Which welder?

[AJT]

Hi All,

Any advice on which welder to buy? - £300 budget. It's for car use (I own a moggy and a spitfire).

Thanks
Alan

[nam]

I'm on the lookout for a welder right now as well. Others will advise better but the Clarke Gas welders seem to get mentioned a lot as good kit.

[graham1957]

hi, i have been using the clarke pro 90 welder with a twin gauge regulator and use pub gas in bottles about 2 feet tall, i have rebuilt several cars including a series 3 land rover with a rotten chassis.the 3mm thick landy chassis was a challenge but with the edges veed and butt welded good neat welds were achieved. my mot man often comments on my quality welds.hope this helps

[rogerowen]

Hi All,

Any advice on which welder to buy? - £300 budget. It's for car use (I own a moggy and a spitfire).

Thanks
Alan

I've got the Clarke EN90 which basically has the same controls as the Pro90- meaning you only have 4 preset power positions. It's the only thing I don't like about it, as I'm often looking for a setting somewhere between 3 and 4. With your budget you should be able to find a more powerful machine with more variable settings. My advice would be to ask the same question on www.migwelding.co.uk, it's an excellent forum and you'll get very sound advice from the pros.

[nam]

Here is an article I came across and really helped me to understand welders.

http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/clarke-90.htm

Agree with Roger about getting one with a bit more power as more is always better than less. I'm looking to get a Clarke 151TE at the moment.

[rogerowen]

Yes, Clarke TE151 looks good. Even better may be the Clarke TE160, may be going a bit over budget - but it has the advantage of larger size regulator. Sorry, I missed the hyphen;

www.mig-welding.co.uk

[DAVE LOVELL]

Hi
Get the most professional and powerful you can afford.....hobby ones and especially gasless ones are to be avoided in my humble opinion (mig welding for 35 years now ).If you can run to a decent AC/DC Tig you'll be even better off,but you'll have to pay over budget.Avoid apparently cheap Chinese models...no good in the long run.Argoshield 95% works much better than CO2 for thin metal...get a fill only bottle (deposit only ) rather than very expensive account bottle.30 mins with an experienced welder will save you hours of experimenting..absolute cleanliness of the metal is the key to success !Enjoy!Dave.

[AJT]

Thanks All.

There is a Clarke 135TE for sale near me. These appear to be a slightly more upmarket version of the 90 and have good reviews so I'm going to take a look.

Alan

[estwdjhn]

If you must buy a hobby welder(and sadly, that's all your budget reaches to), a Clarke is probably the best bet - I did a LOT of welding with my old 151 box before it finally blew up. Go gassed, and use bottled gas rather than disposable cartridges, it's cheapest in the long run, and gives easily the best results. Go for as much go and as many settings as you can afford - welding with six power positions (as per the 151) isn't too bad, with two (as on some of the bottom end sets) is near impossible! This is particularly true on thin steel work, as you need enough power to get good penetration, without so much as to blow holes right through.

Then practice a lot on scrap metal (bit's cut out of rusty area's of your car are always good!) before attempting to weld the actual car - you can just throw bits of scrap in the bin, if you mess the car up, you will spend hours grinding back for attempt 2.

If your looking for bottled gas with cheap or low bottle rentals, look for agents of Hobbyweld, Freshfords, Adams Gas or Handygas - they all supply single small sized bottles at fairly affordable rates.

[Matt]

I have a cebora TurboMig 130 (also branded as snap on) which I got barely used (still on its original spool of wire, only 20% gone) for £250. Best welder I have used!