Welding knowledge??

[jaz1259]

I was wondering if there were any good welders out there, got a few questions for you.
Am I right in thinking to weld aluminium you need a tig inverter and torch, now does this need to be a specific tig inverter or will any do the job?
I'm wanting to dabble in the art of welding does anyone recommend a budget welder and torch

Cheers

[flipflopdog]

I was wondering if there were any good welders out there, got a few questions for you.
Am I right in thinking to weld aluminium you need a tig inverter and torch, now does this need to be a specific tig inverter or will any do the job?
I'm wanting to dabble in the art of welding does anyone recommend a budget welder and torch

Cheers

Dont go there ok, it's not a DIY situ, well depends on what your fabbing up..?? Where are you based..?? There will always be somewhere you can get back door jobs done !!

[Rederic]

You are right in getting a tig inverter welder, But it is not quite that cheap you also need one that will have a AC output as well most of them are just DC output
What is it you want to weld it is sometimes easier to convert your mig welder, change shielding gas fit a Teflon liner,swap the steel wire for aluminium,
If you want to go for a tig set try and get a water-cooled one
Where about are you based I might know some one who is selling a thermal arc

[special one]

Don't waste your money on cheap welders, waste of time.

Having used industrial mig and arc welders, i got myself a sip turbo top if 150, it's crap in comparison, I need to modify it as a lot of people have done.

Aluminium is a whole other ballgame, as said above you can convert a mig to do a bit if ally, but don't expect that row of coins lying down kind of fancy weld out of it.

[jaz1259]

I'm in Lincolnshire, don't want it for anything in particular but want to try and pick it up. There's so many vids and guides on internet I fancied giving it a go and practicing on some old scraps of metal till I get the hang of it.
It all depends on the cost, so what I'm looking for is a tig inverter which has ac and dc output.

[backofbeyond]

If it's (non structural) ally you can get cheap "ally brazing " kits on ebay for about £20 - there's all sorts of Utube videos showing you how to braze two beer cans together. I've got some and it does work with a bit of practice - google lumiweld.

To weld ally properly you will need a good tig set, and a fair bit of practice. If you're an experienced ally welder you can probably adapt your technique to cope with cheap equipment but no experience and a cheap set is a recipe for disaster. Before they turned our local agricultural college into flats they used to run welding evening classes and I did it for two years, covering oxy acetylene, stick, mig and tig.

At the end I realised that mig-ing mild steel was feasible for me at home, even if the DIY level equipment from eg Machine Mart was total junk compared to the pro grade sets but to do tig properly you really would need to spend out on decent equipment. Stick isn't worth considering unless your hobby is welding bridges back together again and oxy runs into legal problems with having the bottles in a domestic setting.

[jaz1259]

Really appreciate everyones advice I was hoping to get some realistic advice. I think I might try and find some welding evening classes that seems a good place to start

[NKL990]

I bought a cheep Chinese TIG welder off e-bay when I wanted to make an underseat exhaust for my Ducati 1000ss I was racing, needed to weld stainless steel, works a treat, I think if you are not using it every day (hobby use) it will last forever. I went for the AC/DC one so I can do aluminium as well.
My local welding supplier uses the same welder, says its fine.

[Quietman]

Be careful with welding aluminium or galvanised steel the fumes are v bad for your lungs

[jaz1259]

What welder was this then and how much did it cost, I certainly won't be hammering it for use?