Welding: January 2009 Archives

I had gotten so used to thinking HarborFreight was the cheapest game in town, I was surprised when I dropped into my local welding supply store and found that welding wire was much cheaper there.

HF sells flux core MIG steel wire (E71T-GS) for $19.95 for a 2 lb. reel. My local welding store had it for $15 for the 2 pound reel. Just a side note, Lowes was $9.95 for a single pound reel.

Pays to shop around and not assume the discounters always have the best price, especially on consumables. And the local store has much more expertise than any of the big box shop drones.

One of my best purchases last year was a little MIG welder from HarborFreight. It was around $100 with coupons. It doesn't come with any accessories, so I bought an auto-darkening welding helmet for around $40, leather welding gloves, slag chipper, etc. also at HF.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=98871

The MIG welder is flux core only with no gas option. This means you get a lot of splatter and slag, but you can always grind those off. I'm happy with the increasing quality of my welds on iron and steel. I used it to make the rear carrier on my scooter EV -- and most recently, a firewood rack for 1/2 cord of firewood. The little MIG welder runs on 120 VAC which is very handy since I can just use the current power outlet in my back yard.

Unfortunately a flux core MIG welder means that I can't weld aluminium (which needs gas), which is a bummer since the weight/strength ratio of AL is ideal for EV use. I need to upgrade to a gas MIG welder -- or a TIG welder. I'm leaning towards the latter but I really need to ge a 240/220 volt outlet installed since it's not worth trying to buy a 120 VAC TIG. But getting a TIG welder would be great. I could even weld titanium if I wanted to. :-) Maybe Santa will get me a Lincoln TIG welder for Christmas....

I use steel from a local steel reseller, Logan Steel. They sell surplus steel bar and sheet for $1 a pound, which is quite reasonable. Their billboards are ubiquitous in southern CT.

The other useful tools I'm using are an offset grinder to prep my welding stock. Also, I converted my HarborFreight compound sliding miter saw to be a metal cutting saw by putting in a 10" metal cutting disk. Very useful, especially when I'm cutting a lot of stock. What I like about my miter saw conversion is that I retained the ability to do 45° cuts (or any arbitrary degree) as well as relatively long cross-cuts, which a lot of dedicated metal chopsaws can't do.