Tig welding outdoors?
Discussion
I have always fancied a tig welder just for wee hobby projects so now I'm going to get myself one, the question is how much to spend. If you can tig weld effectively outdoors welding automation motor brackets on to gates, and fabricating angled brackets to mount safety sensors and camera mounts on then I can spend up to say around £2500 and get a f
ker of a setup and my business will pay for it. If tig welding outdoors for those purposes is a non starter then my budget is around £500 so itll either be a hobby grade setup or a well used unit, as it will be paid for from my own pocket.
Anyone any experience in this? I currently run a big cem mig unit that I got for £50 from a bankrupcy auction, which to be hones I cant fault but tig welding produces a nicer weld with less distortion.
ker of a setup and my business will pay for it. If tig welding outdoors for those purposes is a non starter then my budget is around £500 so itll either be a hobby grade setup or a well used unit, as it will be paid for from my own pocket.Anyone any experience in this? I currently run a big cem mig unit that I got for £50 from a bankrupcy auction, which to be hones I cant fault but tig welding produces a nicer weld with less distortion.
Thats another thing to consider, the bigger tig welders can also stick weld, actually better for stick welding than my old 1980s stick welder.
Its my company so if it'll do the job I dont mind spending for quality, i have made do with cheap tools whilst bootstrapping the company, having the money to buy decent stuff now is awesome, Quality tools certainly make life easier and quicker.
The reason i mig is there is a lot of spatter with arc unless you grind the galv and powdercoating back a huge amount, whereas you can get away with a lot less grinding with the mig as its more focused and you get a tidyer weld my thinking is tig focusses the heat even better, the less galvanising and powdercoating I need to remove from my customers gates the better they will resist corrosion, once i'm done I spray them with cold galv primer and wurth metal paint but still, the less proper hot dip galv removed the better.
Its my company so if it'll do the job I dont mind spending for quality, i have made do with cheap tools whilst bootstrapping the company, having the money to buy decent stuff now is awesome, Quality tools certainly make life easier and quicker.
The reason i mig is there is a lot of spatter with arc unless you grind the galv and powdercoating back a huge amount, whereas you can get away with a lot less grinding with the mig as its more focused and you get a tidyer weld my thinking is tig focusses the heat even better, the less galvanising and powdercoating I need to remove from my customers gates the better they will resist corrosion, once i'm done I spray them with cold galv primer and wurth metal paint but still, the less proper hot dip galv removed the better.
Edited by OldGermanHeaps on Saturday 3rd February 18:20
OldGermanHeaps said:
Am i better sticking with mig for the gates then or moving to stick?
Yup, MIG is the one.Perhaps if I wanted to add a bracket of thin sheet metal I might get a neater smaller weld with a 2.5 stick. Grind off the zinc obviously.
If the brackets were non load bearing for lets say, proximity switches, magic eye etc, then I'd drill & tap; thus not disturbing the protective galv.
HTH
Paul G
E-bmw said:
You are better removing the galv from the whole area, when welding with it there it will give of Cyanide IIRC.
Zinc oxide. Not cyanide."Fume Fever is caused by inhalation of freshly formed metal oxide fume. Any fresh metal oxide can cause it but it is most frequently associated with zinc, from welding brasses, galvanized iron and steel, other alloys containing zinc and in some instances zinc rich primers and paints."
http://www.boc-gas.co.nz/en/sheq/welding-cutting-h...
Well, i comprimised. I got a £580 ac/dc tig welder/mma inverter/plasma cutter, a better torch for it, foot pedal and gas bottle and some better welding ppe and a varied selection of tungstens, fillers etc. Its a very nice machine to use, the plasma cutter is surprisingly powerful but still cuts very clean. Its taking a while to get the feel for all the settings but after a bit of trial and error it all clicks. It has a very wide range of control on the ac side, goes all the way up to 400hz and has a wide range on balance. Stick welding is so much nicer on an inverter based machine than a transformer based machine, i might look at an inverter mig.
Now i need a rusty car project to play with, anyone got a mk2 cavalier sri or astra gte valver they want to part with?
Now i need a rusty car project to play with, anyone got a mk2 cavalier sri or astra gte valver they want to part with?
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