Arc Welding

Hi Guys

I'm not a welder but knew many coded welders who work on the North Sea. Its an incredible skill, akin to be an artist with a sketch pad. Some can draw , others will never make it.

However, none of us will be welding gas pipelines subject to rigourous Xray inspection and skill testing every 6 months

There are cheap welding Xformers about for £50 but I am told these are rubbish at holding a steady current , so your bead is rubbish too.

When I owned a Kobelco crawler excavator 20 tonner, I invested in a diesel welder made by Yanmar, 200A DC. I remebered from my ech days that when we studied dc generators, welding type were remarkable in sustain a constant current as the volts dropped from 80 oc to full weld. That made welding for rough mechanics fairly easy (even me)

But I guess that technology has moved on considerably so I wondered what you would have in you small workshop. I want to be able to weld bicycle tube for example

Cheers

Robin

Cycle tube sets are quite thin and sometimnes heat treated so you really want Tig to weld it, failing that lugs and silver solder or smooth fillet brazing. You will also find that until your joints are approved you are unlikely to be able to purchase a lot of teh tubesets as the companies don't want any T,D or H making a bad frame and giving their products a bad name.

J

Mig or tig

But not the cheapy ones sold on the high street, go for a small industrial one as second hand these can be cheap, i got a migtronic 180a mig for less than £200 a few years ago and its been used for everything from car repairs to motorcycle frames.

Tig again ex indutrial mine cost £180 , and came with an arc lead as well as the tig torch, absolutely wonderful for arc

for bike tubes i would go with mig as this can be picked up quicker if you havent welded much, but if you have experiance in gas welding then tig is easier to pick up as your hands can already move a torch and feed in a rod

if you go mig or tig dont buy the silly little disposable bottles as the cost of welding rised sharply using them, buy a bottle from air liquide expensive for the first one but after that no rental charges just refil, lastly mig spares are dirt cheap for industrial migs and tigs, so theres a big saving over hobby machines