What type of welding is best?

What I want to weld:
All types of steel fencing
General repair of equipment
Frame modifications/motor mounts
Simple off-road bumpers
Lumber rack for a truck
Simple carport

I know nothing about welding and everyone has a different opinion.

I use a 120v Lincoln MIG and it will do up to 1/6" steel with a double pass. It will do it in a single pass if its something that wont have much stress on it.

Learned to stick weld to begin with many years ago. Have a little 110 stick welder for basic stuff that I may need to do. LOVE mig welding. As long as you have wire and gas you can put down long beads and setup is very fast once the machine is set. The bad thing is if you weld outside you will need a flux core wire and even if you have gas flux core wire increases the strength. Wish I could sit down in a shop with a tig welder and try it out. From some things I have looked over tig is great for making a nice strong and good looking bead but it's harder to learn. I actually watched one guy to the assembly with MIG and then take a TIG to go back over everything which made the weld a lot stronger but didn't require using a filler rod.

https://www.youtube.com/user/Welddotcom/videos is a great channel to learn about all the welding in's and outs and mistakes you will probably make as well as what is stronger.

The bad thing about 110/120v welders is that their run time ratings are usually something like 5 minutes on 15 minutes off. You can continue running longer but it can potentially cause some issues. It's hard to get a lot of work done with them if you stay within their ratings, but for a quick fix it job they work fine. A 220 welder is a true workhorse and will allow thicker materials as well as longer work times. But don't buy a new 220 welder, if you go to a local welding shop they will often have a used one that they had someone bring in to get fixed then either decide they want a new one because they need it now or decide it's not worth the money to fix it. The only time I would buy new is if nothing is available at the welding shops to suit your needs.

Ok so this steel fencing you speak of, you talkin bout building it in sections inside then carrying to where it's gonna be put up? Or ya talking pipe fence like long runs and corrals n such? All your other tasks ya mention I say go mig and buy a lil bigger than you think you need. If your gonna go build miles of fence outdoors I'd go with a stick welder. Not sure bout your situation but my perfect world setup would be an engine drive stick machine and an inverter type 220v mig machine. The mig can always be plugged into the engine drive for portability. Mig does a nicer job in my opinion but you can find yourself limited when you get into heavy stuff. A stick machine can do anything but it's not as easy as mig in my opinion.
My mig is a Lincoln 210mp which can run on 110 or 220. I pretty much always run it on 220.

NightShade said:

The bad thing about 110/120v welders is that their run time ratings are usually something like 5 minutes on 15 minutes off. You can continue running longer but it can potentially cause some issues. It's hard to get a lot of work done with them if you stay within their ratings, but for a quick fix it job they work fine. A 220 welder is a true workhorse and will allow thicker materials as well as longer work times. But don't buy a new 220 welder, if you go to a local welding shop they will often have a used one that they had someone bring in to get fixed then either decide they want a new one because they need it now or decide it's not worth the money to fix it. The only time I would buy new is if nothing is available at the welding shops to suit your needs.

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Duty Cycle and no, they arent all that bad. In fact none are that bad...thats real short. Mine is 40% duty cycle IIRCso I can run constant 24 seconds, stop, inspect, wire brush, swig of my beer, and start again.

montesa said:

What I want to weld:
All types of steel fencing
General repair of equipment
Frame modifications/motor mounts
Simple off-road bumpers
Lumber rack for a truck
Simple carport

I know nothing about welding and everyone has a different opinion.

Click to expand...

For a beginner a MIG is a great place to start.

I have a 120V Lincoln 135 that does most everything I want to do. I want a larger machine, but this one works so well and I honestly don't find that many things that it is undersized for. Don't scrimp on the welding helmet either, only took one time of burning my eyes and I bought a good helmet.

You definitely want a mig welder. I've been impressed with the Lincoln LE31mp machine so far. 60% duty cycle, mig up to 5/16 dual shield, and it might be the smoothest arc welder I've ever burned a beam in with.

But to answer the question, best welder is the humble arc welder... it just has the steepest learning curve, especially on thin stock and sheets.

Shoot Summ said:

For a beginner a MIG is a great place to start.

I have a 120V Lincoln 135 that does most everything I want to do. I want a larger machine, but this one works so well and I honestly don't find that many things that it is undersized for. Don't scrimp on the welding helmet either, only took one time of burning my eyes and I bought a good helmet.

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Yeah what he said! And look, I'm stubborn, I'm a hardhead, I do crap just cuz I was told it wasn't healthy, I play the tough guy, MAYBE you are tougher than me but listen, yeah if someone was telling me all this I wouldn't listen but I'm gonna say it anyhow, GETTING FLASHED IS REAL! You may think you are closing your eyes fast enough to get those few tacks done but YOU AINT! You may go ahead and do it and think Cowcatcher was just blowing smoke cuz my eyes are fine. Yeah, you just wait 8-10 hours and you'll be coming back to this thread and saying I was right. Your wife will think you're the biggest baby. You'll sit upright in total darkness with your eyelids clamping down and squeezing your eyeballs you think they may pop. Guess what, NOBODY CAN HELP YOU! These eyelids clamping down with sort of a rhythm I'm positive is much like the contractions a woman feels when in labor. You can tell your wife that but she will tell you to shut up and let her sleep. Potato slices laying on the eyes, that don't work. Your best bet is an ice cold rag laying on your entire head and sitting in total darkness.
I've done this 3 times in 20yrs. Absolutely helpless feeling. Buy an auto darkening hood! I like to see what I'm doing so it's the only way to go. Flipping the other hoods up and down just wears on the plastic headgear in my opinion. Anyhow, do want you want! I don't care, goat head n burn your eyes! Maybe you're tougher than me.

Cowcatcher said:

Yeah what he said! And look, I'm stubborn, I'm a hardhead, I do crap just cuz I was told it wasn't healthy, I play the tough guy, MAYBE you are tougher than me but listen, yeah if someone was telling me all this I wouldn't listen but I'm gonna say it anyhow, GETTING FLASHED IS REAL! You may think you are closing your eyes fast enough to get those few tacks done but YOU AINT! You may go ahead and do it and think Cowcatcher was just blowing smoke cuz my eyes are fine. Yeah, you just wait 8-10 hours and you'll be coming back to this thread and saying I was right. Your wife will think you're the biggest baby. You'll sit upright in total darkness with your eyelids clamping down and squeezing your eyeballs you think they may pop. Guess what, NOBODY CAN HELP YOU! These eyelids clamping down with sort of a rhythm I'm positive is much like the contractions a woman feels when in labor. You can tell your wife that but she will tell you to shut up and let her sleep. Potato slices laying on the eyes, that don't work. Your best bet is an ice cold rag laying on your entire head and sitting in total darkness.
I've done this 3 times in 20yrs. Absolutely helpless feeling. Buy an auto darkening hood! I like to see what I'm doing so it's the only way to go. Flipping the other hoods up and down just wears on the plastic headgear in my opinion. Anyhow, do want you want! I don't care, goat head n burn your eyes! Maybe you're tougher than me.

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Are you sipping the Barley Corn again? LOL
Yes, DO NO GAMBLE with your eyes. I use an auto darkening hood also. Spend the $100 or whatever on a quality hood.
I dont care how tough ya are lol Eyeballs are priceless.

CHenry said:

Are you sipping the Barley Corn again? LOL
Yes, DO NO GAMBLE with your eyes. I use an auto darkening hood also. Spend the $100 or whatever on a quality hood.
I dont care how tough ya are lol Eyeballs are priceless.

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Your eyes are worth way more than $100.

I did the research initially, everyone said as long as it complies with the ANSI standard you are good, just get a $100 helmet they said. Cowcatcher pretty accurately described the way your eyes feel when they are burned. And the $100 helmet did it to me. I bought a Speedglass and haven't had an issue since. Sure it was $300, but I haven't seen any good used eyes going for less than that recently...

Also protect your skin, I've burnt myself way too many times, both sparks, and flash burn, neither are any fun.