Posted: 10/11/2005 9:13:17 AM EDT
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Not wanting to hijack this thread about a specific welding question, I thought I'd spin up a general one. I want to learn to weld. I live in an apartment and rent a garage. How should I proceed? Should I just buy a generator, an arc welder (with accessories), some steel, and practice in my garage? Should I seek professional training, maybe a course at a local community college? <O'Reilly>What say you?</O'reilly> |
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I learned in HS many years ago, I'd recomend the CC courses so you get the basics presented properly before you make bad habits. I have a Oxy/Acetalene, Mig, Arc, Tig, and the Mig gets used more than any of them ( mostly car stuff ). If I had to have only one welder it would be a GOOD Mig. |
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There is a good book at home depot. It is usally sold next to the welders. Great for beginers. Century MFG. has some entry level welders that are upgradeable Value/cost= fair deal. I will get flamed by the Lincoln and Miller guys but if you are going to hobby weld verses being a pipeliner Century is a good buy. Dont buy a welder with all the bells and whistles unless you are welding aircraft you dont need it. Stay away from the Chinese no brand name crap sold at the cheap tool stores. Yes you can teach yourself but you must practice and keep a book of amp settings and metal thickness, it will help you remember what you did right. Hope this helps a little. |
Yeah, that's a big help, thanks. Does that book teach me the difference between Tig, Mig, Acetylene, and when to use each? |
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I strongly recommend taking a night class at a local Tech school. They usually run about 10 weeks @ 6hrs a week. Should cost around $350-$400. I was a self-taught welder when I enrolled in a class. After finishing the course, I was a MUCH better welder. They will teach you the theory behind it, along with the different meanings associated with the welding rods, filler wire, etc.... This will help you select the proper metal preperation, welding rods and technique... Every job is different and takes a little experience before jumping in head-first. The school will teach you a little of everything. Mig, Tig, Stick, Oxy/Acetylene, plasma arc, etc... You could easily have $5000+ wrapped up in equipment if you bought it on your own. It still wouldn't do you a darn bit of good without knowing how to properly use it.  Going through a welding class will also make you a much better educated buyer, and possibly keep you from making a very expensive mistake. Hope that helps, and good luck ! Edit to add: The book idea is a good one, but does little to help someone learn to weld. The ONLY way to learn how to weld is by melting metal on a workbench.  It takes a certain "feel" and a bit of coordination to be a decent welder. The ONLY way to get good at it is hands on experience and lots of practice.
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do you want to learn to weld for a career or just enough to get by with various around the house/vehicle repairs? career, go to school. you'll need the experience, the connections and the certificates. also depending on the metals and sizes you want to weld, you may need much more expensive equipment than you are able to just buy to experiment. if you just want to get by in the garage, you could buy an inexpensive mig, read a book to cover the basics, and likely become passable fairly quickly. if you have a friend to help you, that would be even better. you might even find one of the local welders to do some "tutoring" work for a few dollars. from there you could refine your interest and take some classes. |
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Most community colleges courses (around here at least) are geared towards people who want to be professional welders. My neighbor found out that Lincoln Electric teaches a one week class on how to weld. He used a week of vacation and took the class. He said it was very good. Accountant |
This is just a hobby/utility thing, not as a profession. |
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I weld as a hobby, I have a TIG and MIG as well as oxy acetylene set up. If you want ONE all around welder, you need to consider a baby Lincoln MIG 135 or 175 amp welder. Home Depot sells the smaller of the two for about $400sh, you will need to buy or rent a shielding tank of gas to do it right. I think you will be a lot more happy and much faster on the learning curve with a decent MIG when compared to a crackerbox AC or even a crackerbox AC/DC stick welder. Really need to consider the shielding gas because there is less splatter and you don't have to chip the flux off, ie less muss and fuss. A MIG welder really is the easiest way to get into fusing two pieces of metal togather, and its worth every penny if you truly intend to learn how to weld, have a few welding projects lined up, you will have that welder for many years to come and it will serve you well. A MIG welder offers about the fastest weld on the market as well. Its like shooting toothpaste. I would seriosly consider taking a votech class in the evenings and learn how a weld should look, it transfers to ALL types of welding processes and thus helps you trouble shoot your problems and potential problems. A two cent opinion from a welder. |
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Get an oxy-acetylene kit instead of a MIG/stick/arc, the torch will work better for general use. Go to weldingweb's forum and look around, most of the people asking for help are trying to use electric welders. There's very few posts asking about torch technique, or of complaints of torches not working right. The reason is simply because torches just plain work. Many people seem to assume that an electric is better somehow, when it simply isn't so. A torch is easier to use because it allows controlling heat and filler separately. Other electrics like MIG/stick and arc don't. Most of the problems you see with mig/stick/arcs simply don't even apply to a torch at all; they will never happen. Also, torches are by nature portable, where any decent electric welder is very much not--you usually even have to install a special receptacle for them, so you can't even transport it to another location and just plug it in anywhere. The only other method that allows separate heat and filler control is TIG, but that costs several times ($1500+) what a port-a-torch (10-20 kit) does ($350+). ~~~ |
Huge heat affected zone with Oxy/Acetelyne welding. No one handed tacking with Oxy/Acetelyne. You can weld, braze, and solder with Oxy/Acetelyne. All processes are limited in their field of application. I recommend a MIG setup for beginners. If you can use a caulk gun, you can MIG weld. |
+100 great info Dragracer.....I just got introduced to welding in one of my manufacturing processes classes and now I am dying to take the full course.....I was really lucky an had a girl who welds for the Navy in my class and she showed me a lot of cool welding tips and tricks that got me interested in the full course. |