Building a welder

[MJL]

MJL:

You are missing your calling my friend. You should be in some third world country building these rigs for the locals. You would be the richest man around.

All kidding aside, I admire your creativity and as a retired electrical engineer, admire your ability to take components older than many of the readers on this web site and integrate them into a working welder.

Thanks. I seem to have an understanding that most of my friends do not. When it come to wiring Jeeps and stuff, I'm known as the guy to call.

[kenklingerman]

Just curious, how much did this whole project cost???? I'm not saying I don't think it was worth it because even at a wash, it would be worth the experience and bragging rights. But I am curious.

[MJL]

Just curious, how much did this whole project cost???? I'm not saying I don't think it was worth it because even at a wash, it would be worth the experience and bragging rights. But I am curious.

I forgot about this thread for awhile.

What has it cost? The welder and HF unit was free, I think I paid $20 for the rectifiers, (there's a thread here somewhere about it) and the big kahuna was ~$600 for the torch, bottle, reg/flowmeter, and the little incidentals that the torch didn't come with. If I had bought from ebay, I could have gotten off a lot (a LOT) cheaper.


I'm still not done, I need to work on the cart, finish the tig and HF parts, then I want to learn enough electronics to build a post flow timer an HF start timer, and a foot pedal.

[MJL]

A corner on my cart. I'll do a little more welding tomorrow and post pics, hopefully I'll be better at it. I know I need to slow down and add more filler, maybe turn up the heat some too.

[TuscolaMatt]

What an awesome project - very cool!

[okgasdude]

DUDE REALLY???

How could you not finsih this thread?? A custom built welder? This is sick! You must update!!!

[billbong]

Yeah a very inconsiderate dude, at least he could have posted a few pics of how he burnt the house down when he tried the tig out and the current draw was too much for his breakers........LOL.

I've noticed when things don't turn out as expected the first you notice is the deathly silence of embarrasment.

Perhaps the lesson to be learned here is, if you make a mistake don't mislead others by not highlighting the fact, at least others won't be tempted to do the same mistake again.

On the other hand maybe the finished job was so big and cumbersome his misses went out and bought him one of those Chinese Caddy Tig welders for a birthday present, dumped the old transformer stuff, and he lived happily ever after.
Ian.