Wire or Stick for off road kart

[tenaja]

Originally Posted by bugpac

...the spool gun is 900.00, welding aluminum without spool is not recomended, i heard it really sux...

The price of the spool gun was what pushed me towards the Lincoln--if I wanted to double the price of my "cheap" welder, I would have gotten an expensive welder.

As far as using it without a spool but only a liner, I've done it. Not a lot, but--for me--it was the same as welding steel. I didn't have to hold a heavy spool in my hand, and I never had a rats nest. You have to use the softer wire, I've read, because it melts lower, and the other wire doesn't work well with little welders. If you take care to set it up properly, testing the roller tension and bumping it up until it just slips when stopped at the tip, and keep your lines as straight as possible, you should have no problem. At $65, it's a great way to try your hand at alum welding, especially if you don't anticipate enough need to justify the extra $900. Lincoln has a good writeup on it on their site.

[Bugpac]

ya, i have never tried it myself just going on what i heard.any suggestions on a good tig machine? reasonably priced.

[diirk]

Has anyone heard of [url=http://www.wirepropellant.com/:2p1uakaj]Wire Propellent Systems[/url:2p1uakaj]. This might be an inexpensive alternative to a spool gun....

[Bugpac]

my buddy was telling me they had a hand fed gun for tigging were he works.

[diirk]

TIG isn't wire feed. The TIG gun has a tungsten rod in it and you feed the wire rod by hand, like with gas welding. You control the current with a pedal.

[Bugpac]

i know this, he said they had a hand held feeder for the tig, they do production welding.maybe i should have reworded what i said, and i wasnt sure what they called it.

[KWiKSand]

There is a thing for tig welding that you can put the filler rod in, and then every time you push a button on it it pushes the filler a little farther out. Kind of like a mechanical pencil. I have been thinking about getting one, because I have trouble moving my had up the rod as I go.

[WelderPat]

Originally Posted by KWiKSand

There is a thing for tig welding that you can put the filler rod in, and then every time you push a button on it it pushes the filler a little farther out. Kind of like a mechanical pencil. I have been thinking about getting one, because I have trouble moving my had up the rod as I go.

Don't wear gloves.

[KWiKSand]

Haven't been. You should see the burns and blisters on my hands and wrists But even then it takes some dexterity to do it smoothly that my old hands just don't seem to have.

[diirk]

bugpac,
Sorry about implying that you weren't familiar with TIG. Rereading your post, I can see what you meant. An automatic feeder for filler rod would be pretty cool.

I'm with KWIKSand in that feeding the wire by hand is a little tough for me to. That's one of the reasons I didn't get a TIG.

As for gloves when TIG welding, I use a heavy gauntlet for the gun hand and a thin Mechanix Wear type glove for the filler rod hand. No burns yet....