Welders

[profiler]

Hi,

I am looking at buying a welder and would like to know whether a Mig, Tig or oxy welder would be the best for restoring a rusty FC.

Thanks

Geoff

[mcl1959]

Depends on your skill level and what you are used to.  I quite like Oxy as I can weld the thinnest material with it and the weld is easily filed and shaped afterwards.  Others prefer mig because of its ease of use but the weld is hard to work with.  Tig is also good but is a more expensive rig and slightly harder to use.

This probably doesn't help you much.

Regards  Ken

[fccool59]

alot of people do resto's with mig, mig is faster and easy to pick up I am using mig but i wont do this kind of thing again with mig, i am doing alot of custom stuff and with the mig welds they are brittle, if you get a shape wrong you cant just try and use a hammer and dolly or bend the weld or you end up with little cracks wich will spread later, you also have to do alot of grinding. if you are just welding in replacement rails, sills etc but mig should be fine but if i do another custom i will get oxy.
just a tip, if you do go mig, try to buy a local made welder rather than a italian made welder.

[Ed]

some additional info…

MIG is easier to learn and you can achieve good welds in a short time.  It can do body work and structural work (eg chassis etc).  there is a high set up cost: MIG, regs and ongoing cost of 1 gas bottle.

OXY as Ken and Leon stated is probably the better choice for body work, however time spent learning is much longer.  You can do body but not weld structure (no chassis work). There is a lower set up cost (unless you go for a Henrob) x2 regs and ongoing cost of 2 gas bottles.


TIG unless you plan to alloys etc, the cost is probably not justified, but it could do all of the above.  high set up cost, high learning time but a versatile machine giving you the best welds.

Personally I have used MIG and oxy (henrob).. the Henrob took ages to learn how to use, and I’m not really very good or proficient with it.  I have sent back my gas bottles now as the $300 a year was better in  my pocket.

You can achieve excellent MIG welds on all body work with a lot of care taken to panel fit up prior to welding.  From my experience, (sheet work) if there’s greater than a 1- 2mm gap don’t bother MIG welding it, it will pull in and distort.  Don’t put too much heat into your job either.  I just tack about evenly waiting a few minutes between rounds of tacking.  If you’re getting 100% panel penetration, then cracking is seldom an issue, unless trying to repair a badly distorted panel, or ground your weld too thin.

For the money MIG is a great general use machine.. you can also make trailers, shelves, racks, brackets, exhaust repairs….

hope this helps.

Cheers

Ed

[profiler]

Thanks everyone,

I think I will go Mig as this is the more a all round welder as I have both body and chassis work to do.