Welding for rust repair.

[Burnera]

(I know how to mig weld properly, and i've done more than a few metal projects building things. )

I don't have a proper garage at home, but i'm thinking about repairing my rust problems on the bmw myself. The car is not worth much now since the body is all messed up from other incidents.

To get to the point, would a 120v flux core mig welder work for body work, or is it crappy enough that one should not even bother and go for the better 220v and gas shielding?

http://www.harborfreight.com/welding/mig-flux-welders.html

[Mike The Bavarian]

the flux core welder will work fine if you know what you're doing, but of course the mig with gas is going to be much better. I'd opt for the 220v, just because it's accepts gas and It'd be useful to me. But if you really don't need that much power for sheet metal

[ortholithiation]

Buy a name brand welder. There are a bunch 120V with substantial amperage, that will do flux core and mig. For body work really you don't need 220V. You will use the lowest settings typically. I reccomend buying a used starter kit.

Flux core vs. Gas Mig is like night and day. Research yourself which is the best brand. This is a serious tool, so invest wisely and it will take care of you when you need it.

[Mike The Bavarian]

^ truth.
I'd suggest a hobart mig/flux core welder. They're made in the same factory as miller and they're 10x better then the lincolns.

[Eecen]

Check out Eastwood too, I recently bought they're MIG135 kit, pretty good deal for ~$500 with a 3 year warranty.

http://www.eastwood.com/pro-welders

[dannysauer]

You'll kick yourself every time you try to use the Harbor Freight welder. It won't control the current well doing thin sheet metal; you'll be laying down lumpy welds when you're not burning through. It's pure crap.

I have a Firepower FP120 110v MIG that I'm quite happy with (shop around; you can often find deals which get the price down to $400-ish). I would've preferred to get a Miller, but this was a good balance between money spent and quality (it uses a Tweco gun (Firepower and Tweco are both parts of Thermadyne), so parts aren't hard to find). It came with the regulator for gas, but I use thin flux core wire. That does work ok on sheetmetal, but even with brand-name wire you still get a lot more spatter than you would with gas (and the gas tends to let you lay down a flatter weld). But if you're not in a garage / out of the wind, you'll have to use flux core anyway; much wind at all and your shielding gas is getting blown away instead of shielding. :)