Old Welder

Just a word to the wise. Bought this Airco Dipstick 160 Mig,Tig and A/C -D/C stick about 25 years ago. Been a great machine all of these years BUT now you cannot get parts like a new gun.Machine cost about $1800 back then. Before you put alot of money into a welder do the research and look at costs.Maybe you should "Upgrade" as you go. TOM

 

$1800 welder.
25 years use.
365 days in a year x 25 years= 9125 days of use.

0.197 cents per day to own for 25 year period.

 

I'd say you got your money's worth if you've used it at leat 3 or 4 times every 6 months over those 25 years!!!!!!

 

Sounds like it's paid for itself many times over

 

whats wrong with your old whip. i bet you could retrofit a tweco or a toughgun. or find some one who could

 

Airco was bought out by ESAB quite a while back.
I have an Airco 125 Mig. Looked all over for parts.
ESAB is very difficult to get parts from (especially in
Tucson, Az). I wound up making some of my own
parts (tips). You can upgrade your whip to something
else, one of the Tweco's for about $100-$125, then
you won't have any problems. The Airco products
seem to be of exceptional quality. An upgrade may
be worth it. Your choice. Good luck. Matt

 

Thanks Guys. Just had to "Vent". As you get older you get that way sometimes !!!! LOL. TOM (Tired Old Man)

 

A buddy still uses his...I have tried to get him to buy a new one , but why when the Airco keeps working just fine.

 

That's the exact reason you shouldn't buy Chinamen welders. (aside from patriotic) 25 years is phenominal usage, and being a hotrodder, dont let parts not fitting the first time stop you from another 25 happy years.

 

Thats not a welder this is !

 

I still use my Airco 250 TIG welder almost everyday. A friend of mine bought it new in 1974 and he used it to build dozens of sprint cars. I bought my L-Tec (formerly Linde, and now ESAB) 225 amp MIG new in 1987, and it has been used constantly since then. I have friends who are on their second or third Miller MIG in that same amount of time.

 

A buddy has what must be the first line welder sold. It was built in the '40's! Thing weighs a ton, you need the engine crane to move it around the shop, but it welds much nicer that any newer "buzz box" I've seen. Better arc stabilizer, bigger wires, bigger everything. Quiet, too. Big, slow turning fan, no tin rattling when it powers up. It would cost an arm and both legs to get one built like that today.

 

New aftermarket guns should be available separately,
talk to a real welding supplier.

 

SO TRUE!!

Its only 25 years old ... you'll never get another one that is built that well today without spending a whole pile of money ...

Check out a Good Welding Supply store and see if they can repair or replace the parts ...

If you don't find what you need at the first one ... ask around ... it doesn't owe you anything ...

 

I feel a lot better about my old friend the "Dipstick" now !!!! It will out live me but thats no saying a lot !!!! LOL. TOM (Tired Old man)

 

Well after searching around within 50 miles of here I was at a loss .
All the Welding supply dealers wanted to do was sell me a new welder
and that Tweco quit making "Whips"for my Airco years ago.
I began searching the net and after several calls and e-mails I found on line a real "Jewel" of a welding supply co. They are Weldmart-Online.This company is located in Cleveland,Texas and can be reached at 800-460-6474 or at customer@weldmart.com. The sales manager is Larry Gruner and after speaking with Larry for about 5 min's I felt like I have known him all of my life !!!! LOL.All he wanted was a few pictures of my machine and within 48 hours my old Airco was like new again.I told him about this site
and he may become a vendor.Check this place out if you have welder trouble as these are fine folks and the service is second to none. Oh BTW I have no stock in the company and have never heard of Cleveland,Texas or been there!!!! LOL TOM ( Tired Old Man )

 

I have too, did some horse trading to get it. I keep fluxcore in the wirefeed and use the Tig occasionally. Mine has the HF box on it. Had mine for about 10 years or so, never an issue with it...other than the Argon line rotting out.

PS, I have a Tweeco gun on mine, I'll look to see if I can get a number off it for you.

 

Thanks Allsteel, The new whip I got from Weldmart-online is a
Trafimet brand and works super!!!!! TOM (Tired Old Man)

 

You can retrofit any gun you want to it. The welder doesn't care about the brand.

 

Pork, I know what could be done, but I could not get any welder supply outfit in this area to even talk to me about doing it. They all wanted to sell me a new welder. The folks at Weldmart-online made one up and didn't even try to sell me anything else. TOM ( Tired Old Man)

 

already mentioned above...Tweco is the answer...never thought I would see info on these great welders..mine is really old...used to belong to Red Greth...then my buddy Mike....I've had it close to 15/20 years...besides the gun/hose it has only needed the fan motor replaced...wish I had the HF box or knew how to hook it up...rock solid machine!

 

If the basic power supply is still good, you can get all kinds of modern accessories that will work with it.

 

Skid, Those AIRCOs are great machines.When was the last time you bought a gun for that 300? The best I could learn is that Tweeco quit selling their $200.00 adapters for the AIRCOs about 15 years ago.
TON (Tired Old man)