Martin called around you today he had just purchased one of those MIG welders and asked if I would call it around to his place to have a look as those one or two things he was not sure about. I’ve known him for a number of years now and you would think somebody buying a welder may have their own business in a welding shop. But, his ideas are slightly different. He is basically a sculptor who has been working with different materials over the years. I have seen some of his work lately where he was making small metal objects just trying to get ideas and using a small welding gun to do them.
Now his plans are to scale this up and make a number of bigger objects. It was funny a few weeks ago when he started asking me about welding equipment to be honest I don’t think I was a great help because I am not an absolute expert on using them. I do know for a fact that there is a big difference between expensive and cheap Mig welders and that basically lies around how easy they are to use. The first eliminate some of that was what he was going too well and find out if a hobby sized welder will be good enough or whether he needed something a little bit more substantial. To suppose it was really going to be down to the amount of work he was going planning on doing and if these projects were just going to be another phase of his artwork or whether it was something serious that he was going to do for a long time. The reason I wanted to notice is that he was going to buy a cheap welder that may be sufficient for what he’s doing now but if he was planning on doing bigger and more work (hopefully) he may need to consider investing in something a little bit better.
There are number of things you have to consider when you go to purchase one and we looked at things like minimum amps and maximum comes. Smaller welders will have 30 amps which is fine if you are working with 1.0mm sheets. You will also find some cheaper (which are cheaper is the right word) welders that are 20-25 amps and these are fine for working 0n 0.8mm steel.
We also looked at various things like duty cycle which varies from manufacturer to manufacturer but this is essentially the time period that you can well for before needing to take a break before the unit overheats. We also looked at welder parts and pricing to make sure that going forward Martin could have a good grasp of maintenance and overall expenses during the year.
There are many other things that we consider which I will go into during the next. Just need to attend to domestic life here present so will post here later today with some more information.