Hello from me.

[Bigjoe]

Hi everyone,
I followed a link from car mechanics magazine forum,its nice to find a site thats beginners/novice orientated,im Joe 28 from the scottish borders although originally from south east london,i used to do a great deal of welding and fabrication restoring/modifying cars and bikes and also for my former employer which included mild steel,stainless and aluminium using MIG & TIG welding mainly,but i have'nt done much welding the last few years since i moved north and im currently unemployed ,marvellous!!

 

[malcolm]

Hi Joe, welcome to the forum.

Thought this site would be best targeted towards beginners as I don't have the skill of a pro. Getting a lot better though through advice and ideas in the forum though.

Are you planning to get back into the welding business or do something completely different? My family live near Dundee but I moved south to find a job. Although jobs seem dull and I've given them up. Now I'm just a mercenary doing anything that pays money.

With your experience of MIG and TIG, is it worth spending a grand on a TIG set just for the sake of really nice looking welds on thin stuff, and does aluminium suddenly become controllable with a TIG? I can do pretty much what I need with MIG, but I'm still very tempted to go TIG.

 

[Bigjoe]

Hi Malcolm,
Although MIG is a good general process,TIG gives a much superior weld appearance (in practised hands) and gives much less heat distortion when welding thin sheet and light sections,you need to spend at least £1000 to get a reasonable AC/DC unit if you want to weld non ferrous ie aluminium,titanium etc,or you may be able to pick one up secondhand from a business closing etc.
I personally would always use a Tig over a Mig where possible,and in the case of bodywork Tig welds are much softer as if you fit the panels well before welding all you do is fuse the metal without adding filler,but Mig adds filler as it welds which makes the weld very hard and difficult to planish flat before finishing.
Im thinking about going back into custom fabrication maybe,as my main passion is anything vehicle/engineering related,so who knows what may happen.
Hope that helps,if you want to know anything else ill try and help.

 

[Bigjoe]

Sorry,you asked about aluminium becoming uncontrolable with Tig,any process used on aluminium is difficult because mild steel,stainless and cast iron change colour as the heat up but aluminium does'nt it just becomes shiny and then blows through! it takes alot of practise to weld aluminum neatly and with good penetration,my ally welding skills would'nt be very good now as i have'nt done it for a while.
I can bore you for hours about different polarities and various tungstens if you have trouble sleeping!

 

[malcolm]

Mmmmmm, you have me even more tempted with the TIG thing now. I should imagine it is easy enough to pick up with lots of practice on scrap bits, and the finish of the TIG welds I've seen is very desireable. Just the initial £1000 being a bit of a barrier. Anyone want to donate an AC TIG?

Must be some work in custom fabrication. Especially if you can settle into a niche that you like then get the word around.

 

[Bigjoe]

I hope to be able to get something going soon,i just live in a small border town where the average age is about 75! Im looking at moving somwhere a bit more active soon,with regards to the Tig debate,if you can practice you can produce some very good results,do you have access to 3 phase electricity,if you do then dont overlook some of the secondhand industrial units that come up for sale as they may look old and crusty but they still weld 100 times better than alot of cheaper units on the market today,and then you get another choice of starting processes.........between lift start,scratch start and high frequency start.

 

[malcolm]

3 phase would be good, but we're in the middle of nowhere and were quoted about £10,000 to have it put in. Pity as there are some real bargains in 3 phase equipment on eBay.

 

[Bigjoe]

Maybe try and pick up a 3 phase generator or you can get a step up transformer but im not sure how they compare price wise.

 

[Highway_Star]

Greetings to another inhabitant of the frozen North!

Macl, a 3 phase rotary convertor perhaps?

If you're in the middle of no place I'm amazed you don't already have 3 phase, and just don't know it. Have you got a step down tranny up a pole on your property someplace? It's pretty uncommon for the network people to run single phase HV, and there is a fairly short limit to how far they can run 240v. Most farms will have one or more big trannys on a pole, it's quite common for one phase to fail, so the network guys just switch you over to another while they sort it out.

I must be the jammiest bloke alive when it comes to 3 phase. We moved house in November last year. In the leccy cupboard in our new (old) house, there are, yup, 4 cables, 3 phases and a neutral Now while we were renovating the place, we ran a cable to the garage, wire armour underground. 4 core cable conveniently. I've already been on the leccy people about going 3 pahse in my garage, they werent' keen, but once I'd explained why I wanted it to them, they were happy enough. Haven't done it yet, but I can Like you said, 3 phase kit is dirt cheap on Ebay, I guess because few people can use it. All the better for those of us who can.

 

[Hitch]

Yes, the old units are fantastic, we bought one at work, a BOC Transtig 350 water cooled. In great condition, all for £650!!
Maybe a bit big to go in an average garage though