COA

COA

New Member
Hi - I have no experinec of welding but the more I get into fixing up my Landy, the more I realise it might make sense to learn! Looking at the screwfix site, it looks as if you can get a Fan cooled Arc welding maching 130A for about 50 quid. Would this be able to weld in new material along the bottom of the doors and other light duties?

Whats the difference between Arc and Mig welding and what does an amateur DIY bloke need. I dont much care if it ends up looking ugly, I just want it to work.

What should I be looking out to get for general duties. Thanks
 
Get a mate to do it for beer tokens or...I bought a Clarke 150 Mig but uses a gas mix of Argon/CO2 and 8mm wire. I hire the big bottles at £6 per month. If you do a search you will find this subject was discussed at length before.
 
I've had exactly the same thought - but not done anything about it yet.

I started searching google for guides and advice

How to MIG Weld - Tutorial

There are others.

Think you might regret not buying something slightly more powerful (as I do with my air compressor!), but you need to be aware of the point at which you need something more than a 13amp plug socket.

Also practice heaps on scrap metal at first!

I'd got myself to thinking about something that could interchange between having a gas shield or working without (like you, it didn't need to be a pretty weld), but having the options made sense to me, and around the 160 amp mark (so I could tackle holes on the outriggers) - I found some interesting options on Amazon, but probably would have sourced elsewhere

Will be loads of LZ people that can offer real practical advice - so I'll be watching this thread
 
An arc welder is no real use for body panel repairs unless you are extremely experienced. Arc welders are normally used for heavy structural welding and are quite cheap but delicate welding is not their strong point.
Mig welders are better suited to body panel repairs but once again unless you are very experienced dont try to weld aluminium as it will all end in tears. You can get gasless MIG or gas MIG welders. Each has their own strong points and drawbacks.
If you can afford it I'd go for a TIG welder but suggest that you take a few welding lessons before making your mind up. It is harder to master TIG welding but the finished product can be very professional with practice.
 
Firstly, visit MIG Welding Forum

Arc welding (or stick welding / MMA / etc) is cheap, but you'll struggle to do thinner stuff like doors, footwells, bulkhead repairs, etc.

MIG is the technique of choice for most DIY-ers. Don't whatever you do buy one of those MIG machines off Screwfix - they're complete pants. Save your money and buy a better quality one second-hand. I got a Migatronic off eBay for a couple of hundred quid and it's a brilliant bit of kit.

See if you can do an evening course at a local college. I did this and learnt so much - I could muddle through and join a couple of bits of metal beforehand (if I was lucky), but now I'm much more confident in what I'm doing and my welds even look half-decent.

I'm sure I'll think of more - I was in the same boat as you this time last year.

[EDIT] Must type faster - four replies while I was typing that!
 
Brilliant - doing a course sounds like a great idea, I'll look for a local tech college. I wish I had any mates that could weld or do anything useful. All my mates are crap at practical things and think that me messing around with a grubby landy is maddness.

Thanks for all the help guys!
 
Cool - a five night evening course at the Royal Agric College in Cirencester for 115 quid covering all types of welding starting in April. Bonza.
 
having being taught mig by a mate and getting reasonable at it, we both got into arc welding. we got on with arc ok but find that the slag(?? what ever that oxidised crap is that you chip off..?) covered the real weld. once you chip that **** of you find that you weld did once look amazing and now looks like a holey piece of bird ****! when we were messing with arc and went back to mig the difference is amazing! so much easier to get a good weld with mig. id say learn on arc, then you will find mig amazing once you get the hang of setting the welder up.
 
COA said:
Md Hat Man - I'm in Cheltenham - will update my profile. Thnks!
Click to expand...

My weldings a bit agricultural.....but then i have got a tratter:p I borrow a mates Mig as and when I need and get him to do the tricky bits :cool:

Give us a shout anytime your stuck for anything
 
best bet is to learn to weld. I am a time served class 1 welder(all kinds)
so i have used MMA(arc) to weld body pannels etc on cars you can use 1.6mm Rods but they are hard to control and even harder to get a decent vertical weld. Tig welding will give you a strong weld and look good if done right...but the metal has to be spotless any contaminates will jump to the tungsten and you will have to stop and sharpen the tungsten. Or the weld will be pants it does take a lot of practice to keep the correct arc length adn not to hit the tungsten with the filler rod. MAGS (mig) is the best option for car repairs but always go for the gas ones once you have the correct flow rate of gas set, wire feed and amps you r all set, again practice is needed and you always have to weave it slightly. The gasless ones sound good but you have to turn the amps up to keep the slag away from the weld pool and it can be very difficult to join two pieces of plate as the wire sometimes only arc of one of them, saying that if you have the experiance you can produce great welds even with the window blowing strong.

Apart from welding landys i do a lot of classic cars as well and i use a sealy gas mig plant, semi profesional cost about £300 but had it a few years now and it has paid for itself many time over, Machine mart offer a good range of MIG welders.

But most important i would say is learn to weld first, having been a welder for a long time i can produce fantastic results with any of the processes and it is a lot harder lying on you r back than in the college workshop so practice makes perfect
 
For body panels and thin stuff you def want a TIG welder, but like people have said it's hard to learn and you have to have a perfect setup for it. The TIG will pay off in the long run but you probably should go with a MIG welder to start, I'm not sure what they have in the U.K but MILLER is great, if your not looking to spend as much look at HOBART(again not sure if in the U.K). Using the higher quality welders you will see a difference in your welds. Get a whole bunch of scrap and practice a lot.
 
As so many people said above... MIG.

When I bought my old disco I didnt have a clue about MIG welding... got a welder of eBay, a few bits of scrap metal and started practising!
 
COA said:
Cool - a five night evening course at the Royal Agric College in Cirencester for 115 quid covering all types of welding starting in April. Bonza.
Click to expand...

I'm at the ag college! :D did it say if you were doing at the rural skills center in Coates? If so the bloke that teaches you is a very skilled welder who is into landys himself!

Harry
 
Harry - I heard back from the Rural Skills Centre that the course is full in April and the next one is not until September which sucks. I asked to get on the waiting list but am not holding out much hope. Would be happy to pay the guy the 115 quid if he would show me how to MIG weld.......
 
Would have thought there would be a few LZ guys in your part of the world that could give you some pointers for a few beer and pizza tokens - might be worth starting a separate thread asking for volunteers?

Alternatively, buy the best bit of kit you can run to, watch some of the internet video guides and then start experimenting.

Keep us posted as to how you get on - I might follow in your footsteps;)
 
COA said:
Harry - I heard back from the Rural Skills Centre that the course is full in April and the next one is not until September which sucks. I asked to get on the waiting list but am not holding out much hope. Would be happy to pay the guy the 115 quid if he would show me how to MIG weld.......
Click to expand...

Oh sorry to hear that, I will ask him next time I see him though :D If you can't wait then as station house said, somebody nearby would be able to help. my welding isn't great so that rules me out sadly :rolleyes:
 
There's no harm in getting the kit and starting to experiment. But I will say that you get what you pay for. Don't be tempted to buy new and cheap - I'm positive that an experienced welder can get good results out of any old crappy machine, but when you're starting out, you really don't want the machine to add to your problems!

I'm speaking from experience - I bought a MIG from Screwfix as I needed it ASAP. I struggled with it for a few months, and managed to bodge in a pair of footwells and a couple of patches on my cross-member to get the 90 through its MOT. Then I did a course at the local college and got to use a decent machine (a Murex) - instantly the quality of my welds improved ten-fold!

The Screwfix welder went on eBay (I got almost what I paid for it) and I bought a secondhand Migatronic. It's probably 10 years old, and looks a bit beaten up - but as with the college machines, I was able to plug it in, twiddle the knobs, and my first weld with it came out great.

So if you're gonna buy a MIG machine - work out what you can afford and then do some research to see what you can get for your money. In all honesty, if you're buying new - you need to spend £300 minimum.
 
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