Today I acquired...........

[DennisCA]

I always got on well with it mind you it used to be a 1/4 of the price of the mixed gases so I made it work! Doesn't seem to be the case now it's not far off the prices of the mixes now

Well the bottle here was 100€ cheaper to buy (199€ instead of 299€) and refills are 1/2 as expensive, not as good as 1/4 difference but enough of a margin for me to try it out. I do think we're getting stiffed on welding gasses here though.

What I noticed was I had to go up like two steps on my welder and increase wire feed, but it doesn't show the same tendency to blow through despite that.

 

[Turbo]

Gotta say I think this is working better on sheet metal than my mix gas did. Weld lays down better and so far I seem to be punching less holes. Only thing it does worse is spatter more. I do think this will work out fine for car body work.

That doesn't sound right! I found argon mix so much nicer to use, especially on thin metal. Lovely smooth arc with minimal spatter whereas the CO2 crackles more & spatters like stick welding!

I still have a bottle of CO2 but only because I own the bottle & it's handy for backup if the mix runs out.

 

[cheb]

A bare Panasonic cordless saw, too cheap to refuse. There was a blade with it too but no ripping guide.

 

[DennisCA]

That doesn't sound right! I found argon mix so much nicer to use, especially on thin metal. Lovely smooth arc with minimal spatter whereas the CO2 crackles more & spatters like stick welding!

I still have a bottle of CO2 but only because I own the bottle & it's handy for backup if the mix runs out.

I've heard other people mention similar experiences though. At any rate I think it's working for me. Might be differences in welders too? Inverter or transformer?

 

[Cheesie]

I think @Cheesie has one & he found it gutless!

A black and decker corded one has far more oomph I do still find it handy where a grinder is no good and I also don't want swirl marks

 

[James1979]

Bought one of these this week, it arrived yesterday, I wanted a powerfile, but I wanted a cordless one and this looks like it could be an excellent purchase:

View attachment 403402

Folds up lovely for storage, need to work out a hanger for it though:

View attachment 403403

One of my better purchases I think, we will see.

If it’s anything like my home made one you will use it a lot.

Mines not the official one, as you know, but I find it’s all in the belts. The crap ones aren’t worth buying. They make it work too hard.

My nose wheel gets hot and that can make the tape on the belt let go.

Decent battery is a good upgrade as well

 

[northwest]

Decent battery is a good upgrade as well

I did think about this so that's that decided!

 

[James1979]

I did think about this so that's that decided!

Get a 6ah. Physically the size is no different to the 4 and not much in the weight but you get more grunt.

 

[minimutly]

eBay crashed...
perhaps not such a bad thing?

 

[AdventuresInMetal]

Running low on my 10L hobbyweld pure argon for the TIG (i got the 10L on purpose for portability) finally decided its time to get a 50L for bench work, should of done it sooner... £105.60 for 10,000L of argon vs £69 for 1233L in the hobbyweld cylinder.

 

[Johnnybravo]

An Austin Allen plastic injection moulding machine for not a lot of coin. Collected this morning . Added bonus of 75l of Fuchs slideway oil and a full 3m x1,5m sheet of 6mm Makrolon thrown in for free..BONUS.

 

[minimutly]

An Austin Allen plastic injection moulding machine for not a lot of coin. Collected this morning . Added bonus of 75l of Fuchs slideway oil and a full 3m x1,5m sheet of 6mm Makrolon thrown in for free..BONUS.

View attachment 403762 View attachment 403763

Ooo widget maker!

 

[nickk]

I just paid nearly £30 for a 5kg roll of Lincoln Supramig 0.8 from the nearest BOC depot!

They had rolls of that Weld Star but it was the same price as the Lincoln so I went for what I know is good. What's the Weld Star like?

My workman has made no comments ,he’s very observant and not shy of comments so I assumed it’s on a par with the regular Geka which apparently my supplier can’t get anymore,maybe as it’s Turkish,they suffered due to the terrible earthquake?

 

[Onoff]

A pair of lawn shears, a pair of edging shears and some paperbacks!

 

[6ply]

I made a new air filter for the mower, the old one was starting to fall to bits, well it was over £20 years old. Found a piece of foam that I could suck through, cut it to shape and stuck it in the filter housing. Mower works loads better now.

Found some foam. Job done

 

[striker]

Running low on my 10L hobbyweld pure argon for the TIG (i got the 10L on purpose for portability) finally decided its time to get a 50L for bench work, should of done it sooner... £105.60 for 10,000L of argon vs £69 for 1233L in the hobbyweld cylinder.

View attachment 403759

Seems a good deal, where's that from?

 

[AdventuresInMetal]

A local independant called Gasworx, free local delivery too. It goes to show sometimes you just need to phone around to find some of the less obvious suppliers, my first dealing with them so far. You do need to be using a decent quantity of gas though, if you are the sort of person that welds infrequently and sits on the same cylinder for over a year they are likely going to only want to sell you the smaller ones. Which is fair enough.

 

[Turbo]

I've heard other people mention similar experiences though. At any rate I think it's working for me. Might be differences in welders too? Inverter or transformer?

Same results on my old Sealey transformer mig & my Rtech inverter mig.

I used to have a cheap source for CO2 from a friend who serviced fire extinguishers. It was only £20 for a refill on a 10kg bottle, a big saving vs argon mix so naturally I only used CO2 for welding, the only alternative back then was an expensive BOC contract!

Unfortunately he passed away & the guy who took over the business will no longer supply bottles for welding. I bought a bottle of CO2 from my local autospares place then it was £40 per refill, that has went up to £60 the last I checked. But since I got onto the rent free argon mix from SGS I definitely wouldn't go back to CO2.

 

[Seadog]

A few items waiting for me when I got back yesterday.

The mill upgrade continues apace, but the bank balance is suffering

 

[GraemeVW]

Went to the local second hand market today as I had an unusual Thursday day off.
Saw this jigsaw in a load of other old power tools (why do so few angle grinders have the switch in the right place!!).
Something appealed to me about it, metal body, heavy, craftsman made some decent stuff. I put it back though but it nagged st me all the time I was in town so I went back and bought it.
Will be nice to clean up, and my good Bosch jigsaw has died so I'll have use for it.
Replaceable brushes which is good, and looks like a skimmable commutator, so I can make it last.
All alloy body, alloy name badges, even held on with hammer drive screws!
Best if all though is the scroll function so you can rotate the blade in use. Means you dont have to turn the whole saw body to cut curves. I didnt even realise that when i bought it!