Unlimited budget but only one machine what would it be. I do realise that most if not all TIG machines will do stick.
An old friend calls you on Sunday night, saying his uncle's farm has been sold. All the old equipment is going to be scrapped, and you can have anything you can load up before Tuesday, including the half buried Hoover wagon with the Columbia axle sticking up out of the ground ... which welder are you going want to load onto the truck when you call in sick Monday ?
"Old equipment"? What about a tasty Syncrowave? Tell me a gas welder is gonna beat that. Let me amend that. I guess if you get just one, gas does the trick for more than sticking metal together.
I feel cheated. the torch rig has so many uses, but the mig is such a die hard peice of equipment. can I have both?
Started with Oxy-gas (cuts, welds, brazes, and heat shapes). Next came my stick welder which was shortly replaced with a MIG. If I save enough I'm not sure if a TIG or Plasma will be my next. But you know what, the old Oxy-gas will always be there.
There are so many uses for O/A you need one regardless of what welder you have. Think about all the seventy year old bolts you CANT heat up and beat out with your mig or tig.
I don't view oxy-acetylene as a welder. It's a really hot wrench that you can weld with. Too many uses for O/A to categorize it as a welder. So I vote TIG, even though I don't knwo how to TIG weld...
Your first purchase is oxy/acet. It cuts, it heats, it welds. Nothing else does so much for so cheap.
If I could afford a good tig, id say that. But I cant, so I have to vote henrob. its been worth the money so far.
I built my whole car with a mig - from frame work to piecing together old rusty, thin tin and I didn't know shit about how to use it and didn't have any tutoring nor read a thing about welding. Hard to beat a mig for being an idiot friendly do-it-all machine. That being said...I've often wished I had a torch so I could heat things up before trying to bend
Yep. I had a 200 amp service put in and rewired my whole garage just so I can run a Syncrowave 250. Got a Miller MiG welder too, but that's probably not going to see much use now.
IF I could only have one rig it would have to be an OXY/ACC rig. Weld AND cut as well as heat for bending and such. In fact it was my first welding outfit. But for welding purposes only I would have one of these: http://cgi.ebay.com/New-ESAB-Multimaster-260-Mig-Stick-Tig-Welder_W0QQitemZ7554148842QQcategoryZ113743QQssPageNameZWD1VQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem And hope to get one in the near future!
When I started this poll I didn't even consider the fact of heating with oxy/acetylene just welding. I voted TIG because since I have learned to TIG I rarely use any other process but I work in a food processing so I get to fabricate lots of stainless stuff. And TIG welds just look so good.
I have mig, tig, stick,o/a,and a plasma cutter. 90% of the fabrication I do is automotive. I use my mig 80% ot the time and my tig 20%. I use my o/a all the time for all kinds of things. My plasma cutter sits and collects dust. I dont know how you could do much fabricating without a o/a setup. If you learn how to use it it will be your best friend. Your question doesn't mean too much however because it's all relevant to what you are building. If you have a shop building top fuel cars and funny cars you will be tig welding everything, if you are building cars for the demolition derby you'll be looking for something else. All welding processes will make beautiful welds and very strong if done right. I really love to tig weld but can't justify the time on most jobs I do. Mig is by far the most versatile but not right for every application. Gas welding isn't good for heavy stuff but I use it for top chops and building headers. I use stick welding quite a bit at my job for special applications like welding dissimilar metals etc.
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