Century Welders

Century makes them. Middling quality, not good as Brands L or M, but better than something from HF or Wacky Joe's Auto Parts.
GTO(John)

Newbee here. Nice group. About 3 weeks ago, I bought two welders from an old timer. One is an old Hobart TR 250 and the other is a Linde plasma welder. The idea was to sell the plasma welder and buy some more stuff for the Hobart. I have never seen or heard of a plasma welder before I bought this monster. The wheels on it squashed right through my bed liner! I've heard (read) that it can be used to weld heavy stuff quickly in a single pass (keyhole)and is used in heavy, high volume steel houses. I've also heard that it is used to weld gold, silver, incanel, titanium and other exotic stuff. I've also been told that it is used to weld material less than .060" at .01 Amps. And I've been told that it is for welding electronic or electrical components that would otherwise be fried by any kind of arc (ie thin wires to an armature or PCBs' etc.). I have many questions about this machine. Mainly, what is it good for and who should I try to sell it to? Has any one used a machine like this? I'd plug it in but it uses 3 phase. I'd love to run a few beads with it. It's the koolest welder I've ever seen!
Thanks for any info and if anyone is interested, I'm here. Anyone have any TIG/MIG stuff that they'd trade?
Thanks again Mike aka Terrible Ted

As of last fall, Century is owned by Lincoln Electric. Surprised the hell out of me.
I guess Lincoln didn't like competition on the low end.

I had one of their 125GS welders and it worked great. It was a small 110V unit so it wouldn't do thick stuff but it worked just fine for sheetmetal and anything I wanted to weld up to 1/8" or so. I don't know about finding parts because I never needed any but Northern Tool & Equipment sells them and may be able to get parts.
Century apparently is the manufacturer themselves and they also make welders and battery chargers for a host of other companies such as Snap-On, Mac Tools and Sears/Craftsman. I also once saw an ESAB welder at an auction that was obviously a rebadged Century.
And as Ernie mentioned they are now apparently owned by Lincoln.
Best Regards, Keith Marshall snipped-for-privacy@progressivelogic.com
"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." - Will Rogers (1879-1935).

Back in the 60's Plasma Welders were all the rage. Around 1967 all of the patents that Linde held on TIG welding equipment expired and TIG welders became much cheaper to make. This ended the growth of plasma welders.
Most plasma welders made in the 60's and 70's were designed to use a seperate power supply to supply the welding power. Often this was a TIG power supply.
Plasma welders are still in use, but rarely, if ever, by hand. For the most part they are used in automated and robotic welding in tube mills and on exotic or difficult materiels.
At school we have a 1972 100 amp Thermal Arc - Plasma Needle Arc welder that needs to have a Hobart Cybertig connected to it to work.
I am not sure what will become of it as it hasn't been fired up in years and our last Cybertig is on death's door.
We could pay to have a new interlink cable made for a Miller Syncrowave, but I suspect it will never happen.
They are fascinating machines, but they are extremely high maintenance to set up and keep running. The torches are quite complex with many small parts and special alignemnt tools to make sure everything is at the correct position. A different tip is needed for each amperage range of operation, and the tungstens have to be mirror finished and just the right length.
There are modern plasma welders that are easier to use, but these old beasts are like giant swiss watches.
They also need Argon, and Helium in seperate tanks to operate.
I had a 100 amp Hobart Plasma welder I tried to get running, but gave up on.
I ended up selling it on eBay.

I posted a whole bunch of questions about this machine, along with the story of how I aquired it. For whatever reason, it got lost in cyberspace and I'm NOT typing it again! Anyone have any info on this machine? What's it for? Who uses it? What does it do that a TIG can't? Has any one ever used a plasma welder?
Thanks for any info Mike aka Terrible Ted

WOW! Check this out. I feel a lot better about shelling out $150 for mine. 'Specially since mine is complete (and has more knobs). uimages/PIC00007.jpg