welding?

[Jafxod]

The difference is so night and day , everyone should have to weld atleast once with flux core, just so you can truly appreciate how much nicer it is with the gas.

truth

My good machine is in my basement becuase thats the only place i have 220v so sometimes in the garage I have to use this shitty fluxcore machine my buddy gave to me a while back to tack stuff until I can bring it downstairs.

[flyboyx]

to confuse you more, i say consider all the things you may want to weld during the life of the machine's use in your hands.

if you only need to join mild steel, then mig is a great choice.

if you plan to do aluminum or even stainless steel, the tig is the way to go. in general, you will spend 2x more for a good tig, but you can weld ANYTHING as long as its metal, yes, brass, bronze, aluminum, mild steel, stainless......the list goes on and on. welding stainless or aluminum with a mig really, really sucks. with a tig, you can hardly tell the difference(almost). once you learn to tig, you can make pretty, pretty welds with it. there is just so much more control of the weld over what you have with the mig process. the disadvantages of tig are much higher initial cost and also the welding process is about 8x slower. also, you have to be coordinated enough to have both hands performing a different task while your foot controls the amperage pedal.

i have both machines. my mig is a 250 amp airco that is like 20 years old. it has a really nice tweeco 15' gun. i bought it really cheap because it didn't weld very well. i replaced the gun and it is now perfect. my tig is a 30+year old 310 amp miller. i can weld very heavy or very light pieces together with both machines, but my tig,because of its age, is absent of all the bells and whistles of the newer machines. i miss having arc balance for welding aluminum. also, it lacks square wave technology which would be nice on occasion. the tig actually requires an 80 amp 220v circuit, but i run both machines on a 60 amp breaker. i keep 3 different types of gas on hand with a spare bottle for each. for the tig, i use helium or argon. for the mig, just plain old standard c25.

if i were in a position to choose only one type of welder, for my purposes, i would choose the tig. it is 10x more versatile than wire feed machines.

coming up on the horizon, i am planning to stitch in m3 (coupe) quarter panels on the vert in my signature. (vert m3 quarters are nla) this could be accomplished with a mig of course, but i will certainly use the tig on that one. this decision is due to the fact that i am not a body shop worried about time and production. i am concerned about control and pretty welds with will require pretty much no grinding when i am done. an inch at a time, there will be one continuous bead all the way across the top of the panel.

[Vtec?lol]

^truth!
I have a HF mig and flux core is retarded and a waste of time. It's excellent for tack welds however and will cut the cost of gas but I absolutely love a tig! It was hard at first because you have to realize what angle your holding the torch and the rod in both hands while controlling the current with the pedal. pretty tricky but very rewarding when you get the hang of it.