I see these setups at Home Depot for about $50. All I am looking for is something to weld wrought iron fences or railings. As in making minor repairs when painting. Sometimes I just need one weld to make a repair and I am done with the job. This would be very occasional as anything I find ahead of time I usually call a welder in. Last job I used some JB Weld and got by but I would like to doa better repair. Thanks
For $50 you are probably describing a torch with small tanks of either MAPP or propane. The issue with these units is the amount of weld time available until the gas is exhausted. I recommend that you consider a
110-volt MIG us>I see these setups at Home Depot for about $50. All I am looking for is
I've got a couple of those small bottles like are used in those portable kangaroo outfits, they last about a half hour with my #2 Victor tip while welding and cost about as much to fill as the large bottles. They do last a long time with the Little Torch, which is what I got them for, but I just wanted to see how long a person could do some actual welding with them one time.
As for the O.P., the oxygen cylinders with that disposable rig run about half the cost of a full-sized tank fill and run maybe a tenth as long or less. It's a real expensive way to get oxygen and the outfit can't do real work. If you can't afford the purchase/rental on a full-sized O/A rig, I'd keep calling the welder in. I'm afraid that Bernzomatic outfit would be $50 flushed for what you want to do with it.
Stan
Had a feeling if it was cheap it was not going to work. Speaking of mig how about this?
BTW, thanks everyone for their help. I was just looking for a way to save myself a lot of time and trouble.
I think you could probably save some more time, trouble and money by staying away from that drill-powered device. Even if it works perfectly, the posture and grip that it requires are very different from that which works best with MIG welding. Plus, he says in the ad that you can get new gears for the thing for $2- I don't know that I want a spoolgun that uses gears that are only worth two bucks, if you know what I mean..
If you're planning on working on other people's stuff you want good tools- especially if you're doing it at their house. Stopping work on a job to repair a tool makes you look bad, unless it's obviously a quality tool but you still look less-than-good even then. Plus, you owe it to your customer to have tools adequate to the job.
If you're working on-site, look around a see if you can pick up a good used portable stick welder. I've seen the little Hobarts with the Wisconsin twin sell pretty reasonable- and they have AC aux. power on them too. Good machines, worth having and using.
John
Jumping in here kinda late, but I know someone (maybe Sears) used to have a nice small little 110v buzzbox stick welder (like maybe 50 amp) that would work great with small electrodes. My nephew has one and it is really pretty slick for small jobs like you are doing. There is no fan, no switch that I can recall, and it just looks like a battery charger, only a bit bigger but not much. Might suit your needs perfectly. HTH Ken.
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