TIG or OA

On or around Mon, 06 Nov 2006 11:56:49 +0000, gch enlightened us thusly:

You get more MIG for your money than TIG - depends what you want it to do. for mild steel, stainless and aluminium if you have a good enough machine and enough practice, MIG is fine.

Not sure if you can use TIG as a heat source for bronze welding or silver solder or such, never tried it.

half-size O and A bottles from air products is what I have here and they're not silly money, but more than you want to pay for using 'em once or twice a year.

If I was doing your job of making stands, I would use MIG, a) because it's quicker,and b) because my TIG skills leave something to be desired.

That said, you can do many more different things with TIG than MIG. I can't offer suggestions on makes or models, but if it were me in your position I'd be looking for an inverter type, DC only to keep near your budget, and around the 150/160Amp mark. That'll allow you to run MMA sticks up to 3.2mm comfortably, as well as any TIG you're likely to want to do in the home model workshop. At full output it'll need a bit more than a 13A supply, but you may well be able to do your 'everyday' jobs from one.

Cheers Tim

Dutton Dry-Dock Traditional & Modern canal craft repairs Vintage diesel engine service

TIG is expensive to run, but gives the most flexibility, with the ability to do stuff like stainlesses and Titanium, etc., as well as stick. Aluminum too, with AC TIG. Consumables run up the cost of TIG, and have to be factored in.

If I had to have just one welder around, I'd have a tough time deciding.

OA works without a plugin. TIG has the most options for welding. OA can cut.

I think that the cost per tank of gas goes up quite rapidly when dealing with the smaller sizes, and IIRC you cannot own your tanks in the UK (correct, rental/lease only?) so you have to factor in the costs per year of keeping full or part tanks around...Both for the TIG and the OA set.

I have a very small (semi-useless) AC stick welder and a wirefeed/ MIG welder, also small. I'd be pretty happy to dump them both in favor of a small TIG machine, though I would want AC with continuous Hi freq on it.

I have a set of OA torches and hoses, that I have not bothered to get a set of bottles for, yet.

I'd go TIG, but that suits my needs, maybe not yours. I see in the adverts that you in the UK have a better selection of low end models to choose from with inverter machines quite commonly available. Those have not had much penetration in the marketplace over here in Canada.

Cheers Trevor Jones

a inverter dc tig will weld copper brass steel s steel and would also double as a stick welder you can also braze silver solder if you are quite good at O A then you will find it a easy task when I started in the motor trade we used OA then mig and now also ac tig on ally bodywork I brought a 200 amp AC/DC welder from a German importer last year for 750 ukp including shipping with pulse and variable frequency

have a troll around there's some good deals to be had

Andrew,

You couldn't put me in touch with the supplier could you? Sounds lik the ideal TIG for me.

Roy

Andrew Bish> a inverter dc tig will weld copper brass steel s steel and would also

-- Roy Napie

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Who's that? The prize sounds too good to be good. Does it really work? I mean, they ask at least 3000.- EUR (2000 BPL) for a good AC/DC TIG.

Nick

IMHO, TIG is easier to make _good_ welds with, more flexible and much slower. In a production environment, I'd prefer MIG/MAG, for universality, I'd use TIG. Anyhow, you will end having MIG/MAG, TIG (AC/DC) and O/A. :-))

Nick

Shameless plug here but I have started to sell a few AC/DC Tigs as a bi

of a sideline. Have one myself too and very happy with it. Looking for good reasonably priced unit was what started me off with these.

See e-bay item 160023352373 for a previous example.

This one does not have pulse but I am getting more in the next fe weeks of this type, also a 200 A with the addition of pulse an frequency adjustment & also some DC tigs

-- gn3d

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Do you have any name, link or whatever to help me find it out?

TIA, Nick

Got any idea if there are dealers for these in North America? Canada, particularly?

Cheers Trevor Jones

Don't know about Canada but I believe there is someone in California

Jimk> gn3dr wrote:

>

-- gn3d

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Thanks!

Got him.

Cheers Trevor Jones