Poor Man's Tig Welder

Post pics and info of your current projects.
User avatar
mattawajeep
Posts: 1221
Joined: Wed May 19, 2010 6:18 pm
Location: Mattawa, WA

Poor Man's Tig Welder

Postby mattawajeep » Thu Nov 08, 2012 2:53 pm

I have some sheetmetal that needs welding on my car, as well as a bunch of gun welding projects that need to be completed so I decided to set up a cheap Tig welding rig. If you have a DC capeable tig welder it's really easy to set up.



My Dad's old Lincoln AC/DC stick welder:

Image



124CF Argon bottle I bought last night at Oxarc in Pasco (130 bucks for the filled bottle - a really good deal)

Locally it was $250 for just a 80cf bottle - no gas...

Image



Power and gas hookups for the tig torch. Real easy.

Image



WP17 Tig Torch with gas valve and adjustable head:

Image




Here's my second attempt at laying a bead. My first attempt was a giant crater in the metal as I forgot to turn on the gas...... :roll:

65 Amps, 3/32 Tungsten

Image




That worked out so well that I went straight to adding in filler.

75 Amps w/ filler:

Image


4th bead at 85 Amps:

Image


I'm still a bit shakey, and I have a lot of technique issues to work on - but this was way easier than I thought it would. Gonna go collect a bunch of scrap metal and see if I can't get anything actually welded together.

OldGreen
Posts: 4502
Joined: Tue Mar 13, 2007 6:21 am
Location: coming or going?

Postby OldGreen » Thu Nov 08, 2012 3:10 pm

That is nifty as heck.

User avatar
White trash
Posts: 1763
Joined: Tue Jan 22, 2008 9:38 pm
Location: El Pasco

Postby White trash » Thu Nov 08, 2012 4:22 pm

Sweet! I've been eyeballing the harbor freight tigs for awhile so I can start fabricating chassis and parts for R/C crawlers. What's your investment so far sans tombstone?

User avatar
mattawajeep
Posts: 1221
Joined: Wed May 19, 2010 6:18 pm
Location: Mattawa, WA

Postby mattawajeep » Thu Nov 08, 2012 5:50 pm

White trash wrote:Sweet! I've been eyeballing the harbor freight tigs for awhile so I can start fabricating chassis and parts for R/C crawlers. What's your investment so far sans tombstone?


With the Argon bottle I'm just over $300.

Argon Flowmeter - $65

Power Adapter (for the stick welder to clamp on to) - $5

Torch - $65

Accessories - $45 (New gloves, stainless wire brush, 3lbs of various filler rods, 3 different sizes of tungsten and adapters, and various gas nozzles)

User avatar
mattawajeep
Posts: 1221
Joined: Wed May 19, 2010 6:18 pm
Location: Mattawa, WA

Postby mattawajeep » Thu Nov 08, 2012 6:15 pm

I'm impatient.....



Didn't have any sheet metal to practice on so I grabbed up one of my old projects that I attempted to assemble with a mig welder back when I was just starting to weld.

It's a British WWII Sten MKIII:

Image


I gave up on this thing probably 4 years ago and ground out most of my old welds. This thing is made almost entirely out of <1/16" sheet metal.

Did this with 1/16" Tungsten at 45 amps with a piece of 1/16" filler rod:

Image

Not great, but one of the reasons I picked this project in the beginning was that these things are well known for their ugly welds. Authenticity calls for a bit of slop. I think after I clean up all my old welds, and sandblast the whole thing it will look very close to an original gun. I'm having way too much fun.

79chevy39.5's
Posts: 1204
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2007 7:48 pm

Postby 79chevy39.5's » Fri Nov 09, 2012 2:46 pm

hm, thats neat now if i only had better power in the garage id be snooping for a ac/dc machine

jhonlee2050
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Aug 30, 2017 9:51 am

Re: Poor Man's Tig Welder

Postby jhonlee2050 » Wed Aug 30, 2017 10:33 am

its is easy to built a cheap Tig welding rig if you have the necessary tools and materiel to work on and you have all tools and equipment so it wont be difficult for you
https://plasmacutteradvisor.com/


Return to “Projects and Build-Ups”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: AhrefsBot and 9 guests