Club 80-90 Forums

Mig welders got the chance to get one cheap.As i have a lot of welding to do on my van just wondered if they are any good and easy enough to use.Done a bit of welding but i would'nt say i am experianced.Ta

i have a gasless welder and i have no problem at all with it

If you want to do a reasonable amount of good welding, then dont bother with the gasless ones. In my experience they are crap.

Get the best gas one you can and blag a CO2 bottle from your local pub. It will work out a lot cheaper in the long run, as the fluxed wire is more expensive than the ordinary stuff.

I've got a small gas bottle somewhere that someone can have -

I'll sort out a piccie later

Thanks for all your replies,still none the wiser as there seems to be so many different views.All of the work I will be doing is just panels and not structural if that is any help.

Bodywork is by far the more challenging welding to do, especially if you're looking at buying a cheap welder.

At full power a cheap MIG welder will dole out a lovely flow of power and wire. This will be no good for welding your panels. What you will be doing is choking it right back power and wire-speed-wise - you're looking at welding corrosion-prone thin steel. To do this properly you will need very well controlled current and wire speed, as well as well prepared panels (clean metal).

To weld bodywork properly you need a good, preferably bodywork-specific MIG welder and proper argon-mix gas, or you're going to wind up with a lot more holes than you start with.

Sorry, but having spent a fair while behind a welding torch you get to appreciate that bodywork welders are very higly skilled craftsmen and there's a good reason that bodywork costs so much to repair - not everyone can do it properly!

practise as much as you can on scraps of metal, old body panels/cars from scrapper etc.

I still don't think my welding is good enough for visible stuff