Buying a welder.

[Greg Mitchell]

You Blokes Are Messing With My Head! ??? ;D ;D ;D

[GraemeMonro]

You Blokes Are Messing With My Head! ??? ;D ;D ;DDoesn"t take much.Graeme.

[asra]

Just to add more confusion,I am aware of some fuselage structures in production that are fully mig welded, as well as seat frmes for certified aircraft.Mind you these are being constructed in a work shop where gas shielding isn"t being blown away.So I guess the moral of the story is if you are using a mig and want good results, DONT DO IT IN THE PADDOCK.Using small wire may necesitate the need for a dual drive roller, often the single driven rollers slip and cause all sorts of problems.My bottom line is to suggest gassles mig, but get a good one, preferably with a dual drive roller followed by doing all your welding in a sheltered workshop.Ausmig, Kemppi, Migomag and even Boc are a reasonable place to startHave alook at

[Ken Watson]

Nup, haven"t tried that wire but will now. I still think gas is the go but I think we have to keep the $ relevant in this situation. I have had 2 Unimig 240, and both have worked great and cost about $1200. Had a Kempii and a cig but weren"t as good, although these are cheap to buy s/h. Go and try your friends 1st to see what you feel is best. Ken

[gyroo]

Hi Greg,I"ve been working with chrome-moly for about 5 years now, in either 1/2, 5/8 or 3/4 inch diameter with wall thicknesses of either .035", .049" or .058".I agree with the previous posts that TIG is better than MIG (MIG results are usually somewhat coarser than TIG). I also agree with the previous posts that accurate cutting and notching is very important. For notching, I use a tube notcher from SpeedWerx is Shepparton. It uses normal Sutton hole saws. My general comment about chrome-moly wall thickness is that you shouldn"t go thinner than .035" because the wall thicknesses ibelow that (.025 or .028) dent too easily and tend to blow out too easily in welding. Anything thicker than .049 is quite unnecessary for gyro frames.I"d reckon that the usual diameter and wall thickness you"d be working (for gyro use) is 5/8 inch with .035 wall thickness.Although I can gas and electric weld in the various types, I don"t do it frequently enough to get really top quality welds every time.Accordingly, my particular solution was to do all the cutting, notching and jigging myself, then tack weld with a Henrob 2000 oxy/acet then take the whole frame to professional TIG welders. Perhaps the tacking would better have been done with a small TIG unit because TIG you sometimes get spluttering when doing a TIG run over gas tacks. If the gas tacking is none neatly, however, this is not a problem. The reason I used oxy/acet to tack was principally was because it was close-to-hand in the workshop and I have a lot of experience with it - hence I can do really neat small tacks with no risk of overheating.Given that any normal gyro frame shouldn"t involve too much welding anyway, perhaps you might consider sending you work to professionals? It"s well worth it - the TIG welding on my "gyroo" frame is an absolute work of art (and from that I derive "peace of mind", in that it"s the best it can possibly be).Cheers,Mark (Gyroo) Melbourne

[Greg Mitchell]

Thanks Ken, Mark and all.Ken is right about keeping the price realistic. I guess I"d be willing to spend around $500-600 but I would need to put in a requisition form to the wife on that one.The SIP Gasless 100 Weldmate is around $270 at the moment and alledgedly is made in Italy and gets a full 12 months warranty, so I was leaning towards that as a starter unit.Sounds like you are a man of many talents councellor. Thanks for the imput. Gra Gra......it dont take much these days Mate. ;D Some of the welding would be gyro related but mostly I wanted something to play with whilst we construct our own dog runs, fences and kennels....which leads me to an accident I had last night whilst trying to help "Harley" the Japanese Akita Inu puppy. Look for it under Nick"s not what to do thread.Cheers Gents and Thankyou all.Mitch.

[Disco]

Pretty sure that those Japanese Akita"s gro to about 80 kgs.

[Ken Watson]

The Sip is one of the ones i"ve got. Useless as tits on a bull. No amp control except high and low. Wire is always active and trigger only starts and stops wire feed. Wire is on little tiny reels and is expensive. We roll little reels off our big ones. Your best investment is an auto lens to fit a standard CIG helmet. The lenses fit a standard helmet and cost about $90. They are much better than the fancy auto big screen helmets. The sip welds will not be structurally sound no matter who the operator

[Greg Mitchell]

Thanks Ken. I am on standby till the funds allow for something like you suggest. Will be in Sydney for a week, so will hit the big tools shops there and see what sort of deal I can do. Cheers,Mitch

[asra]

MitchThere is a large discount tool shop in Mascot, on the main street. Think its called Afjays or something, in the past they have had good deals on welders.Good LuckRoss

[Greg Mitchell]

Thanks Ross.If Afjays, is on or near Botany Road, it will be added to my list of shops to visit. I will be having a good look at the Alexandria shop of Sydney Tools, who also have a website and claim to be the biggest deliverer of quality trade and industrial stuff, so I"m going shopping.........I guess I might have to put that requisition form in after all. Good thing I kinda covered it with the "boss" this morning. Cheers Mate.Mitch.

[MechFx]

Vijays power tools (heaps of gear squashed into a tiny shop).is about 400m down the road from Sydney tools. (tons of gear in a huge shop)I wouldn"t buy a gas-less (only) Mig. bit of a waste of money.you can always run gasless wire through a normal mig if you dont want to hire bottles."Welders Supplies" is also nearby for a comparitive quote. I know most of the guys there.gas-less welding leaves Slag behind like a stick welder. real pain to clean up. You wouldn"t be happy with the results. Good for welding galvanised steel though (fence posts etc)Art

[Greg Mitchell]

Art,Looks like I"m going to drag you out with me to see if I cant get a good deal.I ran Sydney Tools for a price on that SIP 100 weldmate and they quoted $280, just as an excersise. I informed the chap that Thrift Link Hardware stores had dropped the reg price to $270 for Fathers day catalogue. "Oh really, let me see, yeah we can do that for $240."As you say and I"m convinced by many gasless only is not the way to go. The SIP 150 MIG/MAG they wanted $520....I think the Cigweld 135 is around that price.Now Ken has got me interested in Tig, Stick, Mig, 200 amp inverter unit up around $700 for the basic set up, more money to spend to get it all happening.Call you tomorrow arvo Art.Mitch.

[Greg Mitchell]

I got to Vijays and Sydney Tools as advised about 400 yards apart...Salesmen in each were advised of my needs and guess what!

[maulonir]

G"day Greg,I don"t think you could go to far wrong with that welder. Price looks alright as well.Rob