Newbie Question ??? Mig ? Tig ? Arc ?? Pros & Cons of each

I am NOT a welder, but would like to learn !!!
Where does a guy start ??? Which will give better service??
Does it pay to go lowbuck like Harbor Freight ??
Any and All Info will be much appreciated

PHOTOS ARE JUST FOR FUN...EVERYONE ALWAYS
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I found Mig to be the easiest, and get the best welder you can afford. No Home Depot, Blowes or Harbor Freight crap

 

I'm in the same boat as you Heller, I've come to that point of still wanting to save money and do everything myself but I don't know the first thing about welding. Thanks for asking before I got around to it myself.

 

I know that some City Colleges offer REALLY good classes...great place to look...

Also, some welding suppliers, if you buy your equipment there, offer classes

I LOVE OCEANSIDE...My family almost bought a house on the beach there
years ago...at the time it was very reasonable... I am sure the
price has gone up a bit...HAHAHAHAHAHAH

 

Do you have a torch? If not that should absolutely be your first purchase. People are under the impression that gas welding is hard to learn, or some art form that only a few "gifted" can do. BULLSHIT! It's the most basic of skills. Easy to learn, but you HAVE to practice. Learn to gas weld first, and the learning curve for all welding will be much shorter. True, MIG is easy to learn to weld half assed. But takes just as long or longer to master. Far more than half the MIG welding posted on the board is pretty low quality. Unacceptable in my opinion. If It were up to me, you wouldn't be able to buy a MIG, without being able to gas weld first.

 

Hadn't thought of that...good advice to be sure...THANKS

 

Night courses at your local vocational school. Didn't read your profile but if you're young and live at home you can even write it off. I almost got full amount paid for courses back at tax time and learned a lot-like I'm way better at arc but bought a mig for multi-use.

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Oh yeah can't go wrong with miller or I got Hobart. Love it

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Forget the welding classes, find someone who knows how to weld and ask them to sweep their shop first, and then ask them for some pointers. I would go with MIG first as you can do 99% of what you want to do with one. TIG is one of those terms that people like to throw around like bump steer, instant center and powder coat. Oh yeah, I have a Home Depot Lincoln MIG 130 amp welder that works just great including frame work, but I know how to weld and I know how to adjust it. By the way, I have a TIG welder that I use as well, but for a beginner MIG is the way to go.

 

Do you know any good pipefitters in your home town? Take a look at their equipment in their shop and you will see what you need to buy. It also depends on what you are welding too, body panels are ok with a 115v mig or a num 6 tip on a gas torch. You may warp more at first but it will all work out. If you buy a stick welder for chassis work,then try to spring for an AC DC rig that you can add a tig setup to later. Watch the classifieds , they come up for sale all the time. Try them out before you buy if at all possible and if you are already a hot rodder, then chances are you already know several good welders that would help you get started. Please invest in good eye protection and a good fire ext. Good luck.

 

Never welded a day in my life until I went over to fellow Hamber's house to mess around for a few hours. Soon after that I said this is a skill i need to learn and learn well if I want to carry on with this hobby. I started looking at local community college courses in my area. I found a TIG course and signed up .. This was the best $235 I've ever spent. Sure one could teach them self. But getting hands on 4hrs every other day for a semester really helps. Also having the instructor there to correct what it is that you need to work on is priceless. The first is some chicken shit welds i took pics of in the beginning when I first started the second is a year later when I started to get a little better. Still learning though and getting better everyday. For this hobby I would choose TIG welding over any other to master and have in my bag of tricks.




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Do not listen to this advice posted by Drive Em!!......Take the welding classes if you can, they do not just teach you how to just goober some welding wire on top of metal, They teach you the diffren't properties of metal and how to weld and make things strong. You will also learn why you can not use one type of welding for all metals. I mean no disrespect here to anyone, But telling someone to forget school and go sweep floors to learn how to weld, is about the dumbest thing I have heard all week!....And if you think that little 130 wire welder from home depot makes you a welder then maybe you should check out some classes as well. We are Never to old to learn, I personally own and use a miller 250 wire welder with spool gun attachment for Aluminum, also a syncrowave 300 Tig/stick machine, and a miller 180 econo tig, all and all about $12000.00 worth of welding machines. And I would still sit in on classes if I had the time.And One thing for sure is when it comes to welding, You are only as good as your machine, So buy the best you can buy to get started with. Do alot of homework before you buy a machine, Also don't listen to a hobbiest when it comes to learning to weld, learn from real welders who teach classes or do it for a living, As it seems when it comes to this subject, Everyone has their own ideas and some of those ideas scare the hell out of me. Goodluck and if you need any help just PM me.

 

Words of wisdom!

"I found a TIG course and signed up .. This was the best $235 I've ever spent."

 

I may be a fng but I got started welding on mig, so it's my suggestion to do the same. Plus take a class for it, I'm taking a class currently and I thought I knew how to weld before hand, I was wrong, but seriously the class has taught me more in 3 months than I learned in 3 years on my own. Also buy the best machine you can, I bought a miller 240 autoset and though not the best thing ever it's what I could afford and I'm glad I didn't cheap out.

Another thing to consider is oxy-fuel welding since its cheap to get into and can help teach fundamentals as well. Plus having the ability to heat stuff up and cut metal using the oxy kit is. Life saver.

 

I started welding mig, and it is the easiest to learn. That said, do it right and learn to gas weld first. An oxy/acy set-up is very versatile in the home shop, it will give you alot of skill transferable to TIG welding later if you decide, and it's cheap to get started. Take any and all community college courses you can afford and find and practice until you hate it.


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Keep it coming folks...ALL GOOD INFO...it is MUCH APPRECIATED

 

I beg to differ! I have successfully mastered half-assed MIG welding in a very short period of time!

 

This is what you need, as in MUST have!
Torch set, including bottles and cut head.
Ac/dc arc welder .
Scratch start tig torch and argon bottle.

With that you will be able to :
Heat, cut, braze, solder, gas weld, tig weld and stick weld.
You can weld :
Backhoes to sheet metal , any metal including aluminum

 

One more thing I will add is check out www.weldingtipsandtricks.com Jody has made over 100 videos on all types of welding, You can check them out on you tube. I watch his latest one every week And he still amazes me. If you don't have the money or time to go to school, watch his videos and anything he recomends. His videos have made me a better welder and it is FREE!![/COLOR]

 

There are a few welding schools in our area, and they basically want your money and never really teach you anything. I have taught several people how to weld after they took a class at the local community college. YOu can learn alot more from someone who does it that at alot of these classes. For most beginners who just want to weld on a few projects, the lower priced welders are more than adequate. I stand by my post above.

 

Not to argue with Cowtown or agree with Drive-em but I took welding in school (college) and the instructor didn't no sh--, never welded professionally, he was just a warm body the put in the class that taught us welding by reading about it in a book. Total waste of my time. Few years later I did grunt work (for free) in a race shop in exchange for the owner to teach me a thing or too about welding, that guy really taught me well. Too many variables to say one way is better then the other.

I do agree 100% with Tinbender. Mig welding is so easy any idiot can stick two piece of metal together with a mig with very little practice. Problem is just cause they stick doesn't mean it's a good weld and I too see way too many bad welding jobs where the guy doing it "thinks" it's fine, thinks he's a welder. Epecially now with these low cost hobby grade migs on the market. Sorry to step on toes but I don't trust ANY frame or suspension component welded with 110, they are just not hot enough for 1/8 or better IMHO.

 

Even I wouldn't have asked that ? Good replies though

 

Everything...Everyone...has said has merit on it's own....all good input, done with
honesty and experience of all sorts....IT IS ALL GOOD...anyone else who has an
opinion is more then welcome to chime it...I am ALL EARS

 

Another consideration, which I think can be VERY important, is what you are going to do, how often, and where.
If you're doing hobby work, part time, on your own cars, in limited space (1 or 2 car garage), then I'd recommend gas. Yes it takes a bit longer to master, BUT...an oxy-acetylene set up takes up less space, does most welding you need to do on a car, you can heat up frozen bolts, cut metal, braze, solder, shrink sheet metal, and light cigars.
A Mig or Tig can only weld, maybe do spot shrinking.
Besides, if you master gas welding, MIG and TIG are very easy to shift into. Learning MIG gives you almost NO step up into gas.

 

Oh... and about learning....don't do it on your own. You can but it takes a hell of a lot longer than it needs to, unless you have unlimited practice time, AND do some book learning!
And getting taught by someone in the trade...maybe. But unless they are unusually intelligent and/or know how to teach, you might not learn the right stuff. I know great welders who can't get across the theory behind what they are doing. They weld great, but can't teach great. They often forget the basics, or stuff that they know in the back of their mind, but forget that a beginner will not know these things, I'm guilty of this as much as most others, when trying to teach someone welding, bodywork, paint. What I take for granted knowing, I don't' realize everyone does not know!
A good school is the best way to learn. Theory, practice, experience, and also just watching others do well, or make mistakes really help your learning experience go quicker, and deeper.

 

Very good post!
I agree about the mig welds too. Many look good but have cold lap. You can knock em apart with a ball pein hammer.

 

I initially didn't read the sarcasm in this paragraph...

MIG welding is like driving a car with a switch for the throttle. It's either WIDE OPEN or OFF. Learning to read the puddle and how to compensate while moving the gun is just as challenging (maybe more) with a MIG than a TIG. You don't have that pedal to control the heat, so changing your travel speed and gun position are about the only tools in the box to control heat balance and penetration.

Until you learn to read any weld puddle...MIG, TIG, or stick; you might as well just shut your eyes and drag the gun along the plate.

 

What he said!

 

I teach an automotive class part time at our local community college that is why I have a very biased opinion on the state of our higher places of learning. Most of the full time faculty are just counting the days until retirement, or milking the jobs for all that they are worth. I cannot believe some of the crap that these instructors tell the students. Most of the students are "numbers" that get their tuition paid for by the state of federal government. Some of them want to learn and others are there to get their financial aid. I cruise by the welding classes sometimes on by breaks, and the same thing goes on over there, the instructors either do not know anything or are too lazy to teach properly.

The old tried and true apprenticeship method that worked for decades has pretty much gone by the way side. YOU CAN learn alot more by just hanging around a race shop or fab shop than at alot of these schools. I have taught several of my students to weld in the automotive shop and they are better now than alot of the students in the welding program. For those that disagree with me, it is because you are Ill informed about education these days.

 

Hey, thanks for stereotyping me!

In all seriousness, I wish I could say you were WRONG about that statement, but I can't. All I know for sure is that I care how much and what my students learn.