Thoughts/advice about welding

Hi folks. I’d been grateful for some thoughts/advice.

I’ve always done a lot of DIY, in a whole range of disciplines and, over the years/decades, have accumulated an equally wide range of portable and ‘workshop’ power tools.

The one thing I’ve never got into is welding, which is something that I would occasionally find very useful. Although I have lots of experience of soldering and brazing, my only attempts at welding was at school, best part of 60 years ago, and related to oxy-acetylene welding.

I’m wondering whether, in my senior years, this is a ‘deficiency’ which would be worth addressing. If/when I had acquired kit and (hopefully!) some degree of ‘competence’ in using it, I would only need to use it very occasionally, and only for small/’light’ projects.

What do folks think? Am I foolish to be considering trying to acquire this skill in my ‘old age’?

I presume (but remain open to correction!) that we would probably be talking about MIG welding and, although the “IG” stands for ‘inert gas’, I gather that it can also be done ‘gasless’ – with a flux-cored welding rod, rather than gas, providing the 'shielding'? Although I realise it would mean limited power, it would be convenient to have a machine that could be plugged into a 13A socket – since, although I have a few16A sockets (and could even create a 3-phase supply if I had to), they are not in the most convenient of places. Any advice/suggestions?

As you will understand, I currently know very little about welding (or welders), but, even at my age I’m a pretty ‘quick learner’ I’ve recently come across things like this (mainly on Amazon) – they look pretty Mickey Mouse (and/or ‘too good to be true’), and presumably are pretty low-powered, but, needless to say, the marketing blurb and ‘reviews’ make them sound like the best thing since sliced bread! Taken at face value, what I read suggests that they might be adequate for the sort of small/light jobs I might contemplate, but am I right in assuming that I should ‘ignore’ them?





Any thoughts/suggestions/insights/advice would be very welcome!

Kind Regards, John

I've done and taught most types of welding (ex pipeline welder)
It really depends on what you intend doing.
Stick together a few bits of mild steel mig would do it, though Stick welding (M M A) is still worth considering.
Add aluminium or stainless tig would be way to go you can also braze with a tig set .
I've currently got oxy- acetylene as I still do some lead welding and a second hand Lincoln stick/tig set.

I have zero experience of welding.

The following review seems to be the most honest I could find.

For years I had an old style air cooled 140A stick welder. It did a job but it was heavy and the arc wasn't terribly consistent. I picked up a set of industrial welding leads at a boot fair for £2 and that made it much handier.

About 10 years ago I had a lot of stuff to do and treated myself to an inverter welder: night and day completely stable arc and the set ony weighs a couple of kg so perfectly fesible to weld up a ladder if you've a mind to do so.

I also have a MIG which I rarely use as to be honest I've never really set myself to use it to get a proper feel for and therefore confidence in it. Mine is gas either small dispposable bottle or it came with a regulator so you could get a larger refillable cylinder. I don't think it will take fluxed wire though many do both.

In theory the MIG is more versatile as it will deal with thin metal rather easier but outdoors wind can take the shielding gas away and lead to bad welds. Stick welding is generally taken as being more suited to outdoor work or if you're trying to weld less than perfectly clean stuff.

The gizmos you show are likely just that: there's a guy on u tube who regularly debunks these kind of wonder tools, I can't recall his name but I'm sure a bit of searching would find him. Laser welding is very much a real thing but costs are a couple of orders of magnitude higher than the toys Amazon and the like offer

EDIT
I watched Opps vid while typing, these are not the laser things I assumed they were and do seem to work after a fashion, but you'll note that the reviewer isn't impressed.

The old adage that you're never too old to learn springs to mind, so go for it

stevie888 said:

The old adage that you're never too old to learn springs to mind, so go for it

Click to expand...

I learned/more less taught myself with little help, whilst working in Italy, using a stick welder Then years later, I got a yen, to have a go at home. I needed shelves, in my new garage, and spotted an ad for some lengths of angle iron, and a stick welder, bought it, and built the heavy-duty shelves. They remain in good use, today. I've made good use of that welder since, though it is limited to thick materials, so I bought a MIG welder. I was never as confident with the MIG, as the stick welder.

To the OP

Welding is a skill that needs practise.

You are likely to find yourself taking ages to get everything set up right and little time actually being productive.

I wouldn't bother, unless you have a large, long term project, to do

I restored a couple of classic cars using a MIG welder bought from machine mart. Not tge cheapest but certainly not high end either. I had welded before and did a few practice runs before committing to car repairs. I tried on a couple of secondhand car panels and some flat plate. Cars turned out well even if I do say so myself and I recouped most of my cash when I sold the welder a few years later.

Give it a go you have nothing to lose and the sense of achievement will be awesome. Even if it doesn't work out at least you will have had a go and can tick that box.

Old Salt said:

Give it a go you have nothing to lose and the sense of achievement will be awesome. Even if it doesn't work out at least you will have had a go and can tick that box.

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It's very much, a skill and facility, you find a use for, once you have them. Some things, can only be done, by welding.

I don't think it's ever too late to learn new skills!
As the others have said, it depends on what you want to do which will determine the gear to buy.
For light stuff, brazing may be the way. These days there's no need to be drawn into BOC for bottled gas.....motor factors can supply non rental bottles of oxygen, acetylene and argon /CO2 mix. I have an ex BOC 'Portapak' which is very good, others are available.
With brass spelter and Sifbronze flux you can't go wrong.
Then you'll need to consider MIG.......gas type preferred but fluxed wires are available if you perform where there's some breeze!
This is great for larger section metals, say 1/8" or larger. You'll quickly get the hang of it but you'll need a few lengths of scrap steel for practice.
I'd avoid stick welders unless you intend to construct pylons!
If you intend to do car restoration then TIG is the way to go.
For electric gear an auto darkening helmet is vital. With oxy then goggles are fine.
Don't consider (yet) welding aluminium....that's another ball game entirely.
Do let's know if you decide to bash on......many more tips are available!
John

Might be a bit far for you, but if you want to learn welding there's:


Which is in Hinckley. The guy that runs it, Bob, features in Mat Armstrong car repair videos on YouTube, and seems a nice bloke and excellent welder.

opps said:

The following review seems to be the most honest I could find.

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Thanks. It actually seemed to work a lot better than I had suspected/feared. Although the reviewer said that he would not recommend it, it seems that was mainly because one has to hold the whole relatively heavy 'tool' - which I imagine does not help when trying to achieve a 'steady hand'!

stevie888 said:

The old adage that you're never too old to learn springs to mind, so go for it

Click to expand...

Harry Bloomfield said:

I learned/more less taught myself with little help, whilst working in Italy, using a stick welder Then years later, I got a yen, to have a go at home.

Click to expand...

Old Salt said:

Give it a go you have nothing to lose and the sense of achievement will be awesome. Even if it doesn't work out at least you will have had a go and can tick that box.

Click to expand...

Harry Bloomfield said:

It's very much, a skill and facility, you find a use for, once you have them. Some things, can only be done, by welding.

Click to expand...

Burnerman said:

I don't think it's ever too late to learn new skills! ... Do let's know if you decide to bash on......many more tips are available!John

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Many thanks to you all. As I suspected, a lot to think about and ask questions about (which I'll try soon, but please be patient, because I have limited time at the moment). In the meantime ....

All of the above comments reflect my own attitude to life - my interest in this is primarily as an 'intellectual (and practical) challenge', rather than the result of any 'pressing need'. I've managed for many decades without welding, so I'm sure that I could see the rest of my time out without it - but it's a 'challenge' and, as said above, a potential source of satisfaction (as well as usefulness) if I could develop a usable degree of skill!

Nearly all of the skills I've acquired and developed over the years have been essentially self-taught. Even in terms of my professional academic educations (more than one of them!), I did not find 'being taught' very useful/efficient - so I always tended to largely ignore lectures, and then go away and read, play, and practice on my own (today, 'watching videos' would undoubtedly get added to that list!). I therefore am quite hopeful that I would be able to achieve something given some welding kit, even if it took a fair bit of time and a bitof heartache/frustration!

In contrast ....

carmanmemoranda said:

Welding is a skill that needs practise. ... You are likely to find yourself taking ages to get everything set up right and little time actually being productive. ... I wouldn't bother, unless you have a large, long term project, to do

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... whilst I respect that as well-intentioned, and pragmatically probably fairly sensible, advice, it is the antithesis of my personal approach to 'challenges' and, indeed, to life itself