Welder

i suppose being a fabricator i better put my input in, ive been welding since i was 15,that was 4 years ago, ive pretty much worked with all kinds of welding work, from building 18 metre long shelf angles for buildings down to intricate railings and speaker stands, i do all the mig welding at my work so i like to think i sort of know what im talking about ideally if your doing body panels and chassis welding, you really dont want to get any smaller than 180 amp. with a minimum duty cycle of 60% .duty cycle is the amount of time out of 100% of a given time that the welder can work at flat out for . in lame mans terms say you have a 150 amp welder with a 50% duty cycle, this means that in any one hour, you can go half an hour at 150 amps before having to cool down, the welder i use at work is a miller migblue 300. and that thing will literaly weld from 1mm steel plate right up to 30mm thick rsj and crane booms if needed. i take it you dont have 3 phase supply so i would start looking at the sip 190 turbo,i used one for a while at a mates garage whilst making some railings for him and i was pretty impressed, the only thing i would add to one of them is a bigger earth clamp and a 3m euro fitment torch for ease of repair and servcing and the fact that 3m of gun length is enough to get all round a landy without having the drag the welder round. so in short,dont go lower than 180 amp,and dont get less than 60% duty cycle. as regards to hoses and gas regulators,these can be purchased cheaply from BOC in thame. when it comes to gas you have a choice, speak very nicely to a friend or family member that either a. works on a farm, b.works in a pub. or c. has their own garage and get a bottle from them. a w size bottle (the big bastid) of argoshield light (which as stated above produces acleaner weld) willset you back 50 quid ish. askaround your mates and see what they come up with, and sam,if you ever need a hand with welding mate, im only down the road so give me a shout on here and illpm you my number and ill see if i can help you out mate!

oh and yeh arc welders i would stay away from unless your doing heavy welding outside, its hard to produce nice clean welds with decent penetration on thinner metals,no matter how small your welder,without lots and lots of practise and experience!!

Sam if your welds are breaking easily it could be something simple to fix like wire feed speed, material condition etc. It may be worth getting dollyd round to work with you and he could help find where your problem lies or even take a photo of a recent weld and put it on here.

One thing I found with mig welding it is worth cleaning the area you are looking to weld as it doesnt like impurities such as paint, grease, oils and can weaken the weld or cause them to go very porous among other things.

Langers

MMA (stick) welding is probably the strongest type but like has been said does take a bit of practice and if you are not careful you will just blow holes in the metal.

MIG is the easiest route and preferred by many. Just point pull the trigger and your away (once you have your settings right)

TIG is great for nice neat welds but can be a pain for large areas having to manually feed the wire and keep the welding pool without blowing through.

I wouldnt be too concerned with duty cycles though unless you are planning continuous work. If you do it for a living then the more time you can use it the better but for hobby work i'd be surprised if you needed high cycle rates.

nicely done bobbler! yeh ,that goes for anyone who needs help with welding! keep me occupied with cans of monster and ill teach ( or try to teach) any body to weld!! as bobbler said, with mig and tig welding especialy,making sure your material is clean is a very important factor as the weld wil `pull` any impurities such as paint,grease and ol into the weld and make it go all bubbly as if your gas has ran out!, bobbler is also right with duty cycles, i just found that welders with higher duty cycles tend to be fan cooled which is helpful when learning to set it up,especially when messing around with amperage settings etc etc.

i might have to take you up on that offer at some point