Greetings from 'Up North'

[FjerrFjerrson]

Good evening to you all!

My name is Simon (aka Fjerr) and I reside up north in the lovely County Durham region. I'm relatively new to the welding scene - my knowledge includes "trying my hand at stick welding a couple of times at school over 10 years ago", and recently completing a 6 week "Introduction to [mig] Welding and Assembly" course at my local Learning Curve Skills Centre (A free course if you are currently unemployed and in receipt of certain benefits). This was just a bit of a time-filler whilst I look for new work, but it was very enjoyable and I'd love to take it to a more serious level one day if I can figure out what route to take and how to get there.

In order to take up a new hobby and develop my skills to try and take things further, I saved up my pennies and bought myself a Wolf Mig 140 Gas/Gasless welder - which I have just taken delivery of today and am in the process of setting it up. Sure, maybe not the most popular choice but I'm on a budget and wish to stick to Mig. It does have some good reviews however so I remain hopeful!



Anywho, I'm sure i've sent you to sleep with my life-story so I'll leave it there. No doubt I'll continue to bore around the boards once I find my feet and settle in.

 

[Sub-arc]

Hey Simon.

Welcome to the forums

Plenty of great advice and problem solving to be had around here. Don't be afraid to ask Q's.

 

[cumbriasteve]

Welcome to the forum.

There appears to be a few new members purchasing Wolf machines lately, which as you have stated are not the most popular on the forum, although there may be a new model release which has improved on the one I owned 3 years ago.....so

Will be interesting to see how you get on with it, perhaps a nice written review with pictures once you have had some practice, always helpful for others.

 

[Wedg1e]

Now then Simon, there are a few of us on here from around here (I'm over in Stockton)

 

[FjerrFjerrson]

Hey Guys, thanks for the welcomes - muchly appreciated.

@Wedg1e: I just had a quick nose at the forum members list and it would seem that there are quite a few people from the region. Pretty cool to see!

@cumbriasteve: Sounds like a plan, I'll get on it as soon as I get set up and laying down some weld. However, slight hold-up... turns out the valve was dodgy in the provided CO2 cylinder and it emptied itself all over the garage. However, turns out the forceful ejection of CO2 sheared off the tiny pin inside the regulator that presses down on the pin in the cylinder valve... so no gassy welding with my Argon/CO2 mix cylinder just yet. In UKHS's defence (company who I bought the welder from through Amazon), they said they would send a new cylinder and regulator straight out after a quick call to their tech support. When I get my backside in gear, I'll get myself along to BOC to discuss real cylinders... I've been eyeing up the small 2ltr Argoshield Light cylinder, as the price seemed pretty reasonable (for the amount of welding i'll be doing).

 

[BrenM]

I'm in the frozen North too. In what was the steel town 30 years ago. Had a BOC account for years, finally got sick of being ripped off for hobby use gas. O/A first then Argoshield, now use Hobbyweld from Dixons of Westerhope.