I've use a number of welders quite a bit and some friends of mine have a
wrought iron shop and it really depends on what you getting... if you're going to get a 120 volt unit for light home use, wire feed welding, some aluminum then I'd put miller and hobart above lincoln. I have a millermatic 130xp for the house, its a fairly cheap 120v unit that does all the light stuff i want it to do. Plus you can get an aluminum gun and hose for it and change wire spools to weld aluminum. The hobart handler is in some respects even better for the light home user. With either i would make sure you bought a bottle and got rid of the flux core wire and used a co2 blend gas and regular wire spools instead. Better welds, and easier to use instead of the flux core wire. And don't let them sell you the argon bottle, use the co2 blend instead, you won't notice any difference in the weld quality and the co2 bottle lasts about 10 times longer since co2 is stored as a compressed liquid and the argon is only stored as a gas, you can fit a lot more co2 in the same size bottle. If you're going to get a 230volt welder then i would get the millermatic 210 above all the others for a general purpose wire feed mig. I would also spend the money and get the best welding helmet you can afford. I personally prefer the jackson auto darkening ones. I wouldn't buy anything but an autodarkening anymore.
And another useful item is a can of the antispatter welding spray to keep spatter from building up on the gun and on the work surface. If spatter buiilds up on the gun then you'll have problems with the feed spool.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Curt Anderson
Welder brand question . . . I've been thinking of getting a MIG welder for all the reasons that Duey mentions and my son is taking a welding class at the local JC next semester. For brands there's Lincoln, Hobart & Miller that I've heard of. Any strong pros or cons to any of those 3? Is there another brand that's a must buy? TIA.
Curt.
I have the Millermatic 150 amp deal,
seems to be quite versitile for only 150 amps, I can burn through 1/4 inch if I mess up big time, plenty of heat for anything automotive... At least thats what I think it was, have to look tommorrow.
