(OT) Electric Welding.

I have one of their small wire feed welders, but I cant say that I would recommend it.

I have the $100 model from Harbor Freight. It does ok, but it doesn't feed the wire as smooth as it should, but it works good enough for me.

1. Take your Lincoln in and have it looked at. There isn't much to go wrong with the things, they are just big transformers and all of the fancy stuff is in the design of how the transformer core saturates. Anything on them is repairable, even bad windings.
2. The cheap TIG welders can be found in the under-0 range and they are much easier for light-duty work like thin tubes than a conventional arc welder. Go find someone who has one and borrow it so you can get a sense of how they work.
3. Don't buy anything from Harbor Freight.

--scott

Rentals are cheap if you rarely need one.

Take the door off and take it to a welder.

I have a stick welder (Lincoln 220) and a cheap mig welder (Kai Kang Fu or something). IMO, a mig welder is hard to use and takes a lot of practice.

I disagree somewhat. A poor quality MIG welder is a pain. A decent one is, IMO, extremely easy to get good welds.

Fixed it for ya.

After spending half a year in a stick welding course, instructor let me have a go at the MIG and TIG units. Easy as falling off a log with a good machine.

Have you ever watched the Orange County Choppers show? I note that they are welding the fine stuff without any eye protection at all.. Or at least that seems to be the case. What do you think of that?

Winter time of 1972 - 1973 I went to night time welding classes on the G.I.Bill at a local community college.I rarely ever do any welding anymore.Maybe I will take my door to a welding shop and let them weld it for me.I have never done any MIG welding before.

It is an old door I bought for $15.00 from a neighbor a few weeks ago.He had it laying in a big pile of junk in his back yard.I think somebody had backed a trailer over the door.I managed to straighten out the door, but a few pieces of the door need to be welded back together. cuhulin

Interesting. I probably like a stick welder better because that is what I grew up with. I don't like the way the mig welder nozzle shield gets in the way of seeing the weld as its being done. OTH, my son likes the mig welder better and after just a couple of hours he has gotten pretty good at it.

You are blessed with the hand-eye co-ordination gene...

When I didn't have a sharp stick handy to poke myself in the eye.

I think they are extremely stupid and slaves to vanity.

I am watching Orange County Choppers right now on the TLC channel. cuhulin

Vanity is a strange word to apply to those guys.. Arrogant, yes.

I had a lot of trouble seeing what I was welding with a stick welder. I could see much better with the other types, and that is probably why I did better with them.

There is definitely a lot of art and technique in welding. It did not come naturally to me, I guess. We were welding line pipe, etc.