Arc Welder

Know nothing about welding, never touched a welder in my life. Need to weld a scraper blade, 1/4" thick. No that I need a arc welder, and it creates a circuit, one end grounded anywhere on the piece your working on and the other making the "spark". What should I be looking at for my first welder. I figure I'm young enough, 18, to start welding as I'm probably going to have lots to do through out my life time. What do you use for the weld? What can I use to heat the 1/4 inch steel up so I can bang it out and then weld it? I know it's quite the art to master, but I'm not that picky as long as it works. Thanks for your time.

Get some good, heavy-duty LEATHER (not cotton or canvas) gloves and use long sleeves. Imagine the worst sunburn you've ever had, then double it, that's what arc burns are like. I was tacking something once by just holding the rod, closing my eyes, tacking it and starting over. My eyelids were so burned it hurt to blink for days!

Try to find a second-hand Lincoln, they're decent quality, fair price and you can get parts if you ever need them (I haven't). I've even run mine off my 5500w generator, it works fine up to about 90 amps.

Kerry

Welding is one activity where going too cheap---or going cheap the wrong way---will almost certainly guarantee that you will decide you don't like welding. Get a used Lincoln buzzbox (tombstone) stick welder. They're always on sale on eBay for about $125 US. Wait until one is for sale withing driving distance of you. A new one costs about $240 US in Home Depot or equivalent. But it will last forever and could, conceivably, be the only welder you would ever need.

Stick isn't easy to learn to do right. It takes a ton of practice. Wire feed looks easier but it is also easier to make useless welds with it. Learn stick first and you will learn what a good weld should look like, and what it takes to get one. If you decide to go on to wire feed after that, you'll be a better wire feed operator for it.

By all means take a welding class from the local voc-tech or community college. You'll be able to use all types of welders, and better ones than you'll probably be able to afford for a long time. You'll get good instruction and lots of practice. You'll get lots of metal to weld on---something that can be a problem at home. Last, but definitely not least, you'll have the tools and equipment to do destructive testing on your welds. Taking a weld apart to see what it looks like on the inside is one of the best ways I know to find out what welding is really about. It's a lot of fun, too---all of it.

All the best, Stan

Thanks for the info. One thing, can you or someone else, tell me the difference between stick and wire feed? Thanks. Paul

Stick and wire feed are two different types of consumable electrode arc welding. The welding machine creates an electric arc at the tip of the electrode which melts the base metal of the work pieces which are being joined, and the electrode. The electrode provides filler metal.

Stick electrodes come in many sizes but the most common size for a home shop is 14" long and 3/32", 1/8", or 5/32" diameter. These electrodes are coated with a hard chemical flux which burns in the electric arc. The burning flux creates a gas which shields the molten metal to prevent it from being contaminated and weakened by atmospheric gases. The flux also cleans the molten metal of impurities and floats them to the top where they are locked into a hard shell as the flux cools. The stick electrode is held in a holder which has metal jaws that conduct the welding current to the uncovered metal end of the electrode.

Stick welding is the most familiar type of welding. It's what people usually think of when they think of welding.

Wire feed welding is more complicated mechanically. Wire from a reel is (usually) pushed through a cable with a nozzle-like gun at the end. The cable contains an electrical conductor which transfers current to the wire as it leaves the gun, and usually a hose to carry shielding gas to the end of the gun where it surrounds the arc to protect the molten metal from atmospheric gases. The wire electrode may be either solid or tubular flux filled. The flux filled wire is called flux core. Flux core wire removes the need for a tank of shielding gas (although it can be used with external gas shielding if desired.) Flux core would be chosen in situations like welding outdoors where the breeze might blow away shielding gas. Flux core welding is available in inexpensive wire feed welders because leaving out the mechanism for bottled gas delivery saves quite a bit of money.

As lengthy as this posting has become, it barely begins to scratch the surface of all the differences between these two types of welding. Why don't you check out a book on general welding from the library. The pictures, graphs, charts, and text will clear this up for you much better than words alone can do.

All the best, Stan

• Hobby farm

• Welder

I'd say that an experienced weldor with lots of time, an auto darkening helmet, and 1/16" rod MIGHT be able to get a decent weld on 1/4" plate with that piece of welding equipment. You would try it and think that welding was the most frustrating activity you'd ever engaged in. And I doubt if you could get a decent weld even if you were the most patient 18 year old on the planet.

One time I bought a $50 stick welder from Harbor Freight. I figured that if it didn't work well I'd only be out $50. The very first thing I found out when I tried it was that I was going to be out $50 if I didn't go get my money back right away. But you would lose that money because you have to pay the shipping both ways on that Speedway welder.

Here are some of the things that are wrong with low end welders:

1. "Air cooled" is another way of saying that there's no fan. This means that at the higher amperage settings the duty cycle will be as little as 10% or even 5%. A 5% duty cycle means that in a 10 minute period, you can only weld for a total of 30 seconds. If you exceed that duty cycle, a thermal overload breaker in the welder will trip and you'll have to wait for the machine to cool for it to reset. Every time it trips it becomes a bit more sensitive. Pretty soon it trips if you look at it and think the word "hot". (Just kidding.) A Lincoln buzzbox is rated at a 20% duty cycle at all settings but that's just so that Lincoln can say "We told you so" if you somehow managed to burn out one of their welders. Like most people, I never pay any attention to duty cycle when I weld with a Lincoln buzzbox and I've never had one shut down on me.

2. You would drive yourself nuts trying to weld with that welder or any similarly priced one unless you had an auto darkening helmet and 1/16" electrodes. With a standard helmet you have to lower the hood before you touch the electrode to the work to strike the arc. If the arc doesn't strike, or if it goes out, you have to raise the hood to reposition the electrode (stick) before you try again. If you're not experienced, or if the electrode is too big (generally anything larger that 1/16") or if you're using any one of the many types of electrodes that the machine doesn't handle (low open circuit voltage welders often only perform adequately with one type of electrode, or even with only one brand of one type of electrode; virtually no small AC welder will work well with 7018 rod) you'll be lifting that helmet time after time after time to establish an arc.

3. The smallest electrodes you can buy at normal prices are 3/32". Notice that this is 1/32" larger than 1/16". 1/16" and smaller are specialty electrodes which you won't find everywhere, and which generally cost 2 to 5 times as much as 3/32, 1/8, or 5/32. On the cheap Harbor Freight welder I owned for two days, only 1/16" electrodes (three were included) would hold an arc. I use a lot of 3/32" 6013 to work on thin gauge metal and it is SLOW.

For everything I tell you, there are ten more things I could tell you (if not 50) but I know you'll get bored, bewildered, discouraged, or all of the above. You really need to take a welding class. If you can't do that, read a book of welding fundamentals, or get a video from the library.

I've heard that all farmers used to think that welding was a temporary repair. If you do it wrong, it is. You'll never learn to do it right unless you get some instruction somewhere.

Good luck, Stan

• Ebay

I like the full apron that protects your neck, and chaps over the shoes, arm'ed vests, and high cuff gloves. Arc-burn is no fun. Get a decent fitting welders helmet too.. Some prefer flip up.. some prefer auto darken. Invest 3$ in a welders beanie too.. sometimes bits of slag jump up over your helmet. For standard arc welding equipment you will also want a wire brush and chipping hammer.

I'll add one more thing about stick vs wire. If situations where you can't prep metal the best.. arc welding is by far the most forgiving. In other words, if you have to make an emergency repair on a piece of equipment to get it moved, and it is a windy day and it has a rusty, painted over surface... a good hot buzzbox will burn thru and glue it together pretty good. might not be the best or best looking weld.. but it works. Compair that to a wire welder, and you will be lucky to start the arc thru thick paint, and the wind will blow your gas away.. will look like a chicken with an intestional infection sat there...

Soundguy