I want to learn how to weld.

scott s

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I wish I could weld.
Total dummy when it comes to welding with zero knowledge or experience. Amateur home bike "builder" that wants to be able to make the occasional bracket or tab or hoop.

I'm sure the first response I'll get is "sign up for a course at the community college", but I work a rotating schedule, twelve hours, lots of overtime. Just won't happen.
But I do have a couple of friends that can show me. Both active or retired industrial maintenance guys.

If I wanted a cheap Harbor Freight welder (or used Craigslist find) and enough equipment to learn how to make a bracket or tab or, eventually, a frame hoop for a seat, etc, do you suggest MIG or TIG?

Again.... Total newbie to welding. Only occasional use at home, not to make a living with. And 99-100% of the use will be to play around with old motorcycle projects for fun.

Talk to me!
 
Depends on what you want to spend and what you want to do with it.
You can get a flux core mig for 100 bucks at HF. It will make all the brackets you want, and in a skilled hand can lay a decent bead.
You'll be limited on how thin you can weld with flux core mig.

I learned on flux core mig, never took a class or anything like that. Just welded stuff together and tried to break it. You don't need a class to make brackets.

Now, if i had had the budget I would have jumped straight to tig. I almost never touch my mig welder anymore, the tig is just so much more suitable to motorcycle work and small work in general.
http://www.eastwood.com/tig200dc.html

I have this one, and the AC/DC version. The DC only version is hooked to a robot and welds 8 hours a day 5 days a week. Anyone who tells you chinese welder's are shit are ill informed and stuck in the 90's. 2 of my buddies have actually replaced their older lincoln and miller tigs with eastwoods after using mine. The big expensive rigs certainly have their place, but in a motorcycle shop or garage where you're just sticking metal together 400 bucks is pretty damn hard to beat.

For my money, as cheap as theya re these days I would grab one of those 400 dollar Eastwood's and start practicing and never look back.
 
Dumb question #1: Which of these, if any require a bottle of gas? I told you....I'm clueless about how all of this works.
 
scott s said:
Dumb question #1: Which of these, if any require a bottle of gas? I told you....I'm clueless about how all of this works.
Non-flux core = gas. Flux-core = no gas.
 
Also, I'm with Sonic. If the price of TIG welders were what they are now when I bought my Hobart, I would own a TIG instead of a MIG. I do fine with my MIG, but it requires some extra finagling to weld sheet.
 
What about gear? Decent helmet, gloves, jacket, etc, recommendations and advice?
 
Scott,
Tig will always require a gas bottle.
A bottle runs about 40 bucks to fill and will last a very long time in a shop where it's not used a lot.

MIG has a gas bottle as well.
Flux core, is MIG but with the shielding gas infused into the wire. (it splatters and makes a mess but welds fine)

Gear is subjective. I weld in cheap gloves and a HF auto adjust helmet. Call me unrefined! I had a very expensive hood because I thought it would be an upgrade, I took it back, I just prefer the HF helmet.
To start with just go down the welding aisle at HF and grab a cheap pair of gloves and a helmet. That will get you welding. If you want to upgrade later you can.
with a flux core you'll likely want some arm protection as well as it throws molten lava all over the damn place.

Tig doesn't throw sparks. I usually tig in a tshirt and mechanic gloves. (yes I get weld burn)
 
For my money:
http://www.eastwood.com/tig200dc.html
http://www.eastwood.com/auto-darkening-welding-helmet.html
http://www.eastwood.com/tillman-24c-kidskin-tig-welding-gloves.html

Then go down to your local welding supply store, Airgas Around here, and make friends with the guy at the counter, open an account and lease or buy a gas bottle.
There's a tradeoff on size and price. A 20CF bottle runs about 70 bucks and is cheap to fill but you'll have to make more frequent trips to the store. My little tig has an 80CF and that will run a god long time. My robotic one runs 2 125CF tanks. I do not recommend going that big as they are a bitch to move around.

Then run down to your local metal supplier and ask for some drops to practice on.
450+ gas and you're ready to weld everything but aluminum.
 
I'll recommend the Eastwood as well. Good little welder.

As for gloves and such. I have a good lid, I like my eyesight. I normally wear a leather work glove on the hand I am holding the rod with. No glove on my torch hand.
 
J-Rod10 said:
I'll recommend the Eastwood as well. Good little welder.

As for gloves and such. I have a good lid, I like my eyesight. I normally wear a leather work glove on the hand I am holding the rod with. No glove on my torch hand.

That's the one major drawback to the eastwood, no real option for a water cooled torch. That thing gets HOT when welding at 200 amps for a few minutes.
 
SONIC. said:
That's the one major drawback to the eastwood, no real option for a water cooled torch. That thing gets HOT when welding at 200 amps for a few minutes.

True but how often do you weld at 200 amps on a motorcycle?

I have the Eastwood TIG and with an upgraded foot pedal and a different regulator it has been a fabulous welder
 
I have that helmet or similar from Eastwood and the AC-DC version. I do have a thick welding jacket that I sometimes use but usually just a cotton work shirt and thin leather gloves for TIG. I also have an OXY set that I use more and for that I have to use thick, insulated welding gloves because stuff gets really hot really fast with OXY.

I tried welding old 2.5mm aluminum sheet recently on the AC setting and it wasn't pretty but it did an amazing job considering my lack of skill.

I have tried stick and MIG and for a bike I'd go straight to TIG and get lots of practice.

Ask around your local welding stores to see if they have classes. One of ours runs TIG classes, but not very often. You could also ask around and see if there's anyone in your area that can teach you the basics.
 
SONIC. said:
That's the one major drawback to the eastwood, no real option for a water cooled torch. That thing gets HOT when welding at 200 amps for a few minutes.
True that. That's where the Invertig comes in.
 
I'm not a pro welder but I'd suggest starting with oxy-acetylene or at least get your first lessons on it.
A lot of the skill set you learn with gas is transferable to any other type of welding.
Pat
 
pacomotorstuff said:
I'm not a pro welder but I'd suggest starting with oxy-acetylene or at least get your first lessons on it.
A lot of the skill set you learn with gas is transferable to any other type of welding.
Pat
You'll have an easier time learning on tig, and moving to oxy compared to vice versa, imo.
 
Mig is very easy to learn, I learned off a few youtube videos and practice with a Lincoln 140. In short, if you are observant, this falls into the learn by doing category. Google and youtube can teach you almost anything these days ;D
 
I started with one of the harbor freight flux welders, they do work and can lay a decent bead. You really need to get better wire for them though, the harbor freight wire is junk. But I upgraded to a hobart 140 with a bottle and wow, so much easier to get good welds. Never want to do flux wire again. But I do want to learn TIG as well, part of it is saving up for a welder.
 
jag767 said:
Mig is very easy to learn, I learned off a few youtube videos and practice with a Lincoln 140. In short, if you are observant, this falls into the learn by doing category. Google and youtube can teach you almost anything these days ;D
+1

I’ve learned more from YouTube than my $250k top tier education ever did for me.

I think tig is really the way to go... but if you do go mig, stay away from flux core and go straight to a gas setup... you can get infinitely better beads with gas on your mig, and good quality wire. I used a cheap HF flux mig to learn on and as soon as I got behind a gas mig my beads were a million times prettier. But now I want tig and I really wish I had just gotten one of those Eastwoods from the beginning.


Sent from my iPhone using DO THE TON
 
SONIC. said:
That's the one major drawback to the eastwood, no real option for a water cooled torch. That thing gets HOT when welding at 200 amps for a few minutes.
I was looking for a new torch for my Eastwood this morning, with a flexible head on it. Stumbled across a guy on eBay named usaweld. He sells a water cooling system for the Tig200.
 
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