What type of welding is best?

[TwoForFlinching]

Old school here. I have a 240 amp Miller AC/DC with reverse polarity capability stick welder. Did a lot of tig aluminum way back in the day. That is an artform that takes a lot of day in day out practice to maintain that skill.
A stick can do anything a mig can, and much quicker if going between metals. Weld cast iron with the right rod, weld sheet metal with 1/16"
easy start tip rod 2 minutes later.
More than once have had to stick two rods together and bend them to get at an odd angle to save time.
Best thing I ever saw a stick welder used for was at the power plant I retired from. We had some 9000 hp electric motors that drove pumps to take water from the river to the lake for make up water if the lake got too low. The motors were above ground while the pumps and associated piping was 10' under grating. A quarter sized hole blew out in one of the elbows. No way to get down there without pulling the motor, and would be a gargantuan task taking days.
One of our welders that came from a Nuke power plant put a stick welder stinger on the end of two broom sticks wired together and filled in that hole, then put a patch on top. Used another set of sticks with a chisel wired to it to clean the slag between weld passes.
They always used stick welders in the boilers to replace the heavy wall tubing. Took two guys. One guy would initiate the arc, run 60 degrees around the joint where the second welder would use his rod to pick up the arc and continue another 60 degrees or so before the original welder would pick up the second guys arc and finish the weld. It had to be a continuous bead with no breaks, then Xrayed.
Mig is a lot cleaner, and easier, I'll give it that, but It's a stick for me.
+1000 on the auto hoods! Best thing they ever invented.

Everybody always discounts stick arc welding lol... I have my grandpa's old 50's lincoln tombstone buzz box. He was a welder in the navy, retired to build co-ops all over OK and TX. That man welded everything with that thing. Iron, steel, stainless, aluminum, brazed bronze and other alloys, even managed to burn down the shed repairing a mag wheel once lol. I assume it's powered by dark matter because it weighs a ton, but it's been reliable everytime we've been brave enough to plug it in. Tig is beautiful, mig is practical, but arc welding is the one true welding.

 

[dennishoddy]

Everybody always discounts stick arc welding lol... I have my grandpa's old 50's lincoln tombstone buzz box. He was a welder in the navy, retired to build co-ops all over OK and TX. That man welded everything with that thing. Iron, steel, stainless, aluminum, brazed bronze and other alloys, even managed to burn down the shed repairing a mag wheel once lol. I assume it's powered by dark matter because it weighs a ton, but it's been reliable everytime we've been brave enough to plug it in. Tig is beautiful, mig is practical, but arc welding is the one true welding.

The older lincolns had copper windings in the transformer coils. Pretty much 100% duty cycle. The newer ones have aluminum windings to make them lighter and cheaper with a 40% duty cycle if I remember right. What killed most of those older copper winding welders was that the fan would quit and the coils would burn up. A lot of folks used to put bigger fans underneath so they could weld all day, especially with the aluminum coil models.

 

[MacFromOK]

I've welded on Lincoln 225 amp AC crackerboxes waaay more than the duty cycle for days on end. I helped build 60 & 70 barrel tanks and the high pressure plumbing on hot oil trucks back in the late '70s & early '80s.

FWIW, your duty cycle isn't always what you think it is, but I have welded almost non-stop for several hours after tacking large tanks/structures together. The electrode holder would eventually get uncomfortably warm even through the heavy leather welding gloves.

Just my 2¢ ...

 

[AKguy1985]

My welding experience is limited but MIG is usually the go to for people. I learned how to weld on a stick welder back in my high school days.