• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Welder

Share this page

It's great to know that I was able to actually help somebody on this forum. You guys have been so helpful to me as I restore my BN4.

Chris
 
If I was in the market, I'd consider one of the 'all-in-one' MIG/TIG/Stick welders. I know, 'jack of all trades, master of none' and all, but Ian Whatshisname on Extreme Offroad demo'd it and it seemed to work pretty good (but he's a pro):

https://tinyurl.com/l9pkwzz

NFI, etc. Just a thought. After you've migged for a while, you'll probably want to try tiggin'.
 
HealeyRick said:
Steve,

Here it is:

Click to expand...
For all the world, that looks like a mirror image of a Millermatic 135/140 (which was nearly identical to the 175 I used to have).

I started out with a no-name 110** unit and it did 99.9% of the welding on my Healey; without a doubt, all the floors, sills, rockers, etc., and the rollbar. That was retired in favor of a customer supplied Century brand (not sure, but I think they were marketed through Northern Hydraulics, and maybe Tractor Supply Co.) it it was a very robust 220 unit. I'm thinking its designation was "145" but if that was representative of output amps, then they were very big amps!

When I was again in the market for a welder after relocating to Ohio, I was going to buy name brand; either red or blue. I was working at a boiler service company, and they had two 110 MIG units for the guys to use in the field__one red and the other blue__so I asked them which one they liked better. Unanimously, it was the Miller. Parts of the wire feed mechanism of the Lincoln was plastic whereas the Miller was all metal, and it had given them problems a few times, costing a trip back to the shop to get the blue one (which became the one everyone grabbed, relegating the Lincoln to use only when two different jobs required welding on the same day).

I was sold, and bought a Millermatic 175 (superseded by the Auto-Set 180 about a year later). I purposely wanted a 220 unit, to minimize any requests for it to be borrowed! I replaced it around 2011 with a Millermatic 252, selling the 175 on Craigs List in one (1) night for a zero-haggle $450.00 ( IIRC, it was a tick under $600 new, and was nearly a decade old, though also kept covered when not in use). The 175 didn't have any shortcomings for the work I do, I just simply wanted a new, bigger machine!

Go Blue!






** I still say 110 volts, and I did electrical work for 33 yrs' nominal household voltages varied between 115 VAC to about 127VAC, depending on what parts of the country I was working in.
 
steveg said:
Thank you to all for the experience-based recommendations on welders. Which welder to buy is a very confusing topic to the neophyte (me). This has been a big help!
Click to expand...
A few times over the years, I've gone through the pictures in your online album, I am looking forward to what you come up with once armed with a welder!

There'll be no stopping you then! :cheers:
 
Back
Top