they gave me another place to look. I'll let you know what that turns up. John Wright
Hoagy, I haven't found anything on your welder, People just keep forwarding me around to someone else who forwards me to someone else. Sorry, John Wright I'll keep looking, if I get any new leads, I'll post them.
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Date 12-11-2003 18:28
I have what might be one of it's close relatives, with an electric motor driving it, a huge monster we estimate was built in the 1930s. The gemerator end is about 2 feet in diameter, and has a cast handle that moves the brushes on the commutator to change polarity, we think.
My pastor has a welding shop and his father's welder is still in there. It uses knife switches to change the amperage from one setting to another. He claims it still works, but needs cables and an electrode holder. I forget when he said it was made, but it just shows how far we've come in the past few years. He keeps it along with the other old tools to remind him where his shop started out. He's got the work bench and all set up like his father had it years ago. He's in a new shop now and he moved all that stuff and set it all back up for remeberance sake. He told me the doors on his old shop came off the first firehouse in his town. When they built a new firehouse he got them at a auction, years and years ago. John Wright
I'm not sure if it was exactly the same beast but I had one of these. Chrysler (I think) flathead, would put out 500 amps, welded nice, thought a gallon of gas was just a snack to get started on. Bill
My great uncle was the local Blacksmith in town. He had an old welding machine that ran off a flathead Chrysler. It was a Hobart welder. My cousin who had worked for him told me it was rated for 500 amps. He had purchased it from an army surplus supplier just before the start of WW2. My cousin said they used it more for thawing frozen water pipes in town and for farmers out in the country than for welding. He said they made the farmer supply the gas LOL. The sad part of this is that it sold for 20 dollars on the auction and the scrap dealer that bought it melted down the copper and sold the rest as iron. The acytlene genorator went for 10 bucks..