Framebuilders - What do you guys think of this tig welder?

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TheBrick
10-05-06, 04:19 AM
I have been surfing and found this. Do you thing it is any good with a tank of argon. I only want to build steel frames (as a hobby) so no need for an ac unit. I don't know anything much about tig welders. I have used mig, arc and oxy acy. Any one used something similar to this? Seems very cheap when I look at other tig weder they seem to be £1000.

http://www.shop.edirectory.co.uk/trueshopping/pages/moreinfoa.asp?recordid=1418840&cid=1762&afid=88888

Or any of these.

http://www.lawson-his.co.uk/scripts/products.php?cat=DC%20Inverters&source=froogle

potus
10-05-06, 07:51 PM
you may get a better response here: http://groups.google.com/group/sci.engr.joining.welding
NoReg
10-06-06, 01:23 AM
I wouldn't want to rely on either of those. Could you weld a bike with one of those, I don't know. The issue is that these are really inverter stick machines, which are actually pretty fun boxes to have around. In fac tyou can weld bikes with very careful electrode sellection using the stick sied of these puppies. However the TIG you would likely actually want, is scratch start, and based on accessory kits. Scratch start is an enormous pain. It pretty much guarantees some electrode contamination and if you are a beginer you will spend most of your time regrinding your electrode. If you don't have a power grinder electrode repair may consume all your time.

Second the necesarry extra TIG kits will contain a lot of expensive parts that probably can't be used on any other machine, These include the regulator, the torch, and some kind of rheostat (or not which is another huge problem). You probably can't control the flow of gas it will be on all the time, and you may not be able to control the arc amps. Then you need to rent gas cylinders etc... So you may end up spending quite a lot and get very little for it. Check the details mentioned to see what the real story is.