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  1. #16
    BobL is offline Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    Perth
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    As others have been saying it's a matter of how quickly you can learn.

    Learning is a can of worms - a few folks can pick things up quickly by watching but most people benefit and get up to speed practicing in the presets of a skilled instructor. A good instructor can teach most people more in half an hour than dozens of hours spent on you-tube. The most important thing the instructor does is watch you while you are doing it and tell you where you are going right and wrong. Try doing that on Youtube Youtube gets increasingly useful once you have the basics and the more you do the more you can tell what they are doing wrong. Second best is a course of some kind. But ultimately is practice/practice practice.

    Once proficient, or if you can keep your hands off the grinder, TIG is a relatively clean activity (much cleaner than stick) and with something like a bathroom fan as a ventilator I reckon you could do small stuff like that chair inside a house - well some houses anyway .

  2. #17
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Location
    Perth
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    241

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    I have welded the skin of 44gal drums with a bunnings MIG (can't remember if I was running it GMAW or FCAW), but then again I'm hopeless with some material thicknesses and I won't be surprised if the drums are thicker than 1.6

    For an extra fun curveball consideration, have a read into MIG brazing

  3. #18
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
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    Mackay North Qld
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    6,446

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    Quote Originally Posted by LordBug View Post
    I have welded the skin of 44gal drums with a bunnings MIG (can't remember if I was running it GMAW or FCAW), but then again I'm hopeless with some material thicknesses and I won't be surprised if the drums are thicker than 1.6
    WHOA! Lets explain for a second that LordBug has checked out those 44gal drums he had welded on, to make sure there was NOTHING that was explosive and thats the likely reason he is able to write this here.

    Sadly so, each year, many wannabee welders neglect this small but really important important safety precaution and are badly injured or killed.

    I know a bloke that nearly BBQ'd his wedding tackle when a Castrol oil drum blew up.He was not even welding,he was cutting the drum down with an angle grinder.


    It is important that this is is pointed out so that nobody assumes that all drums are safe to weld on.

  4. #19
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Location
    Perth
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    241

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    Yeah, probably could have mentioned that I'd taken plenty of precautions to ensure the drum was safe to be worked on, I took my time to become very aware of the potential risks before I even considered taking the grinder to it. Frightened the bejesus out of me reading up on some of the incidents that had happened over the years, and considering I'm still here, I did not feel that I went over the top in ensuring everything was safer than houses

  5. #20
    Join Date
    Feb 2015
    Location
    Oz
    Age
    73
    Posts
    459

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    An AC stick is a perfectly capable machine with which to weld 1.5mm thick tube. Back in the 60s, the factory I did my time in mostly revolved around welding chair frames, tables, gate frames, flyscreen doors and a world of shop fittings, all manufactured using very thin tube of around 16 gauge thickness. We had one very large infinitely adjustable welder for the gun welders that came and went, the other half dozen welders were presets, the name Peerless rings a bell. Today, 40 years since I quit welding as a vocation I can still weld 16 gauge with stick (probably not with presets though) despite shaky hands and poor eyesight. It's about practice.

  6. #21
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Ballina, NSW
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    900

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    With practice and the right rods an inverter stick welder will do a credible job with even 1.2mm gal tubing - but you do get fumes, at least some splatter and slag chips. MIG will be easier - but I have to say that the learning curve isn't a quick as some people would make you believe - it is the easiest thing to master in terms of physical hand movements, but the machine parameters can be complex and it just as easy to stuff up a weld as it is with stick. TIG is clean, incredibly flexible and produces consistently higher quality and better looking welds. For the situation that Aaron describes I couldn't imagine wanting anything but a TIG machine. In terms of the skills required - don't let it put you off - it really isn't THAT difficult.
    Cheers
    - Mick

  7. #22
    Join Date
    Aug 2016
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    Nillumbik
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    7

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    If you chase up some 0.6mm wire, welding down to 1.2mm metal with MIG isn't too scary. I'm another less talented welder as I use it so seldom that I need to practice for a couple of hours before a new job each couple of years. The thinner wire may need different drive rollers to push it through.

  8. #23
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
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    South Australia
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    If I can weld 1mm-1.5mm with my stick welder, a mig should do it easily

  9. #24
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
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    Mackay North Qld
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    Quote Originally Posted by China View Post
    If I can weld 1mm-1.5mm with my stick welder, a mig should do it easily

    I am sure some of our newer readers members may be considering a stick welder would not be averse to knowing what brand and model your welder is.

    Don't tease them OK !

  10. #25
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Location
    South Australia
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    I have a CIG 140 amp Transarc junior 40+ years old, I puchased it new in the early seventis, although I now have a CIGWELD 170 inverter that gives a much easier result on thin material, I should elaborate when I use a stick welder on thin material don't make runs I just make a series of spot welds that are linked together

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