Guys,

I'm looking to do a bit of welding in the coming weeks / months, so I need a welder of some sort.

The intended use is:

* welding some body panels of random cars
* welding some midi moto bits and pieces

Longer term, I'd also like to be able to build a small go-kart etc, so it needs to be able to cope with normal RHS of maybe 1.5mm thickness. (Long-long term, i want to build a Locost seven replica...)

I'm on a really tight budget as I've spent all my money on engine bits, so I was looking on ebay, and apparently you can get gas/no-gas (dual mode?) mig welders with the mask etc etc for about 200 quid delivered.

Would a cheap mig welder be up to the jobs above?

I don't want to get an ARC welder as it looks way more complicated and a TIG is out of the price range

 

come on folks, someone must know

 

Have a trip to machine mart or similar and tell them the thickness that you will be welding, obviously you want to go as small in power as you can to prevent putting holes in panels.

 

Try and find one with an adjustable power setting, ie from 1-9 rather than the cheap ones that only have a couple of switches for the power settings. It will give you more choice for welding thin stuff.

 

DO NOT buy a cheap gasless one.

Basic rule with migs is buy the best you can afford. You get exactly what you pay for.

I have a Clarke 151TE Turbo which was expensive (£350) new. It was bought by my uncle who used it almost everyday for 3 years, as he is in the trade ,and was given to me 2 years ago, since which I have used it to build a Lotus Seven replica (locost) and repair several trailers / cars.

A friend of mine bought a cheap (£130) chinese make 130amp welder which seemed decent from the spec sheet, but didn't even complete a Locost chassis before breaking un-repairably.