Repco catalogue welders

[ozscott]

I bought some magnets from your Eagle Farm store a while back. Nice gear in there including some nice TIGS. I had a look at the mezanine that had been welded up from memory by one of the MIGs that you had for sale.

Cheers

[Roughasguts]

Thanks Owen, that all makes sence re the bottles.
So what sort of dollars would you think FNQ, or me self would be looking at to set us up with a good package that wouldn't disapoint us and give good welds.

Also what models brands welding wires Etc would be very helpfull.

[blaze]

Hi RAG
3 to 5 g IMO for a good pulse mig
cheers
blaze

[Owen]

RoughAsGuts,
Blaze's figures are realistic.

It depends on what you want to do & what your budget is.
Do you have 3 phase power available?

As rule of thumb if you stick to a name brand - be it Lincoln, Cigweld, WIA etc, and get the biggest machine you can afford above 220 amps then you will have something you can do reasonable work with.
Minimum spend about $1400 and don't be shocked if you end up at $3000

You don't need pulse. It's good, but not necessary.

2nd hand is a good option if the machine is not too old and you know what to look for. Expect to have to spend money on a new gun, gas lines etc though.

An AC/DC TIG will start at about $4500
If you have 415V power then an old "pie warmer" can be picked up for as little as $1,000 in good working order. I cut my teeth on these and I still have a soft spot for them.

Brands of welding wires is a personal thing and depends on how you set the machine up.
For steel it doesn't make a huge difference, although wires made in Italy, New Zealand, Australia, Turkey & Korea generally feed better.
Some of the stuff coming out of China is good and some is crap. Same for Malaysia.

In ally you have to set the machine up to suit the wire you use.
Some wires are "double shaved" to give them very consistant diameter, but this in turn makes them softer & harder to feed reliably.
Brands such as Lincoln, Cigweld, Safra are all fine if set up correctly.

No matter what anyone tells you, DO NOT use 0.9mm alloy wire in a standard MIG setup. 1.0mm is the smallest that will feed reliably without a push-pull gun setup (add $2,000 + ). I can't speak for all boat buliders, but I know what we sell to the major Queensland manufacturers and NONE of them use 0.9mm

The secret with ally is preparation, proper setup and care of you equipment. There are NO shortcuts.

[notsa]

I don`t know if some of you remember the dillon mk 3 oxy&acetylene torch,I have seen coke cans cut in half and welded up again with no distortion. Hav not seen one for years probably old hat now.

[harlequin]

welded in construction for 15 yrs got dli tickets up to including 7 dont do it much now only to repair me ally boat when i split the hull from wave jumpin when i dont catch fish which seems to be most of the time now. all the advice is good on here stick welding does have its place it is brilliant for out of position welding overhead vert up etc. and most repairs on me ally hull are overhead with a mig and it is hard to say the least burnt to buggry even with protective clothing ally dross just seems to burn more deeply than steel . cellulose rods run better with moisture in em we used to wet em low hyd hate all moisture and gp should be dry if you wanna weld galv try satin craft 12 or 13 ? the last two digits on a welding rod give you the type of rod low hy are 16 & 18 general purpose GP 12& 13 cellulose root run rods burn in fizzy sticks 10 &11 the first two give you tensile strength in mpa 42 for most 48 for low hy . my hull is only 3.5 mm thick all over sides & self draining deck so i use 200 amp transmig with upgraded 200amp bernard gun 0.9 mm wire as i use it to repair welds arnt long production runs so dont hurt the duty cycle . mig has three tranfer modes dip globular and spray ally uses two dip and spray and 99% is done in spray which takes place at 180amp and above thios is why 250amp machine is recommended & why tig is recommended below 3mm thick ally. most influence on any weld pool is the length of the arc gap whether stick or mig short arc gap gives colder weld pool largeer will give you hotter you will constantly change you gap as you weld as yuo will your travel speed have a go you will love it the concentration needed on the weld pool will put yuo in a world of ya own and tyou will get scarred to buggery as a bonus

[Roughasguts]

Thanks guy's you information and knowlege is usefull and unfortunately made me think.

So come to think of it my welding is not as good on me last big job when I used my trailer as a jig. I set my frame work for me Bi-fold 3.5 metre gate on that.

The welds where good where I clamped my work, but then I used the magnets as clamps, these welds where dificuilt to get a weld on both bits of clamped metal, seemed to weld only one side of the join ???? Is this cause of the Magnets negatively pushing the weld away ?????

Some one mentioned invertor welders oppsite polarity charge Or something, so has me magnets got something to do with bad adhesion ????. From memory I left the magnets on for the run, and maybe they should only be there until tacked.

The clamped welds from memory where better and didn't need chasing out with the grinder.

The other thing, am I less likely to blow a hole with the arc closer to the job, than my natural tendency to lift the rod away from the weld when I hear it starting to blow through. So should I keep the Arc in close ??

Sorry for all the questions, really wan't to be better at welding than what I am.

Guess I can't recognise what I did right for a good weld, and fall back in to the habit of doing it wrong and get ordinary weld.

If I ever master Arc welding, then I will spend some bigger bucks and get a good universal set up.

[blaze]

when welding you need to watch the molten pool and redirect this pool by moving the rod/angle of mig/ direction of heat source of tig. So if you are only bonding to one side it means that by the time the molten pool reaches that side it has cooled down, in bigger gaps you may need to build a bridge of molten pool across to your other peice of steel. I find it easier to bridge gaps doing vertical up welds weaving my way up. Love using low hydrigen rods and my all time favorite would be welding cast, have sat and played for hours repairing cast housing. The thing I hate most is over head welds and burns. The more you play with a welder the better you will get. I also get very ordanary with a stick if I havnt touched one for a while so often is better
cheers
blaze

[Hamish73]

The welds where good where I clamped my work, but then I used the magnets as clamps, these welds where dificuilt to get a weld on both bits of clamped metal, seemed to weld only one side of the join ???? Is this cause of the Magnets negatively pushing the weld away ?????

no, nothing like that. You must have welding the joint differently, from a different angle etc etc

Some one mentioned invertor welders oppsite polarity charge Or something, so has me magnets got something to do with bad adhesion ????.

reverse polarity is only used when migwelding with flux cored wire, or when TIG welding. If your arc welder is the old heavy style, your output will be AC output, therefore there is no such thing as reverse polarity anyway.

The other thing, am I less likely to blow a hole with the arc closer to the job, than my natural tendency to lift the rod away from the weld when I hear it starting to blow through. So should I keep the Arc in close ??

a stick welder is 'constant current' , so the current should be the same regardless of your arc length. Having said that, the more arc length you have, the higher the arc voltage will be, which will mean there will be more heat in the weld.

[ozscott]

I reverse the polarity on my DC invertor stick/TIG depending on what Im doing. You can chose to get more grunt to the job or the stick that way. Also some rods have different polarity and you need to change to suit.

Cheers