I bought a Lincoln welder last year and there was a lot of talk about brand-name versus import welding machines.  Obviously I went brand-name and I've been happy with it.

What about supplies consumables and torches?   I want to get a smaller torch, but the big brands are TRIPLE the price of the imports.   I have no doubt the name brands are better quality, but triple is a big price change.

Part of me says it's just a conductor and the chinesium metal will be fine.  The other part says suck it up and pay for the known quantity.  I'm leaning towards the name brand.  This is for a tig torch. Any experiences?

I've been using ebay tig cups and collets, no problems unless I drop the torch and break them.

I get my tungstens from Welding City on Ebay.  I have no complaints, but I also have no experience with the high $ brand name stuff either.

I got some torch parts from welding city this week.... never had a problem before with their stuff, but the stuff I just got is gimpy.  The collet bodies seem to be poorly machined - the cups can cross-thread and when threaded on straight the electrode is not centered in the cup.  It seems the OD of the cup threads on the collet body are undersized.

Not a big deal since the low-end stuff costs so little, but this made me reconsider a chinesium torch.

Also, i found if you order from welding city website the prices are a bit lower, presumably because they don't pay commissions to amazon/ebay.