i need a welder

[il_ragazzo]

As much as i mod my bike and think of crazy designs for crazy things one would think that i would have a welder. I'm not that great of a welder and that kinda makes me think that i shouldn't buy an expensive machine that i can't really use well. ya know? so im looking for a welder. Is there anyone around the Sacramento area that can do some minor welding for me? do you guys know of some one?

[jdm5770]

Have you checked your yellow pages? That way you could at least get a professional job.

[il_ragazzo]

yeah i have checked around locally and a lot of companies that i have talked to said they wont weld on passenger automobiles (car or bikes) for liability issues.

all i really need is a few tack welds done for adjusters and swing arm spools. ya know?
I'm not doing anything crazy. plus it gives me a chance to meet new creative and mechanically inclined Kat riders like myself in the near by area.

i think eventually im gonna need a welder.

[Rangerx52]

Try a wheelbarrow full of car batteries, leading to a pair of vise grips wrapped in a rag holding a 4011 rod.


welders are cheap. MIG gets expensive, TIG gets real expensive. You can get a sparkler box which is just stick welding for about a hundred bucks, or less on craigslist. If you dont do much welding, thats best because then you dont need to worry about shielding gasses or wire spools, or which kind of tungsten stinger you need, or any of that fun junk.

[il_ragazzo]

um maybe i should go educate myself before i get a welder... cause i have no idea what u just told me... i think i can take welding classes at my community college.

[Rangerx52]

Old welding is stick.
it consists of metal rods coated in powder. the composition of the metal and powder depends on the metals being welded. some rods, like the 4011 are good for steel, and will burn through a dirty unprepped surface.

WHen you melt metal by welding, it rapidly oxidizes and foams up, this is known as perocity. a perocity laden weld is full of holes, does not penetrate deeply, and is brittle like a charcoal briquette. the powder that coats the welding rods catches fire when the rod heats up, as it burns it produces a rod specific gas that displaces the immediate oxygen and replaces it with a shielding gas, which prevents the molten metal from oxidizing- and therefore allowing it to pool and harden.

A welding rod does not last long, and depending on the rod, can go from an inch or two, to a foot or so.

Mig welding uses a wire that spools out at a set speed, allowing a continuous bead of weld, however since its not coated in powder, a canister of gas, such as carbon dioxide is used, and sprays out as you weld, to displace the oxygen. different metals require different spools of wire, and different gasses. MIG is rarely used outdoors, because wind can blow away your shielding gas. great for large amounts of weld, but is very touchy and is not very tolerant of unprepped surfaces, such as ones with paint or such on them.

Stick can be used underwater.

TIG is like brazing- you have a stinger made of tungsten, and a footpedal. as you weld, it emits a gas like MIG, but does not spool wire- instead, you use the footpedal to control the Arc of electricity coming out of the tip to pool and "stitch" touching metals. most people use solid metal rods to add material to the mix, but TIG is nice because if you dont need a lit of metal, you can get away with not consuming anything other than a shielding gas.

tig is primarily used for thin metals and detail work. it looks great and is fast, but it will not do thick material. think of it as aluminum and sheet metal welding.

but TIG stingers are very flavorful, and take some prep and getting used to. there are a few varieties, but its kinda neat- theres a type called thoriated, which is doped with thorium, and is slightly radioactive.

a lot of the mig and tig welders require a 3 phase power source, and usually 220v and above. you can get 110v versions, but they dont run for very long without overheating or shutting down. they rate its duty cycle in "how many minutes out of ten minutes can you use it". kinda odd.

the most practical is stick. you can get a 110v unit for cheap, its about the size of a tackle box, you dont need any gas or fancy wire. all you need is the welder, and a pack of suitable rods to burn up. great for practicing, since the rods are cheap.

[md86]

I got a soldering iron . Gots me some JB Weld , too ....

[Wild-Bill]

Problem with the $100 stick welders is that they don't produce a large enough arc to keep things going. If you don't know exactly what you're doing the stick will end up adhering to the work surface and then you have to break it off and start over again-usually with a new stick since the heat killed the flux coating. Very frustrating to learn with. If you go for a stick then look for one that puts out at least 180 Amps. That'll be much easier to use.

I ended up with a gassless "Mig" welder. It uses a spool of wire with the flux inside the wire like solder. It was like $150 from a pawn shop and was really easy to learn on. 110v, easily portable/storeable and it's a Lincoln so replacement wire and tips aren't any problem. Everyone carries them. With a little patience you can weld even fairly thick metal (v-cut the joint and make several passes) and it will handle much thinner metal than a stick welder. I've done everything with it from repairing cracks in a mower deck to building a trailer to move across the country. Oh, and I've only been welding for a little over a year. It's that easy.

[Kreylyn]

Sign up for a welding class at the local community college... Most classes allow you to use the equipt to weld on your own projects while learning, and the cost of the class is in line with 1-2 welding jobs to pay for someone else to do it.

If you have several things to do, it's a good investment... plus you learn how to do it yourself. It's what I would have done if not for the fact I have a highly skilled pro welder as a cousin and best friend... who loves to work on my bike.

Krey

[steves]

I did take a welding class, and what I learned was that you want someone with some good experience to weld on your stuff.

Post up on craigs list "looking for a welder" then find out what they do full time.

A good weld will have very few pits, and very little splatter.

[ctandc]

Surf craigslist and buy a welder for cheap.

Then just pick up some scrap metal (check CL again) and go to town.

It's not hard......just takes practice.

[Rangerx52]

I did take a welding class, and what I learned was that you want someone with some good experience to weld on your stuff.

Post up on craigs list "looking for a welder" then find out what they do full time.

A good weld will have very few pits, and very little splatter.

Bzzt. a good weld leaves NO pits. A weld should look like a perfectly symmetrical roll of dimes (or caterpillar). If your weld has pits in it, it is flawed. For every flaw you do see, there are ten you dont.

Spatter happens. always. Stick leaves a hardened flux residue behind that chips off, as well as metal spatter that can penetrate the steel as it lands, leaving a surface that needs to be cleaned. Workhorse rods like the 4011 and 4019 leave a lot of spatter, but you can get rods that leave almost none, if any spatter behind- but again, application and metal specific.

MIG will not leave (well, a teeeeny bit) flux residue, unless it is flux core, but it will spray spatter in the form of sparks, which like to land on tender areas and fall down shirts- the spatter from this is easily removed, and rarely sticks to anything once it lands. just keep a wire brush, and can of spatter-release handy, and you're set. Oh yeah, and MIG is loud, so wear hearing protection.

Tig doesnt leave spatter or residue. if it does, you're doing it wrong. It is very quiet, produces very little smoke, and is less prone to perocity than the others when prepped properly.



And the concept of just hiring someone else to do it, no more sugarcoating- disgusts me. THat attitude is why i cant go to a radio shack and buy a handful of IC's anymore, not enough people do things themselves to keep a business alive for those who do. Just because something takes practice doesnt mean it should be pawned off, it just means you need another skill to add to your repetoire. Heck, i'm not a welder, but one day i decided i wanted to learn, so i bought one and taught myself. probably one of the best investments i've ever made.

[cameron]

get a welder then find a friend who welds it will be super easy to learn mig welding,tougher to tig,and take more practise to stick but all welding is easy with minamal practice. just my opinion. i can usually get someone welding pretty beads in 30 minutes or less with a mig.

[GytRDunKat]

I'd call around to the local high schools and see if they will let you use thier equipment. That's what we do around these parts I just have to drive to our high school about 5 miles away, and the teacher will let me go to town in the wood shop for equipment I don't want to buy.

[diavolo]

If you intend to do much fabricating, then you should look into getting a fairly decent and inexpensive MIG welder. You can use either flux cored wire - which will work fairly well on "dirty" materials, and also have the capability of using solid wire, which requires the use of gas. A small Lincoln or Miller unit new is around $300.00, but a good used unit can be had for much less. Quite indispensable and easy to set-up and weld with, over the other methods mentioned.