Welding machines

[jiminbartow]

My wife and I are planning to enroll in a welding class at the local vo-tech school. When I was purchasing manager for Mulberry Railcar repair company for 37 years, the Railcar shop used a variety of welding methods for working on railcars. There was Oxy/Acetylene torch welding, Mig wire welding, stick welding and arc welding. What is the best type of welding method to focus on for the majority of welding that is done on the Model T and what type of welding equipment is the best and most versatile for a beginner welder? Thank you. Jim Patrick

[Jeepbone1]

I’d say mig/tig will be most helpful with focus on mig. Oxy/acetylene will be very helpful too. Not so much welding with it but using the torch properly for heating parts to easily bend back into shape or installing solid rivets like what’s used in the frame. The torch is also used should you decide to do any brazing like used on the engine pans.

My 2¢
Brad

[jiminbartow]

Thank you, Brad. We used to supply our worker with Victor torches and Hobart machines. While they were very good, they were quite pricey. Does anyone recommend any other brands that are as good but not as expensive? Jim Patrick

[BobShirleyAtlantaTx]

Pawn shops are a good source for quality Victor welding torches and regulations at a very fair price in my area.

[varmint]

I do not recommend HF as I have had to repair them and parts are not available. The original decision was based on two things, cost and no separate shielding gas with flux core wire welding. We lived in an apartment with no garage and cannot store bottles of gas. I do however recommend wire welding as you will probably want to join pieces of sheet steel with .030 and .035 wire. Adjustable wire speed and amps are a must. We have one setup with steel and the other with stainless wire. Safety clothing is as important as the welder itself, including an auto darkening helmet.

[Henry K. Lee]

Wait until you are finished with the class before purchase. A lot of courses do not cover tin repair until you hit the second year or so. I do not recommend a crappy/cheap welder for tin work. Remember you are a beginner and quality becomes your coach. Buy a quality Miller or similar. Practice, practice, practice. Tin is a game of patiences and heat is your enemy. Learn heat pearl drops and other methods using copper plate backing has a heat shunt. Been doing it for 45 years plus and the rewards still put a smile on my face.


Hope this Helps,

Hank

[Charlie B in N.J.]

You’ll get your best suggestions from them. And your ability.

[RichJ]

I like oxy /acetylene and good ol'e stick welder
just the small oxygen and especially acetylene refills can get pricey ; best to have 2 sets tanks I see them quite at swap meets and offer up ,etc

[AndyClary]

I agree that you will find a MIG welder to be most useful. The newer 110 volt machines should be perfectly adequate for your needs and aren’t terribly expensive. Check with your community college instructor, many times manufacturers offer generous student discounts. An oxy/acetylene see is especially useful as judicious heating of fasteners can often salvage parts.

Andy

[jab35]

I love my Millermatic 120/240 volt mig welder. If you can squeeze and release the trigger, you can weld with it. Autodarkening helmet/shield is a must have. Oxy acetylene torch set is always handy even if you don't use it much for welding. You will always have torchwork jobs to do.

I have no association with Miller welding, but I am a very satisfied owner or their equipment. jb

[Bud Delong]

Victor used to make a combination torch with cutting head and gas welding/brazing tips and maybe they called it a Junior Set?? I have had mine since about 1978. There are many good quality wire feed welders and unless you are into heavy stick is almost gone. If you get a stick ac/dc is better because of type of rod uses available! I would not buy used!!!!!!! Bud who started as a Millwright over 50 years ago!!

[rickd]

I have been using Lincoln Electric mig welders for 20+ years. Solid machines and welding equipment. I use mig almost exclusively sheet metal work. Also have a small gas outfit on hand for panel shrinking/shaping. Enjoy the welding class! I learned welding in a high school shop class many, many years ago and its a skill that I still really value and enjoy doing.

[Mark Gregush]

Besides which welder, good light source. Even with auto-darking helmet, nothing more frustrating then trying to weld in the shadow. I use oxy/acetylene a lot for heating up rusted bolts, bending and building up worn parts. I also have a low end wire feed (non gas) along with an old workhorse AC/DC stick welder.

[Adam]

Brazing and Soldering are very important skills and are a good basic foundation before “advancing” to welding. Welding is a good skill to have for body repair work and maybe even some pan repairs, but I think the most useful and most overlooked skills to have for everything else on the T is brazing and soldering.

[TRDxB2]

What you learn in class will drive your decision. You need to think about what you would be doing with it in the mean time (metal type, thickness, duty cycle). MILLER welders are what many professionals who do lots of welding prefer. HOBART welders are made by Miller and use Miller parts. BUT like everything else; people have preferences.

[John kuehn]

I went to welding school and have a degree in it. I always remember the instructor telling us that learning how to control the heat and manipulating the filler metal is a must to do a good job. He taught us to start off with a Oxy-Acet. rig to learn how to control heat and manipulation.
Once you learn that the rest of it starts to fall in place.
He was a pipe liner when he started and knew about just about any other of the welding processes. But the basic foundation started with Oxy-Acety. and stick arc.

[Steve Jelf]

A night welding class at the local juco about thirty years ago was one of the best investments of time I've ever made. It included mig and stick, but I've always used gas. It has been most useful in making tools and equipment. Nobody will ever accuse me of being a good welder, but being able to cobble things together has been very handy. My most recent project that included the use of welding is a lifter for raising a magneto/flywheel/transmission.

I don't know about Florida, but in these parts welding equipment can often be had at farm auctions and estate sales for a fraction of retail.

[Mark Gregush]

Jeff, your pup looks like he has done something bad and knows it!

[PDGx]

Jim when you get ready to look for equipment take a look at Northern tool - they handle the Hobart line, and you can look, and compare models.

I’ve had one of Hobarts large Migs for over 40 years, and parts are easily available. I have since added their Tig, spool fed Mig for Al, and their plasma cutter. All smaller units, and real handy.
There’s no one size fits all in welding, but Mig is probably the most handy for thinner materials. Don’t use Oxy/acet much any more except for brazing and heating.

You also have a good welding supplier right in Bartow - NexAir on Centennial Blvd. - get my gasses there.

[Wayne Sheldon]

One cautionary note I would add on buying oxyacetylene welding equipment.
I would imagine the rules on this vary somewhat from state to state, but yours are likely somewhat similar to here in Califunny.
The hoses, gauges, tips ,valves etc are all most likely yours (possible to be leased!), and can be bought and sold freely. The tanks you must be careful of! They can be either owned, OR rented/leased! Many people do not know what they have, many of them acquired through estate sales, or other private transactions. However, all too often, people will buy tanks thinking and having often been told that they are 'owned' and therefore available for sale. Only later, sometimes years later, discover that the tanks were rented/leased and missing in action (those can be and often are considered stolen property!). That can and has many times lead to potentially serious legal problems.
It may or may not be easy to tell the difference. When my dad passed away, I inherited his set (the torch is older than I am!). I had many times over the years taken his tanks into the local place that he had always dealt with. I knew that although he was the owner of record, that once in awhile, they would exchange a rented tank to him if they were out of the owner tanks for exchange. They had a simple paint code on the tanks for exchange purposes, and if I had to take a tank in for exchange and it happened to be a rented tank, they would simply check his account record.
When I first took his tanks into the local to me (Airgas), I made sure that they understood the situation, and they checked the tanks themselves for the hidden codes to determine that they were in fact 'owned tanks'. Apparently, the rules have relaxed a bit from the many years ago. It used to matter what gas company's tanks they were. In the fifteen years that I have had them myself, that has not seemed to be an issue any more. I have had other shops say they can fill them for me if I want them to.
But it does still matter that the tanks are 'owned tanks'! Sometimes, there are markings stamped into the tanks that clearly identify them. Sometimes there re not such markings (I have run into that a few times).
If you go to buy a second hand torch set? At least try to find something on the tanks themselves that identify them as 'owned' or "owner" tanks. Try to find out from the seller if they know for certain that they are owned tanks. However, again, a lot of people do not know, and simply assume that they have them, therefore they own them.
My son ran into that when he bought an oxyacetylene welding set about ten years back. The seller assured him they were owned tanks. But it wound up costing him another hundred dollars with the gas supplier to have them converted to owned tanks.

I was helping my dad with welding by the time I was five. I was doing actual welding and brazing myself by the time I was twelve. I do not consider myself an expert by any means. However, I taught myself the art of 'flame shaping' a long time ago, and have repaired so many things that others said "can not be repaired" that I don't know what I would do if the equipment was taken away from me. It is just something that I do so naturally when something breaks, I just go out and weld it!

Good luck with the lessons! And enjoy it.

[RichJ]

I've picked up oxy/ acetylene outfits with some fill in the tank, at swap meets and grange sales ,flea markets for less than it would cost to fill the tanks I bought a good DC 180 amp welder at swap meet 30 years ago for 80.00 and still using it; done some heavy welding some years ago but perfect for my little? and sometimes not so little projects !

[varmint]

Since you are planning on taking classes, might as well see if you can dabble with a plasma cutter in school. It may influence your decision as to what model you purchase.

[Kuhner]

I started with a Lincoln tombstone AC stick welder. Still use it for material over 3/16 or so. Materials are cheaper for me, and my MiG really goes through the wire on thick material.
I like my Lincoln 180, it is a 240 volt machine, does anything from sheet metal to 1/2 inch.
I would recommend a 240 volt machine over the 120v.
Those old Lincoln tombstone can be found for about 100 bucks on Craigslist or Facebook marketplace. Nice to have around as a second welder.
Of course all my opinion.

Greg

[Bud Delong]

I still use my very old Lincoln bought new in1977.The duty cycle is not very strong but when i had equipment it gave good service! If your doing welding as a lark why pay a ton of money for something you may quickly put aside?? Bud

[John Warren]

If I could only have one thing to weld with, it would be a complete oxy-acc set up. It must include a cutting torch, various brazing-welding tips and a rosebud heating tip. If you get proficient with it, many things are possible. All welding processes are revealed while using this set-up. Arc, mig, tig, plasma, and of course brazing/soldering. The oxy-acc is the most versatile and is mother of all these processes. Being proficient with it will give you a great understanding/head start when using all the other processes. Building my race car, I relied heavily on my oxy-acc set up!

Cutting ( manifold flange) Brazing

[RichJ]

Wayne
very good info / advice
Your last paragraph relay took me back to early 50s , i remember seeing my dad doing his magic with a stick of lead on a right side quarter panel vertical surface ,tinning and piling on the lead and then just enough heat to make it workable with wood paddle around 1956 this new stuff came out. --called black magic after that the lead was only used for unique situations I'd give any thing to go back to those times
I am still able to go back in that garage and relive some of the best days of my life !

[Art M]

:there is very good advice in the above posts. I recommend acetylene torch first. A Tig welder is the most versatile. It can be used on thin material as well as aluminum. Tig welders are expensive but loved by those who use them. 50 years ago, I was able to weld aluminum with my ac stick welder. I am no longer able. My buddy has a tig to do that.
I use an old plumber's bottle for acetylene. And bought a new oxygen bottle 50 years ago. Torch is a Rego brand.

[otrcman]

Jim,

I'd suggest that you go into your welding class with an eye to learning the capabilities and limitations of the various types of equipment. Then keep looking around your shop at what you expect to weld. As your knowledge increases, you will be able to ask specific questions of the instructor. That information gained will help you digest the suggestions of the Model T folks.

Dick

[jiminbartow]

Thank you everyone. There’s a lot of great information here to consider. Jim Patrick

[TMiller6]

I have Lincoln welders, MIG and TIG. I think MIG is easiest for a beginner but TIG is more versatile since you’re not always feeding metal into the joint. Also some claim that MIG leaves a harder weld on body sheet metal. I also have my late uncle’s gas rig. Yes I own the tanks.

IMPORTANT
I bought a Harbor Freight auto darkening helmet that worked great until it came time to change the battery. The model I had was not serviceable so I gave it to my brother and he came up with an external battery holder. I now use Lincoln helmets with serviceable batteries. I found a couple on Amazon and directed the charity proceeds to the MTFCA.

Before I bought my Lincoln TIG, I bought an inverter powered Chinese TIG from Amazon. This unit is lightweight and has adjustable waveforms. It came with a very crummy pedal and I ended up fitting a Lincoln pedal to it. It supposedly has U.S. supported service centers. It is dual voltage but I prefer 220. The nice thing about both TIG units is that they also stick weld though I have never needed to do so.

[TRDxB2]

Not suggesting this - but its interesting that some ca n MIG, TIG, and Stick weld. for a price
Here are some reviews -
https://weldguru.com/best-multi-process-welder/
https://inboxq.com/best-multi-process-welders/
are they worth it >? https://makeitfrommetal.com/are-multi-p ... -worth-it/

[It's Bill]

I have had oxy/acetylene for many years and love its versatility. Bought a Miller mig outfit several years ago and can now weld stainless and aluminum too. A revelation! When you finish the welding course, try blacksmithing. It is a blast, and you will be able to fabricate anything! Have fun and best of luck, Bill