Welders ?

M

Mark777

Member
I believe I'm one of a very large and growing community that welds their own stuff. Started out many years ago with the old 'Tombstone' Lincoln stick welder and slowly progressed to the I-CAR certification for MIG.

I'm on my fourth, and hopefully last welder which is the Miller 210 MIG.

Anybody else own a welder and fabricate their own projects??

Mark
 
I've got a Millermatic 175. I wish I could spend more time with it.

I've got some upgrades to my trailer that are waiting to be done but I've been too busy lately to do them.

The good side to being busy is that I'm making money. Hopefully, all this work results in a nice big shop some day so I can have some room to play.
 
Yup, I have a Fronius arc welder, but also have access to MIG and TIG. Between them I can weld pretty much anything.
 
I started out with an 80A MIG, you know what that works on. Not much more than sheet metal. My brother let me "keep track" of his Lincoln AC-225C which I've used a lot. Then I picked up a Miller Thunderbolt AC-DC at an auction. I haven't even plugged it in yet.
 
I like the old British "Oxford" oil-filled stick welders, big heavy things like a green box with handles but once you get used to the settings you can do some great over/under-hand welds.
 
Welcome Jon

I'm a fan of those old Oxfords too, dang heavy bits of kit. They do have a few limitations though, the main one being that they have fixed settings for the current, and not infinitely variable.
Gotta love the duty cycle on them though, 100%.....
 
Well here goes. First post on this forum. I have a Miller Bobcat 225. We live in the toolies of NW Arkansas where power goes out on a regular basis with the ice storms. Having a welder that also doubles as a generator has been a godsend.
 
Well, it depends on your question.

If you mean do I have a welder, then the answer is "yes". I have a 120v Lincoln Weld-Pak 100 MIG and a Hobart Stickmate for the heavier stuff.

Now, if your question is, "Do I weld" then the answer is "sorta". I stick stuff together that I break but I don't do it often enough to be any good at it. To me it's a lot like 1600 degree superglue. My welding has never been pretty but up till now, it's always been effective. I tried to take a course at our local Junior College this past year but it was filled up before I applied. I'll maybe get it done earlier this coming year.

Luckily I have a good friend who is probably the best welder I've ever seen and I've been around oilfield and fabrication welders my whole life. He designs and builds frames for dragster motorcycles and ships them all over the world. If I have something critical that needs fixing then it usually costs a steak and a sixpack.
 
i got me a few welding machines but the one i use the most is my lincoln migs . i use my stick welder for LH and thats it. for everything else i use the 100amp mig and iuse my 140 amp mig for my aluminum work. been wanting to get me a nice bobcat one day but haven't gotten around to it yet. i got a folder full of old certification papers but they so out of date that they are just to show someone yea i can weld. makin stuff is fun . makin stuff better than the original is even better.it's a good stress reliever to go out in the shop and throw stuff together .
 
I have been a member for quite a while but hardly ever post. I'll get in on the welder thing. I welded for a living for forty years but am retired now. I have a 230 amp crackerbox with a DC converter that I bought in the '60s. I also have a Lincoln Weldpak 100 that I use for really little projects as it is not much more than a toy. I also have a Lincoln Ranger 250 and there is an LN-25 wirefeeder for it also.
 
California said:
Peanut, what's LH?

And Doubleh what's a crackerbox?
Click to expand...



low hydrogen --LH A and a cracker box is comonly know as the little red 225 amp ac welders made by lincoln. you can weld up everything with mild steel but if you want strength cap it off with LH. then they have the old "jet rods" where you can take them and fill and cap in one pass. them jet rods are sometimes 2' long so is the 3/16 LH rods you could almost weld standing up.


another reason we call them cracker boxs is the way they arc out they have a crack to the weld and it sparks alot more than a smooth welding dc machine
 
Thanks!

I'm learning a lot from you guys with long experience.

I have an old Wards (Century) AC-230 stick welder for occasional farm repairs and projects. Here are some photos I've posted here before.

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Forks to move harvest bins around. I made these up out of scrap.

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Do you guys (or anybody) have pictures of welder projects?
 
California, that is the same machine I have. The finish on mine is in a little better shape. Mine has a 325 amp DC converter (rectifier) sitting on top of it which came from Wards. When I bought it the salesman told me it was made by Lincoln for Wards.

I had to do one repair to mine years ago. The cooling fan quit. The LWS had one for a Miller and it was identical so it was a simple repair.
 
I wonder if these are similar to any Lincoln model? I said made by Century because others have said this online, but I've never tried to verify that.

Would it be worthwhile to buy or build a simple rectifier for mine?

This one looks like heck, it had leaves stuck to it when I got it. It came from an estate sale in town and the heirs said Grandpa used it for a couple of hobby projects then it sat in the (disintegrating, recently) garage for 40 years after that. They told me its year model was early/mid 60's. I blew the spiderwebs out of it and oiled the fan. It didn't seem to need anything else.
 
I never tried to find out the manufacturer. I have never seen anything made by Lincoln that resembled it but Wards and Sears had various things built back then that weren't simply rebadged products so I don't know. I do know that it has been a very good machine. I forget but I think it was purchased in 1967. I like the continous amperage control. I really dislike tapped machines.

A rectifier will open up the use of a lot of other electrodes. Of course any rod that runs on AC will run on DC and run much smoother. I hooked mine up to the rectifier and have never switched back to AC. AC welding does away with arc blow in corners and with magnetized metal. I worked in the oilfield and you work with a lot of magnetized pipe and sucker rods. You learn tricks to counter act arc blow with a DC machine.

I had some pictures of a ballast tank and a gadget to bolt on the bottom of the FEL so I could scrape dirt away from fences that I built for my B7510 Kubota. Also had some picture of a couple of smoker builds. I was going to post them but they seem to have disappeared off my computer.
 
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At work, we had the BIG welders, Mig and Tig. At home , I use a little Miller 135 mig, 115 volt.

I've welded up to 1/2" with it, even though it's not rated that thick.

I'll weld something up, put it in the vise and knock the hell out of it. Haven't broke one yet.

Last year, I posted some pics in the Lawn Tractors forum, making a puller to get a rear wheel off.

Thanks goes out again to Cletus, he saved the day!


Not the purtiest welds, but I was in a hurry.:sorry::yum:


http://www.nettractortalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2081
 
Nice ideas on the pullers. After the wheel pulled off the hub I would have just sliced the hub off the axle with a cutting torch.
 
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