Welding

[MoggyTech]

Now the proud possessor of a brand new MOT!
Anybody need any welding done?!

Well done

[whenisayjump]

Now the proud possessor of a brand new MOT!
Anybody need any welding done?!

Well done!

...and where did you say you were

[Orkney]

Had to share this as its sort of related - finally got off my backside and listed teh 3 camera lenses I didnt need, £99 buy it now 10 day listing on ebay earlier - UNBELIEVABLY sold in 1 hour 15 minutes

So thats me out getting a baby mig next week

[Alec]

Hello Orkney,

by all accounts do not buy a gasless MIG. If you must buy one get a gas type. I don't use a MIG myself but if you would like to look at this site there is a lot of valuable information.

http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/

Alec

[Orkney]

Cheers for the advice Alec, but gasless is the only way to go for me.
Getting gas is a problem and more expensive here, plus the fact that its generally so windy here that using a gasless outside bar maybe 5 days a year is a no no - you dont get a shroud to the weld because the wind removes it.
Would have gone for one of the gas/gassless ones for maybe later indoor stuff but dont have the money so the baby one will be fine for starters.
No excuse not to start ripping the body panels off of scabby now

[alex_holden]

You could always put up a windbreak if you have to do some welding out of the garage. Personally I find the disposable cylinders last quite a while (I know BigG will disagree).

[bigginger]

He does
a

[Orkney]

You could always put up a windbreak

puuting a carport on the side of the garage right now, wont be windproof though but will be big enough to roll the car and work under.

[dave1949]

Won't piggy help?
She'll make a superb wind break,or have you spoilt her too much to volunteer

[Orkney]

That things fast getting out of control LOL

[MoggyTech]

Won't piggy help?
She'll make a superb wind break,or have you spoilt her too much to volunteer

Not sure about a pig as a wind break, but I can certainly say they are prone to break wind.

[Packedup]

I spotted a "portable" gas welding kit somewhere online after reading this thread last night. Comes with a small bottle of oxygen and a small bottle of "Turbo gas" (or something like that). The blurb claims the O lasts 30 minutes and the "turbo gas" lasts 60 (or the other way round, can't remember now) to give an idea of the sizes. Bottles are about £15 each and the kit is around £120 (so that's £90 for the tiny trolley, regulators pipework and torch). It's no good for cutting apparently, but I was wondering if it might be worth it for welding? I'm not so sure about this gas welding malarky, but if I could stick metal together without needing a mains electric supply I'd be quite happy.

I'm also thinking about getting a cheap s/h generator for the mig (shouldn't need all that much power as it's a 100 amp and I never use full whack anyway, I reckon a 2kv should manage), but you can be sure a mig up at my tiny garage will raise more complaints than bottles of explosive gas...

[Orkney]

Can see the appeal of that small gas kit - but thats £45 an hour to run ! if its no good for cutting then might be too small to be practical for welding?

Genny's & welders ..... have some experience of this.
Welders will fry a genny quite easily.

Used to have a welding fabricating company as one of the family businesses (so wish i'd spent time there and learned the art on reflection)
Did a lot of onsite fabrication etc. The main & best genset would blow at least once a year and that was a purpose built unit. Not to mention it was a ferociously noisy and dirty machine.
Have seen 2 or 3 smaller genny's killed by using a welder on them.

I have a 5kva honda powered petrol genny here (commercial duty not a domestic toy), mostly for incase theres no power for a long period of time. I have welded with it with my small stick welder, the odd gate hinge on a post or such.
As well as being very woried about toasting the genny, the thing ive noticed is that its pretty impossible to get the arc struck if your using the auto rev adjustment on the genny, so effectively have to crank the revs right up just to get going. Then the genny revs itself even higher.
So even on a quiet largeish machine its still noisy - so you might get problems with noise.

Dont know enough about it to say if this would differ with a mig, but with the stick it seems the biggest problem is getting the arc to strike - if genny is on tickover there isnt enough curent until it revs - so you end up with the rod stuck to your work.
So I'd assume thats where the maximum power is needed? If anyone can enlighten me on this i'd be really keen to find out how it works from that side of things.

[Spag]

Mig & portable genny. Not good.

[Spag]

Mike Rogers from the Landrover List, did quite a good series of vids on welding here, if its of any interest ...

http://www.expertvillage.com/video-seri ... elding.htm

[Alec]

Hello Packedup,

I have often sung the praises of oxy\acetylene both on this and other forums. I don't know about the small set you refer to but it is not generally cheap to buy conventional gas welding gear, although they do come up second hand.
If you have a workshop that gets a lot of use then there are so many things you can use it for, brazing, soldering (radiators) cutting thick gauge steel, freeing seized bolts, bending thick pieces of steel, or tube and so on.

Funnily, everyone comments on explosive gases but petrol tanks and fires don't mix either?

Alec

[whenisayjump]

Mike Rogers from the Landrover List, did quite a good series of vids on welding here, if its of any interest ...

http://www.expertvillage.com/video-seri ... elding.htm

Adequate facial hair, I trust this man!

*gets popcorn*

[Packedup]

Dont know enough about it to say if this would differ with a mig, but with the stick it seems the biggest problem is getting the arc to strike - if genny is on tickover there isnt enough curent until it revs - so you end up with the rod stuck to your work.

I end up with the rod stuck to anything and everything anyway when trying to arc weld! When it comes to noise my council type garage is a little bit away from houses, and I can always stick a genny at the back with a bit of something to help keep the noise down a bit more.

I'm not too worried about burning electrics out so long as it still works out cheaper than paying to get the jobs done! I reckon £100 or so should get a genny with theoretically enough grunt to keep up with a 90 or 100 amp mig, and even if it only lasts long enough for a couple of floors and a sill or two it's still a lot cheaper than paying for the job (and frankly I can't do any worse than certain local places).

I have often sung the praises of oxy\acetylene both on this and other forums. I don't know about the small set you refer to but it is not generally cheap to buy conventional gas welding gear, although they do come up second hand.
If you have a workshop that gets a lot of use then there are so many things you can use it for, brazing, soldering (radiators) cutting thick gauge steel, freeing seized bolts, bending thick pieces of steel, or tube and so on.

Funnily, everyone comments on explosive gases but petrol tanks and fires don't mix either?

I've done a little brazing quite a long time in the past, but have never gas welded which puts me off investing heavily (I don't have the heavy to invest which doesn't help) in that type of kit. Plus not having anything that could be considered a workshop at present means a proper set would be overkill, and utterly against the rental terms (I'm already pushing it somewhat!). A portable kit should come in under the various restrictions, and looks small enough to tuck away pretty much anywhere anyway

Bottles let go with a hell of a bang from what I've been told (by first hand witnesses) whereas petrol tanks tend to let out a bit of a whoomph (at least the ones I've seen did), but both are less than good! So long as there isn't a fire already flickering around to cause a bottle or tank to go I don't see there's any more risk with a bottle, and probably less. But paper pushers don't see it that way - A couple of years ago I was trying to push for welding to be allowed at a place where on the same site there was a wood fire in a wooden shed full of wood. The fire had been OK'd for years, whereas my proposal of mig welding in a brick building with a concrete floor was turned down, due to fire risk...

[Orkney]

Just ordered the cheapy flashy welding mask ! Will let you all know what £28 delivered gets you as soon as it arrives.
Going to gove the stick welder the once over today, cables need sorting as they have frayed at the joints.
Weekend will be practice time, cant wait to see the difference the mask will make to using the sticky.

Hopefuly order the baby mig by the end of the week, still havnt been able to find a cheaper one than screwfix, but am going to the 2 main tool places later in the week, if they have one slightly dearer will do some good old fashioned haggling

Have a question about baby gasless, anyone know how much weld you can expect to get from one of the rolls of wire? This would be 0.8mm wire and assume the roll is 0.5kg

[Spag]

Test the weldy mask by taking a flash photo of your face, and see how quick it darkens (the mask, not your face- we are not after a David Dickinson 'microwave' tan... PING - and the tan is done...)

Rolls of wire - never enough - always have a spare!!!

I guess that mig will only take the ickle rolls?

With a bit of cunning you can arrange for an external roll feeding the wire to the guide through a bit of washer hose, then weld up a stand and friction brake for 5kg rolls.

beware, the wire will play the 'clock spring game and try to escape !