Old Hobart stick welder

Looking at buying an old Hobart, model 50-2800E, powered by a Ford 200G 6cyl gas, 30-355 amp. I have been looking for some time now and the cost of new is just out of the reach of a father of 5. Do any of the old school welders have an opnion on Hobart. I am a novice and have been directed by others to shop for either Miller or Lincoln. No one that I know has any experience with Hobart. The price is good based on my limited knowledge. Its not a pretty machine but I really dont care what it looks like, I see that as a project in itself, restoration. Any input would be helpfull. Thank you.

Reply to
Harry D'Arcy
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While I am young, I grew up in a welding family. There was a saying: "Drive a Cadillac, drink Michelob and weld with a Hobart."

Hobart was one of the superior welder manufactures; they focused on industrial, professional equipment. They kind of lost a step when they didn't have a synergic pulse MIG welder. Eventually Miller bought the name. The old Hobart product line is sold as Thermal Arc.

I would think this is a very good opportunity. I have a very good supplier of Hobart parts. If you do buy it and need parts, please email me.

Reply to
Clandestine

Thank you for the response, I was begining to think that my post was going to be viewed as unworthy of consideration. The seller has two of them, one operational, and one that needs brushes. For what I belive to be a very reasonable price he will sell both. They are on seperate trailers. What is involved with replacing the "brushes", is this a high dollar repair? I stated that I am a novice, I have been a heavy equipment operator and owner of my own grading and excavating company for the past 15 years. I am now in the process of changing careers, and in so doing I am trying to gain additional skill sets that will assist in my transition into a union millwright apprenticeship program. This will result in an extreame cut in pay and benefits for the first four years of the program, however, my focus is on the long term stability and security of attaining "journyman" status in a skilled trade. I have been taking welding courses through my local welding supply store and will be enrolling in a welding tech. course in the spring at the local community college. My hope is to become more proficiant through practice at home with my own machine. I am also hoping to make up some of the lost income through side jobs with the portable welder. I have many contacts in the earthwork community and know that once proficiant I could make simple field repairs and hard facing on equipment for many of the folks I've developed good relationships with. For those who may read this and think that I will be driving down the rates for other professional welders, understand that I am aware of how our complex economy works and would never think of undercutting rates in an industry which I will be relying on for my family's survival.

Back to the machines. As stated in my original post Lincoln and Miller were the focus of my searching untill I came across these machines. Would this unit be considered an equal to Lincolns Pipeliner SA200 series of machines? Thank you. "Clandestine" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...

Reply to
Harry D'Arcy

Replacing brushes in a DC machine isn't any sort of big deal, and brush/commutator maintainance is a really good thing to learn. Pick up an old Audels book on electric motors, there will be much good info there.

The sec> Thank you for the response, I was begining to think that my post was going

Reply to
JohnM

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