Ho ho ho

[ms08]

Found my old SIP 140 a few weeks back and even better found the leads and some old rods do been meaning to have a go.
Found a spare five minutes today so had a quick play.
So much easier with a self darkening mask....probably had the juice up too high and only thin walled square section do blew a few holes but good fun and no gas to worry about.
Will get some new rod as the ones I have are about forty years old...lol

 

[PTvor]

Good that you exchanged the experience.

Arc has its attractions, but with 40 year old rods, probably not well kept, you weren't giving yourself much of a chance. You had fun doing it and without fun, what would life be? Mere existence.

You know them new fangled self-darkening masks are strictly for wimps? As for them inverter things, with a silky smooth arc, well anyone with an ounce of nous can weld with one of them. With new brand name rods, and an inverter and an auto darkening mask well, anybody roped in off the street could do it.

You've done this thing your way and anyone who argues otherwise has to first examine the faults in themselves. You don't judge Rembrandt; his works judge you. So it is with you and the buzzbox.

You were making a statement with welding with arc with a crappy old buzz box and 40 year old rods, and that not only asks, but demands, respect. Who would dare to argue with it? Anyway, you had fun doing it.

I think I'm getting too much into the Christmas spirit, so I'll stop this now.

 

[ms08]

Lol...just wanted to compare it to MIG which I have just started to play with.
I will get some rods and have a play and use where it is appropriate to support the MIG welding.
I know each has their place.

 

[PTvor]

As you say, they both have their place.

Stick is the most pleasurable for me. MIG seems a bit clinical.

Stick's got loads of advantages which is why it's still around. Anything over 3mm and comparing machines you can get for £250 and less, arc wins hands down, no problems with gas - expense, lugging the bottles around, having the wind blow the gas away - you can weld through rust if you have to. No problems with wire going rusty and the general mucking about you can have with MIG. Store the rods in the airing cupboard and everything can be quite compact and portable. You can easily put the lot in the car and just about any MIG set up is far more difficult to transport. Most cheap MIG sets have very poor duty cycles at their top end and generally a lot of other problems such as poor wirefeed.

I'm sure it changes when you are looking at production welding and industrial grade machines.

If you've got a cheap buzzbox which overheats after two or three rods, even that's useful - if you can use it. It's amazing how many useful things you can do by burning a couple of rods. If you've got a MIG, mainly for light steel, I'd say a SIP 140 was a good complement, for when you have to weld outside, or something you can't clean for some reason and so on.

MIG scores on thin steel, such as car repairs, where arc is barely usable and it's generally considered easier to learn.

 

[BrokenBiker]

i love mma, mig has its place but for me that is just for stuff too thin for stick as im not really interesed in production speeds etc, just larking about glueing bits together as strong as i can