Welding

[Ben Stratford]

So i have a few areas of concern. End of outer sills, small hole on inner sill, each inner rear wheel arch has some ugly scabs of rust where it joins the boot floor.
I know if i look harder more will be found so need to learn how to weld. It will likely be done out on the road.
Also want to make some rock sliders and possibly other things.
So what type of welder should I think about? Likely to be a Mig with gas bottle rather than gassless. Which amp rating is recommended for bodywork / fabrication?
A big topic but i need to start somewhere

 

[flint]

Loads of info here: http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/

 

[Ben Stratford]

Loads of info here: http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/

Wow, that looks great. Thanks Flint. Something to now get stuck into reading

 

[AndycruiserguyLomas]

Wow, that looks great. Thanks Flint. Something to now get stuck into reading

MY advice would be to enroll on a night school course where you are tought a skill and get a qualification at the end of it.
As far as a welder is concerned buy as pro as possible. Ours at work was amid range Nexus pro , was about a grand and has been up to everything we asked of it on commercial and fabrication work.
I'd be looking at a s/h pro one over a new hobby one.
It's no surprise your 60 needs wielding after nearly 30 years ( and welding ) but unless you are going to keep welding things it might be more time effective to have the work done professionally.

 

[Chris]

I learned a great deal of my welding skill on that forum. There's little they haven't seen. As to which set to buy, well yes MIG is best for bodywork and you want nice low amps too. Gas-less is just a non starter. You really need good equipment and that costs. Learning to weld on a good set will put you miles ahead in a very short time. If you buy a Halfords special with cored wire you'll spend that much time fighting the set you'll never get anywhere. It is possible to rent sets so that might be a good idea. First thing if to hit the yellow pages and find a local welding supplier. Forget the other places including Machine Mart. Yes yes Ok Ok I know some of you have done some great stuff with a Clarke machine, but value wise, you're going to get a much better set from a welding supplier. You'll need wire, tips, shrouds, gloves, clamps, helmet etc and you just won't get better prices than your local place and you'll get support too.

I haven't used one yet, but the newer sets tend to be inverter sets rather than the big old transformer type like mine. They seem pretty good. Also look for a feature called spot timer. This allows you to Bzzzzt a weld for the same duration every time regardless of how long you pull the trigger. Set the amps and timer for the thickness of steel you're working on and Bzzzzt every time.

The fly in the ointment tends to be gas. I have a special deal with BOC on a low user scheme so I pay a flat rental fee for the year and a low charge to swap a cylinder. It's worth asking at the welding stockist. You need Argoshield or Argonlight. Don't use CO2 or pub gas, it's not the right stuff unless of course it's really cheap then it's perfect isn't it.

 

[Gary820]

I run a Sealey pro 180A mig and it's does everything i ask of it, panel work and up to 8mm thick steel. I've used it with stainless wire and normal wire for mild steel (0.8mm thick wire). Must've had it 12 or so years now, bought as a damaged factory return for about £300 (casing was bent where the bottle sits)
Taken it to work a few times too for various jobs.
It's had a fair bit of use and still works as it should.

As Andy says a welding course would be a good idea, they'll teach you how to weld but importantly imo is how to set up the welder. I've recently re done my qualifications and learnt a couple of new things in the process.


Get a decent helmet too, auto darkening one so not constantly lifting it up

 

[Ben Stratford]

Yes, prefer quality kit so long as it has been looked after. What amp range should I be looking for? Dont want to rent as see lots of use and other projects coming along so that would be better used to buy something.
Son recommends a lincoln - he uses one at work and likes it.

 

[Richard Turner]

That mig welding forum is good. Ben near you there is a good welding shop http://www.mig-tig.com worth going and looking at the machines down there, especially hire costs.
Really you need to spend about £600 for a useable machine. But for someone that is learning to weld and wants good results asap you will need to spend £800-1000. Get an inverter machine not a transformer as they are much better as they are lighter and smaller, to get the same punch from a transformer machine it would have to be a in a wheeled cabinet type.
Buying a machine 2nd hand could be risky if you don't have much experience with welding as it will be hard to know if the machine is faulty and welding is hard enough anyway without having to fight the machine!
I used to have BOC gas but worked out expensive for me, I now get a deposit bottle from Motor Parts Direct, which seems much better value. You need argon+co2 for mig, pure co2 makes things difficult. You can weld stainless with argon+co2 as well which is good.

The first machine I bought was a cheap £200 Chinese one. It gave a poor weld and only lasted a couple of years before it all bunt out. Luckily we have a good machine at work so I knew what a welder should behave like.

I bought this machine last year:

It is a synergic inverter welder, it does mig/tig/arc. It was pretty expensive but it is the best machine I have ever used, better than a transformer cabinet welder and in a different world to the Chinese machine.

The screen shows how the welder is set up, you can see it has been welding Stainless, CrNi, with Argon Co2 gas. Using 0.8 wire, and the stainless is 1.0mm thick.
You set all these parameters in the menu, you can save common ones etc.
Then when you start welding it automatically adjusts the amperage as you weld, continuously.
The other good thing is it lets the gas flow for a pre determined time after you have released the trigger, this stops oxygen getting to you cooling weld and spoiling it, but more importantly on bodywork you can do small sections and then let off and the gas will cool the very thin bodywork you are welding stopping burning of holes. This is the best feature really on the machine as it makes doing bodywork much much easier and quicker.
It is very good for very thin stuff and very good for heavy stuff, which is great for Land Cruisers (body work and bar work!).
If you want to have a go on with my machine let me know!

 

[David]

Yes, prefer quality kit so long as it has been looked after. What amp range should I be looking for? Dont want to rent as see lots of use and other projects coming along so that would be better used to buy something.
Son recommends a lincoln - he uses one at work and likes it.

Lincoln are good, I use a Migtronic also very good, it is a big old 3 phase job. I did try a new ESAB inverter welder hated the thing, them I'm an old git set in my ways

 

[Gary820]

@Richard Turner That's a sweet piece of kit mate

 

[Towpack]

I must be the odd one out here 'cos I bought a Clarke MIG 100A welder some 20 years ago (£170 IIRC) and it's never let me down but it gets used very rarely. I bought it to repair the floorpan, sills and other stuff on a MK3 Escort I had at the time. With hindsight I'd have bought a bigger one, maybe 160A which would be handier for heavier duty work. I've always used straight CO2 as I got it for nothing and it's worked fine on mild steel. Other than doing a bit while still at school I never bothered with any formal training. Just got some scrap steel of different thicknesses to practice on first. I found that getting the right setting and making sure the metal is sound and clean are probably the 2 most important factors. Don't know what the latest Clarke machines are like but if mine packed up tomorrow I'd probably be looking at another one.JMO

 

[David]

For a hobby welder a Clarke is pretty dam good, you can't really fault them for the money you pay

 

[Chris]

The thing about better sets is the duty cycle. For spots it's not that important. But say you wanted weld up some rock sliders in 5mm, a hobby welder would only manage a few runs on full power before it shut down. I have a Butters Weld Wizard and I can weld on 180 amps almost continuously I'd like a bigger machine, somewhere over 200 amps for really thick steel. Mine will go down to something like 15 amps. These new generation inverters are not only smarter but often cheaper than my old set. One day, one will be mine.

The Clarke stuff works but in terms of getting spares such as liners, shrouds and tips etc you will just pay over the odds and at some point you'll get that "Oooh, nah, we don't stock those any more." With a Euro torch, you'll be tapping into a worldwide industry of spare parts.

 

[Gary820]

Clarke is probably in the same category as my Sealey, classed more as a hobby/budget welder but has never let me down. Same as @Towpack I'd buy another if it failed.
I use argon/co2 which I get from a local supplier, I bought the bottle for £50 and pay £25 to refill (bottle just gets swapped) get all my consumables from them too.

My training has all been through work, had recalls on isofix brackets etc so have to be qualified for it.

I was taught as an apprentice with oxy acetylene to braize then use a mig.

 

[David]

I mainly use my very old Oxford Stick welder as most stuff we have to weld up is covered in chemicals and crap, don't need to get it as clean with the stick

 

[Ben]

Your biggest problem if you want to use MIG and a bottle of gas to do the body work on your LandCruiser will be the wind! As you said your going to work in the road.

You can obviously turn the gas pressure up but only to a certain point, so your going to have to choose days when theres not much breeze.

Or use gasless which will work in a breeze, will work out cheaper but wont give anywhere near as nicer results.

When you do start welding and if you use a bottle of gas, you should always set the gas pressure as low as possible otherwise you're just wasting it. So keep turning it down until you're just getting porosity and then turn it back up a little so the porosity disappears. Thats the correct way to set the gas pressure.

Regarding what machine to buy, my personal opinion is that you are much better buying a quality second hand unit like a lincoln/miller/kempi/esab etc. than a cheap no name Chinese one, if cost is an issue.

I bought a 160 amp Lincoln MIG second hand off Gumtree and its been faultless, but I know if anything goes wrong I can still buy every spare part for it.

Regarding what size to go, I'd go as big as you can afford as then you can still welder thicker metal for winch plates/rock sliders etc. You will find single phase MIG's will only go so high anyway so you wont have to worry about it being too big and powerful for thinner sheet metal.

But if you look for one between 160-200 amps that will be perfect.

Chris touched on duty cycles and its important when choosing a welder as some manufacturers will rate their machines at say 200amps, but the duty cycle will be so low that you can only weld at maximum amps for a minute before the thing over heats and has to be left to cool down for 30 minutes because the thermal cut out has kicked in.

 

[Chris]

Stick is great for dirty stuff but as MIG users know, the metal really has to be cleaned very well or you might as well just use glue.

Not sure I'd want to weld body panels with a stick. Given that this was the OP's requirement.

 

[David]

You can not weld body panels with a stick that is a fact, but I have been welding agriculture stuff up for a bit over 40 years, and not much glue involved only on a bad day

 

[Chris]

I have the MIG and a small Clarke stick buzz box. I'd like a better one, but the little MMA comes in really handy at times. It's very satisfying welding with stick. I use the MIG on a lot of black bar, strip and round section and it's good to show people how little penetration you get if you don't clean the mill-scale off. Looks great but one tap with a hammer and it fails. The stick just cuts through all that. I'd love a go on something like a 6mm rod and 400 amps!

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

Energas are pretty competitive on price for gas if they cover your area.