welding and welders

[Pinion]

looking for a good welder, easy to use for body and chasis plate welding. not building frames or anything crazy, just installing reinforcement plates and e46 fender flares on the fender.
110 is my only power source.
thanks

[Tommy Samuels]

There isn't a good 110 volt welder. There are a couple of pretty crappy 110 volt welders available at Horrible Freight. One is a flux cored wire machine. With a lot of practice and the smallest diameter wire available, you can make acceptable welds in thin materials. There are also straight MIG machines. The problem with ALL 110 volt machines is current limitations. The additional problem of the cheaper machines is VERY short duty cycle at max output.

The other is a 110 volt stick machine. Honestly this is a better choice than the flux cored, but takes a bit more skill. You can get 3/32 6018 or 6013 filler rods and if there's a welding supply house you can find 1/16" filler rods. 6013, 6018, and 7018 all weld with not too much splatter. Stay away from 6010 rods, they make a mess.

When welding cleanliness is next to Godliness... It's also next to impossible, but the cleaner the better.

[wake74]

There are a pretty wide range of 110V MIG welders, to the HF cheapo, to Miller. Eastwood sells something in the middle for around $300-$400 I think.

Personally, I would go MIG over flux core, or stick, for ease of use for a newbie.

Sticking two pieces together with a MIG is easy, making the weld strong and pretty takes lots of skill and practice (neither of which I have) :-)

[Tommy Samuels]

Originally Posted by wake74

Sticking two pieces together with a MIG is easy, making the weld strong and pretty takes lots of skill and practice (neither of which I have) :-)

Therein lies the problem. Sticking stuff together isn't the same as welding. If you can make a pretty bead with a stick welder you are almost certain to have a good weld.

A monkey can be trained to squeeze the trigger on a MIG gun. Doesn't mean the result will be sound.

[Pinion]

I have experience stick welding, would not want to do that under a car trying to weld swaybar mount reinforcements, I like the mig idea. Not looking to make a frame, just some minor reinforcement plates and body plates and such