My Latest Tool...Makes Molten Steel

[keithb7]

My latest toy showed up this morning. I have put off learning to weld for too long. I'll be 50 soon. Never too late to start I guess. I looked around at entry level Miller and Lincoln welders. 110V and 220V. I compared prices, settings, quality and read internet ratings.  I began to realize that the entry level, home hobby welder market is very competitive. Top name brands utilize off-shore labor and materials too, to remain competitive. I decided to look into a made in China welder. Not ideal, for some reasons. I agree. I weighed the pros and cons. Read the reviews.

 

I've never welded. I want to try my hand at it. This one covers MIG, TIG, Stick, accepts gas, and flue core wire too. The price is extremely low when compared to leading brand name welders. You get what you pay for. My welds will suck no matter what I buy. I'll wreck stuff no matter what I buy. The reviews on-line are promising. What the heck, I went for it. I can play around and learn without spending 4 digits on a welder. If I get half decent results and like it, I'll buy a better one some day. If I suck and just burn up everything? Well, that could very well happen. So I'll have invested less for my experiment.

 

Next I'll tie into my 220V dryer hook up. Its in the wall right in my garage. I think I'll add a switch so either the dryer or the welder is on.  I'll try some 6013 and stick weld first. Wish me luck. Much reading and experimenting to come. Anyone want to come show me the basics?....I'll take ya for a ride in my 53 Chrysler.

 

Keith

 

 

Edited January 4, 2021 by keithb7

[Dan Hiebert]

Good luck!  I'm jumping down that rabbit hole myself.  My wife found a Lincoln Electric 140 flux/MIG welder in NJ for the same price as the Harbor Freight options we were looking at.  It'll be here Friday.  I have the same expectations as you ("manage expectations" is something I would tell my superiors in DC before I retired, although it rarely worked).  I break metal things often enough to warrant learning to weld to some degree.  What I know about welding I got from osmosis, watching and listening to my grandpa, a master welder, at one time the best in "Little Egypt" (southeastern Illinois), and my dad, a pretty good welder.  I'm tickled my wife found that Lincoln Electric unit, probably not much better than other stuff out there, but my grandpa and dad swore by Lincoln Electric.    

[RobertKB]

I wanted to learn to weld so I could replace the floors and rockers in my '51 Dodge D39 business coupe. I bought a second hand MIG welder from a neighbour. It was not set up for gas (argon and CO2) but had the necessary portals for this. With no gas it would spit like crazy but with the argon/CO2 being used it made a very nice weld.

 

I did not know how to weld when I got it so enrolled in an evening welding class at the local college. Great instructor. It was eight classes of three hours for MIG and TIG welding. It was supposed to be half and half but after one session with TIG, I asked the instructor if I could go back to MIG and practice as I had a MIG welder and would never use TIG. No problem was his answer and he would check on me and a couple of other students wanting to practice MIG. It was a great course and I learned a lot. I highly recommend taking a course rather than relying on You Tube videos.

 

Before and after pictures of the welding on my '51 Dodge. I have used the MIG welder occasionally since on a few other things as well.

 

 

 

 

[plymouthcranbrook]

I took one evening school welding course back in the early ‘70’s. Gas and arc. Never got any good on arc but did get to the point where I could gas weld fairly well. My welds aren’t pretty but rarely break.

[Sniper]

I am a master of the bigger the blob the better the job school of metal joining.

 

lol

[HotRodTractor]

Welding is a fantastic skill and well worth the time and effort. I need to put in some more practice myself to do thinner materials, but I can make metal stick together. 

I must confess though. I had a very different idea of what I was going to find when I opened this thread based on my recent additions to the shop.

 

Those are a crucible furnaces used to melt metals for casting purposes. With some coaxing they could do molten iron.... molten steel is probably just out of reach. lol

[Los_Control]

20 hours ago, keithb7 said:

My latest toy showed up this morning. I have put off learning to weld for too long. I'll be 50 soon.

For some reason your vids make you look older 

But enjoy, trial and error is the facts of life ... videos give clues but actually doing it gives experience.

I am a few weeks ahead of you, bet you surpass me quick as you learn.

[keithb7]

59 minutes ago, Los_Control said:

For some reason your vids make you look older 

 

 

Decades of huffing brake clean, flathead exhaust fumes, and gear oil has got me looking this good today. Imagine what 10 years of welding fumes will do for a guy's complexion? 

[RobertKB]

20 hours ago, HotRodTractor said:

Welding is a fantastic skill and well worth the time and effort. I need to put in some more practice myself to do thinner materials, but I can make metal stick together. 

I must confess though. I had a very different idea of what I was going to find when I opened this thread based on my recent additions to the shop.

 

 

 

Glad to see you tie down and secure the load properly. Lots of people would just throw those in the back of the truck and go. 

[keithb7]

Took my new buzz box over to a buddy's house last night. He is set up with welding gear. He got me started. We tried stick welding mainly. Various amperage and different sticks were used on some plate steel. I had fun. It works well. Now I just need to spend some time burning stick and developing a feel for welding. I will try flux core next. Then finally I'll get some inert gas and try MIG later. Sounds like MIG is the cream of sheet metal welding. I guess I'll find out. 

 

I bought an auto-darkening helmet. The lens does not seem to get dark enough. I'll take it back. Toss in another $150 and walk out with a higher quality helmet.   Trade up!

 

An electrician is booked to come on Friday morning. To tie into my 220V and install a wall socket in my garage.  Then I need to fab up a welding table and get a 220V extension cord.  Whew...So much cash to fork out to get set up!  It'll all come together and be worth it.

 

Its one item coming off my bucket list:

"Spent lots of money to get set up so you can at least screw around with welding, and wreck stuff" - Check!

Edited January 5, 2021 by keithb7

[DJ194950]

I bought a larger screen auto darkening helmet online for around $40 that is adustable settings for darkness shades and a switch to put on grinder mode. That was the shipped price. Did several days on and off shopping and reading reviews before I ordered. Instructions were on the weak side but I have had a old auto lens in a old helmet for years but it gave up the ghost .

 

Happy with it overall! without spending 2-300 $.

 

DJ

[HotRodTractor]

22 hours ago, RobertKB said:

 

Glad to see you tie down and secure the load properly. Lots of people would just throw those in the back of the truck and go. 

Lots of people do stupid things too. Those things are heavy and probably still needed more straps on them. The big one is every bit of 1000-1200lbs. 

I just checked - there are times I can get some pretty good deals on Lincoln equipment - but sadly none at the moment. 

[Sniper]

Reminds me of the time I brought home 48 sacks of concrete, 80lbs each in my wife's 2005 Ram 1500, one trip.  But I had them push the pallet all the way up to the front of the bed and drove the two miles home at about 25 mph.  Talk about a low rider, lol. 

 

Probably a little overloaded there.  Then I unloaded it that night and the next morning started mixing concrete with nothing more than my two daughter's as helpers, one was 12 the other 10.  Wife was about 2 weeks short of delivering our son then so she was told to stay in the house with the AC, this was in July, I about croaked doing that job.  Now days I get the heebie jeebies when I see a sack of concrete and I used to work at a concrete plant since then.   

 

 

 

 

[Tooljunkie]

I bought an expensive esab. (Made in china) 

tig is a whole other art form. 
overall im happy with my lightning metal sticker.

 

one comment i need to add, and i mention this across any forum with a person that is new to welding. After welding, dont just turn off the lights and go in the house. One errant glowing dingleberry rolls under bench or wherever and parks against a cardboard box, or an oily rag could mean disaster. 
I always hang out for 1/2 hour and check that the panel i just welded is cool and nothing in the void behind it is smoldering. Same for debris around the shop. 
fire extinguisher is mandatory, as well as a source of water, i have a pump spray bottle at the ready, in case i catch fire. 
it happens. Pail of water and a rag at the very least. 

[Frank Elder]

No flip flops, shorts, or sneakers for Gods sake!

[Dan Hiebert]

A good deal of the equipment shed fires up here are started by welding, both during the process (don't weld on/near flammable materials) and sometimes well after.  The State DOT just lost their facility in Ft. Fairfield.  The fire started after midnight due to smoldering stuff from welding they had been doing the afternoon before.

[Dodgeb4ya]

Don't be cheap on an auto darkening helmet...that's your eyes it's protecting....

I looked, talked a lot to welder supply houses and the guys at the welding shop before I bought one.

I've had my helmet now for over 15 years and no issues at all.

It cost me $450.00. Oh yeah $$$$... but to me it was worth it. 

 As for welding inside....nope..

I do it all outside...sparks run 20+ feet. Don't want a fire. Read too many stories on welding sparked fires in the garage.

 

[keithb7]

Thax @Dodgeb4yaI really appreciate your tips.
 

Today I wired up my 220V socket in the garage. I ordered a 40 ft extension cord. So I can do my welding out in the driveway. My garage is attached to where we sleep. We won’t be risking any rogue sparks inside the garage.  We had a near miss fire incident last evening. Not related to welding. It was tense  and a good scary reminder how quickly crap can go sideways.