Stick Welder Recommendations

[LeftyTom]

Any suggestions/comments about my buying a 120v stick welder, which will have an output of under 100 amps? My first project will be welding some rebar that I fashion into a trellis for a rose bush. The design has me welding circles of rebar to stiffen the trellis uprights.

Sears, Lowes, Home Depot, and Harbor Freight have small welders in the same price range, under $150. I have not seen any deals on CL or Fleabay.

 

[Gotcha6]

Welders are like lathes. You can always weld smaller with a bigger one but it's hard to weld bigger. That said, go with a name brand unit (Lincoln, Miller, Hobart). You'll find them all to be reliable. Also, try to get a variable current rheostat selector that allows fine tuning of the unit. The dial selectors that click onto a setting and place additional resistors into the circuit tend to inhibit this.

 

[junquecol]

Any suggestions/comments about my buying a 120v stick welder, which will have an output of under 100 amps? My first project will be welding some rebar that I fashion into a trellis for a rose bush. The design has me welding circles of rebar to stiffen the trellis uprights.

Sears, Lowes, Home Depot, and Harbor Freight have small welders in the same price range, under $150. I have not seen any deals on CL or Fleabay.

Most welders I have used have an open voltage of about 48 volts. This means a 110 volt machine will need to draw about 50 amps to furnish 100 amps at the leads. Got a 50 amp 110 volt recpt. in your shop? If you have a 40-50 amp ,220 outlet in your shop, I could lend you a stick welder. Instead of a stick, I would spring for a "Name Brand" (not HF either) MIG welder and use flux core wire. Again my choices would be Miller, Hobart, Lincoln, Airco. I have a couple of stick welders, but since getting my MIG, they seldom see use. But I will have to use gas drive unit on a set of handrails for handicap ramp at church. If you are over forty, consider getting both an auto darkening helmet, and a pair of reading glasses from dollar store.

 

[Rob]

I'm with Dennis on this, get as large as you can afford. 110 AC will not weld a whole lot, and in my experience the sticks used aren't easy for a beginner. 220 AC/DC on the other had, broader available sticks for it, and much more versatile. I've used a 7018 rod on both and it ran much smoother on the DC welder. 6011 is not bad for an AC, but IMO harder to get to flow.

Now for what your looking at doing, I would go with a wire fed welder, much easier to use, a 110v is pretty good for sheet metal and up to 1/8th", a 220 volt even more so.

 

[scsmith42]

I'm with the others on this - get a 240V machine, preferably DC.

Tom, other than the rebar, what other types of welding projects do you envision? That will help us recommend the equipment.

Regards,

Scott

 

[Charles Lent]

You will be much better off buying a 240 volt stick welder than one for 120 volts. You should also buy one with a DC output. 120 volt welders are severely limited in what they can do. You will not be able to weld material thicker than about 1/16" with one. You will just be wasting your money. Buy a 240 volt welder and it will have resale value in addition to being able to handle all of your home stick welding needs.

Welding with DC works much better than AC. Go with a major brand like Miller, Hobart, and Lincoln and DON'T BUY ONE FROM LOWES, HOME DEPOT, or HARBOR FREIGHT. Go to a local welders supply store near you like National Welders or buy it online from one of the reputable welding supply discount stores. The big box stores have welders "special made" for them and sell them at discount prices, but they are not as good as the same welder bought from a welding supply store. You do not get a good reliable welder from big box stores. The best place to buy a welder is from one of the bigger online discount welding supply stores. www.cyberweld.com is one that you can trust.

At least get the online price for the model that you want before you go shopping for one locally, and carefully match the model numbers, including the suffix numbers to be sure its the same model that you are price comparing.

Charley

 

[dlrion]

HA! Funny story about that -

My Uncle welds for a living, and when I first started I called him up to ask him which welder to get. Without batting an eye he responded...


"We're Hobart men! I would rather have my daughter in a (burlesque*) house than have my nephew welding with a Lincoln!!!"

* he used a different word but you get the idea


HA! I guess he didn't like Lincoln much, I got a Hobart, and it has been GREAT! I would also say 240 is worth it!


Dan

 

[Rob]

My Lincoln wire welder was purchased at Lowe's about 20 years ago, it's still going strong. My buddy bought a Hobart from Northern, still going strong. I understand Miller builds Hobarts?

 

[mkepke]

Yeah, Miller builds Hobarts. Tractor Supply has about the best prices around on the low-end Hobarts (125EZ up to the Hobart 210).

I also would not be afraid to buy one of the Lincoln MIGs sold at the big-boxes.

Being a total newbie at welding, I'm probably about to step into it here, but I don't seem to have a problem welding 1/4" steel with my 120V Millermatic MIG* and 0.035" Lincoln flux-core.

-Mark

* actually a Millermatic 211 set for 120V operation because I haven't wired up a 240V extension cord yet.

 

[DaveD]

Look around for one of the older tombstone shaped ac welders. Used one for years. Hard to do sheetmetal though. Will weld 1/8", or angle iron or rebar all day long. Should be able to find one in a month or so for $150 or under used. Rule of thumb for welding is one amp for every thousanth in thickness. Yes you can do multiple booger passes and weld thicker and it would probably be ok for yard art.

I'd never trust anything structural welded with a 110V machine. Don't care how good you are or how many passes you make. Not structural.

With the bigger 20V machines its perfectly ok to do multiple passes to weld thicker material (beyond the welders initial capability). The other thing you have to look out for is duty cycle. The closer you get to the high end of the welders capability the lower the duty cycle. Pretty soon a 20% duty cycle (2 minutes welding, 8 minutes cooling) will really suck. The 220V machines have a much higher overall duty cycle.

My first choice in welders is Miller, followed by Lincoln, then ESAB or Hobart line. Hobart will tend to have more plastic rollers and/or aluminum wiring over its bigger cousin the Miller.

Owneded a Lincoln 210A/220V Mig and loved it. went to a Miler 210 for spool gun needs, also have a ThermalArc 185 tig/Stic machine. That is sweet but its $2K+. Antd then there is my ESAB plasma cutter that cuts 1/2" (somewhat slowly though).

In any case stick to Miller/Hobart/Lincoln and you can't go wrong. Last point, flux core wire welders spatter more (if that's a consideration), 220V mig with shielding gas is the way to go if you can afford it. You can find everything from Yugo's to Ferrari's in the welding line. And then the welds are only as good as the prep and the 'weldor' (vs 'welder').

The miller welding site has a good amount of activity on their welding forums. Think the site is www.millerwelds.com. Lots of cheap, good education manuals too.

 

[LeftyTom]

Scott, after spot welding where the 3/8" rebars overlap/cross, I have no idea what else I would do with a welder. Hence I was thinking of a small unit. I can upgrade later, if I need one. I'd rather give away a cheap unit than try to sell an expensive used unit (50 cents on the dollar, or thereabouts).

Dan, you uncle is quite sage. :rotflm:
My dilemma may be over. I think the father-in-law has a welder. When it was last powered up? Maybe 10 yrs ago.

 

[scsmith42]

Tom, welders don't go bad. At the most, you might need to take the cover off and clean out any mud daubers nests.

For arc welders, it's usually better to purchase used versus new. There is not a lot to them.