Great advice thanks. I will look at the yeswelder helmetOriginally Posted by Michael Schuch
I bought a Lincoln 225 MIG welder about 30 years ago. The stupid thing just keeps running, and running, and.... I will never be able to upgrade because the stupid thing will never die!
I would HIGHLY RECCOMEND getting a MIG and running it with a Argon-CO2 mix! IMHO MIG is the quickest and easiest to learn with the shortest path to making solid reliable welds.
Miller, Lincoln and Hobart all make excellent welders but I honestly believe they are overkill for a home hobbyist doing weekend projects. I do not know much about the Harbor Freight welders. PrimeWeld has a good reputation for solid Chinese equipment. I have a YESWELDER plasma cutter which is bare bones as far as features but high on power per dollar and has worked very well for me. I don't know the YESWELDER MIGs well enough to reccomend them. I think EverLast, WeldPro and Eastwood also have good reputations for Chinese welders. I would reccomend a 220v welder to make sure you have plenty of amperage for what ever you want to tackle. When you are just starting it seems like it is easier to run a weld too hot and cut down on the power than it is too start at too low of a power and try to work up to hotter levels. Don't get sucked into fancy useless features. My Lincoln has a wire speed dial, power / amperage rotary switch and an on/off switch... I haven't found a need for anything else.
I researched self darkening helmets a ton and found the YESWELDER helmets to be by far the best bang per buck. My YESWELDER helmet is a MASSIVE improvement over my old Harbor Freight self darkening helmet. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...e?ie=UTF8&th=1 This helmet has made the biggest improvement in my welds in the past 30 years, I can simply see what I am doing with very good resolution and clarity.
I started with a Century flux core wirefeed welder and gave up, figuring welding was just beyond my abilities. A friend told me I needed a MIG and sold me his Lincoln... after which he went out and bought a bigger fancier Lincoln welder. Again, I don't think a name brand is necessary for a home welder like it was 30+ years ago when the choices were so much more limited. Just bite the bullet and buy the CO2-Argon mix bottle and bypass the frustration of a flux core wirefeed!
Whether actually better or not I think spools of welding wire from a real welding supply shop make a smoother weld than HF spools.
My hand holding the torch is always resting on something for stability. Even when I was young and spry resting my welding hand against something made a huge difference. Once you are able to run a decent puddle (of molten steel) try making little circles while laying down the weld... like a continuous string of cursive lower case "e"s. You will eventually figure out that the sound of the weld will tell you whether it is going down smoothly. When it doesn't sound right it isn't right. I don't now how to explain it other than it just takes experience. I spent a day trying to get my weld to go down smoothly... it took the entire day for me to figure out my gas cylinder was empty! Refilled the cylinder and I knew everything was fine after the first crackle.
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