scored a old Craftsman Sears and Roebuck stick welder tonite ..Ole Bob, it was his dads..bought new around 62-65 supposedly...Bob said his dad got it new right after they bought the farm house...in 62....Bob welded with it a year ago, looks really cool..model #113.20246..they installed new plugs for the leads years ago, Bob said the old ones was fairly burnt...sat under the work bench all it's life..even had braided ground the went straight to the huge *** vise on the bench above it...got 2 stingers, old school huge things!!! a nice old stick welder, and it was special to my buddy Bob...and was a special gesture on his part to p*** it on to me...thanks Bob...... if ya blow up the pic ya canread all the ifo on the front of it...
yeah like i said, it has sentimental value to Bob...Bob had 9 brothers and he's the only one who can hold a wrench,,,him and his dad was always working on stuff together...but that was before i met Bob...gonna get a plug for it and check out the ground lead...figure i'll trim it back to remove the splice for the vise and rewire it inside...every time we went out to the old farm, his brother owns it now, i could just see the lead hanging out under the bench, but never the welder itself...when he mentioned getting it over to my house i figured it would probably be an old used up, rough as a cob welder..but it is in really great shape..looking forward to layin some beads with it this weekend...
pulled the cover tonite, the ground cable has cracking in the thermal coat , so i cut it off inside and ran new cable into the box....tomorrow i'm going to get a cable clamp and some real insulated electrical tape and splice it in...pulled un-used receptical and about 25' of wire from the ba*****t..will be enough wire to get it where i want it in the garage..and it came with some long leads, so...should be running some beads with it by the weekend....real plus to have in the garage..the century 110 gas mig is great for the liteweight stuf, body panels ect...now i have this 180 amp stick welder...and also a baby stick welder that uses rods that look like bic pen inserts.......now i need to find a good sized compressor to replace the lil pot compressor i've been using.......
Cool! Those old welders seem to work way better than the newer ones....I'm still using my dads 50's Craftsman, still works great. Why can't they make stuff like that now???
Those old welders had copper windings. One reason that they seem to work better than a lot of newer ones. I've got one of those big old monsters of a Forney with the rows of plugs in the front. It will handle any big job that anyone would ever want to tackle. The guy I bought my bottle for my mig has an old Sears welder that must have been one of the first ones ever sold. He said his grandfather had it and maybe his great grandfather and he preferred it to a mig.
That is the one I learned to weld with way back in 1962. My uncle was a heavy equipment mechanic and he had one of these and took myself and two similar aged cousins and showed us how it worked and said have at it. We used it to start our own mini-bike building business when we were 11-12 years old. Scrounged old water pipe and thrown away lawn movers engines and started putting them together for friends. Sure brings back memories thanks for posting it.
This sounds interesting ..........but i would hate to screw up this old welder.....anyone else have opinion or ideas about converting it over?????? and yes it does have copper windings
Topo, From what I've read, it won't screw it up. It looks like for $200+/-, for a handset, bottle and some misc pieces you can convert it. I believe you can change it back in minutes (but reading about it and doing it are completely different) Here is the link http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=442851
here's a shot of the one i got off evil bay for Lil Beast tonite i cable bolted in the new ground lead inside the box...picked up some regular old time real electrical coth tape/wrap and re w****d the old section of ground lead and the cable bolt in the box...should be ready to tie into the panl and try it out this weekend...found myelf after i got this done, polishing the chrome handles on the front...
Thirty+ years ago, I bought a Sears Craftsman buzz box stick welder also. Bought it from a firnd for $75.00 It was like new at the time, came with gloves, helmet/shield, all the cables, and a ton of rod. I still have it, it's still like new, and I use it a few times a year. Only thing is, my garage/shop in the back, is only wired for 120V. So, I have a 60 foot, 220V, extension cord I plug into an outlet on the porch. Got the cable to make it for free, and only had to buy the plugs. One of my better deals I'll keep until it gets p***ed on to my nephew. Butch/56sedandelivery.
Love the old welders, I honestly believe they weld better. First thing I ever welded with (and still weld with) was my dad's old abused ancient Lincoln Tombstone when I was about 9. We bought a brand new one, and haven't even used it. Sadly though, alot of people see a gawky looking welder (Mint green, weird knobs, appears to have a B-17 Control Panel, etc.) and ***ume its **** and sell them for junk.
We have an old GE (that's right,General Electric) at work that welds great.It looks like an old hot water tank.Couple of the old guys that were around in 1962 when the shop opened said it was used and looked like Hell when they opened the place.Wonder how old that thing might be? Gotta love old tools.
Nice i had an old timer p*** on to me an old miller arc welder. Great machine i would never get rid of it.
Very cool. I love old machines and tooling. There's a HAMB thread for old welders you should look up/post pics of your welder in.
I bet we all learned our first welding on these old buzz boxes. You could even get carbon arc rods and cut[roughly[ with them......I had the red Lincoln225 myself.. in later years I believe Sears had Century make their welders. Century[and Solar] were partners making welders for Snap On......
My buddy asked me to come down and help install his exhaust. I have used a MIG welder for years even though I learned on a stick machine. I was afraid that I'd make a mess with it. It was older than yours but it welded like a champ. It came out very nice. Freebees are goodbees. If you are like me and don't use it a lot you might want to make a "rod box" to keep your rods dry. A simple box with an incandescent light bulb in it to keep the moisture out. It may become hard to find the light bulbs soon.
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