I have been laid off recently and don't have a lot of extra cash right now. I am working on an older Harley and I will need to do some welding on the exhaust and fenders and might have to relocate a mount or a bracket. The steel thickness will be 1/8 in or less. I have a Miller Thunderbolt and a tig torch that will hook up to it although I have not tried tig welding with it yet. I have seen cheap mig welders for $150-$200, some 120 and some 230 V. I have just finished running a 230 V 50 amp sub panel out to my garage so power is no problem.
Now for the questions, are any of these cheap mig welders worth looking into? If I got one I would use shielding gas. A few years back, I worked in a fab shop and I didn't do too bad with tig and mig. The guys I worked with would run down the cheap mig welders that were available then as a waste of money. Said that you could not get a good weld with them. I see some of the cheap ones being used on TV and the welds don't look that bad. Would I be better off getting a bottle of argon and using my miller and the tig torch? Harbor Freight sells a Chicago Electric 120 amp mig/fcaw for $199. Has anyone used it. Any recommendations on an inexpensive mig welder? Thanks in advance, Tedd
Oldgoat,
I hope someone answers this as I am wondering the same thing. If you just need one for rare use... I understand the concept of buy a good tool and it will last forever, but if it is something you use seldom, will the cheap tool do the job?
Hello Fellas, I'll take a small shot at this one for you. There certainly is a lot of truth to the statement "you get what you pay for", the cheap mig welders out there will probably not weld as nice as the more pricey ones. An option that you might consider goes something like this, if you have a rental outfit in your area you might go there and see if they are ready to turn over any of their rental welders, typically they will use those machines for a couple of years or so and then they will sell them off and replace them with new ones. If they are somewhat reputable they will have taken decent care of these machines and made repairs to them as needed. This allows you to purchase a namebrand welder at a much reduced price. Probably the biggest difference between the "cheap" machines and those that are better known has to do with the materials that they are built out of and the quality of the engineering and such. The feed mechanisms and the smoothness of them, tends to be better on the more established machines. Hope this helps some. aevald
Remember, there is a difference between cheap and small. There are small wire welders which are still high quality machines. They will perform fine if used within limits. A miller or Lincoln in 120 volt size with gas shieding should eat up guage sheet, producing excellent welds. Much thicker than 1/8 is probably pushing it though. I had a craftsman wire welder as my first machine. It was a "p.o.s".! The wire feeder was erratic so even thin sheet never welded very well.
If the Tbolt is AC/DC use the DC electrode negative and use 1/16-5/64 or 3/32" diamter 6013 electrodes for sheet metal. Very smooth and good looking welds with a slag covering that brushes clean with very little if any chipping.
Tedd,
I have 3 friends who bought the cheap Harbor Freight welder. All 3 feel they wasted their money, one literally threw his in the trash. I had a Lincoln SP 125 (120V) that worked very well for me for a few years. Welded good on steel and did darn good on aluminum for what it was. I sold the 125 to buy a Lincoln 175 tig. The guy I sold it to is very happy with it. In fact I still borrow it occasionally to do some portable aluminum work on a couple friends boats. I just
plug it in to my generator and weld away.
Aevald has a good suggestion in checking with a rental company for a good used one. United Rentals takes very good care of their equipment and usually sells it at reasonable prices, that's where I got my generator. If you go to their website you can search for equipment for sale. If you only need it occasionally, you might check on the rental rates while you are there. It might be worth it just to rent as needed.
Hope this helps,
Jim
Hey oldgoat,
Just wanted to say I have a Chicago Electric 151T2 120amp welder I picked up on E-Bay very reasonably and have it set up for aluminum. It does a superb job. When I got it, I had to really clean all the residue and steel dust and copper dust from the inside of the feed mechanism and liner. That is the only way to not have any problems with aluminum. I weld 1/2" aluminum castings and 1 1/2" aluminum square tubing at work. BTW...this unit was made in Italy, not in China. I also have an older Chicago Electric Power Mig 130T that was made in Italy also. I did pick up a 151T2 for a co-worker made in China and it works flawlessly with ER70S6 and C25. We even tested it with 1/2" plate and it did fine, remembering the duty cycle of course. I also have 2 Miller Migs and a Lincoln stick machine. I do prefer the Miller Migs over the Lincoln Mig I have at work. They seem to be much smoother feeding. Anyway, don't shortchange the Chicago Electric Mig welders as they will do a fine job if you don't exceed their welding capabilities. Hope I helped you a bit....Good luck.
Forum
