youngben

iTrader: (2)

Ok so im in the market for a decent welder! have upto £700 to spend and want something upto the job! i would like it to be able to do car body work and upto 6mm steel. what do you use any pics of your work from it please share

thanks in advance

RUBY123

iTrader: (2)

ive got a portamig everyone that uses it says its the best they have ever used

youngben

iTrader: (2)

thankyou for your input its on my list up there with murex machine and the thermal arc

dingla rs

iTrader: (2)

i have a snapon 150 good but my mates sealey 180 much better for thick stuff cages ect

botters

iTrader: (2)

i dont rate the snap on welders at all personally every one that i have used seem to lack enough power for good penetration
cebora tend to be good welders and you should have a fair bit of change from £700

clairendave

We Have a cemont blue at work.
Home use i have a Big old sealey.

I belive the cemont is a rebrand of someone elses, as we were told they mainly make plasmas.

botters

iTrader: (2)

http://www.toolbaydirect.co.uk/catal...e-240v/165510/

that was just the first website i went on, these can be had cheaper elsewhere

stevieturbo

Ive had a Murex for years, been a great welder. More so given my crap welding lol

But the Portamig mentioned does get good reviews and is well priced. Allegedly it can go to a very low current which would help on the thin stuff.

crazycage

at home i have a migatronic 180 amp gas mig and a ac/dc parweld 201 tig.
at work i use a esab inverter synergic pulse mig.

LewisT

botters cebora make snap on welders lol

3i_gaz

Tehnically "wilkinson star" supply the welders for snap-on in the UK. but yeah may as well say Cebora

the 180 ones are mega!

weegaz22

LOL Cebora are the ones that makes snap-on welders

personally at that money I'd be looking at kemppi, murex or esab, 2nd hand obviously

botters

iTrader: (2)

well they must be using parts out of thier scrap bin then cus the 3 snap on ones ive used have been gash! only small units mind but they should still be capable of a good weld on thin steel
and im a qualified welder before anyone says its me lol

weegaz22

They are built on a build 'em cheap and sell 'em high basis under snap on name, most guys i know that have used one(me included) came to the same opinion as yourself....Crap, but i have the same opinion on cebora stuff, although i have known one or 2 guys to get lucky and have one that works great, but for the most a lot of people have to fart about with them to lay a bead properly, probably just poor QC on cebora's part imo

botters

iTrader: (2)

i have a cebora tig that is mint, and the place i used to work at had cebora mig, was just a middle of the road unit but was good, i was building the beds for recovery trucks with it and was giving perfect penetration on 4mm steel then
the one i have now in my own garage is mint, ive never used a welder as good as it for any thickness steel from .8mm and above (thickest ive welded with it is an inch thick
cant remember what make it is ill look tommorow all i know is its ancient! and my welding parts supplier has seen it and told me never to get rid of it as he said after looking at the internal gubbins it was one of the best welders he has ever seen

weegaz22

To be fair my experience of Cebora stuff is more limited to their hobbyist range(ie the bottom end of the market, so the cheapest of the cheap) i haven't used any of their higher end stuff so could just be that their hobby line of their range isn't the greatest

Aye all the old welders are great, they all have huge chunky transformers and components in them compared to some of the mickey mouse stuff thats built nowadays

scoooby slayer

iTrader: (4)

i have a 185 sealey good welder imo.

xr4x4rs

iTrader: (5)

i just have a little clarke 135 turbo, had it for 5 years now, but just dne a modification to convert to euro torch and its change the welder completely, just need to mod it to run big bottle of gas and that will do me then i think

RUBY123

iTrader: (2)

i think mines the 215 portamig and it goes down to 15 amps

xr2wishy

iTrader: (2)

I've had a coupe of 150 sealey supermigs now, works fine for day to day stuff.
I wish I had the money for a tig welder though.

LewisT

I have a butters 235 pulse synergic inverter welder will do arc mig tig(dc only sadly) never used it yet, never got round to getting shielding gas for it. half expecting it to go pop the first time i use it.

youngben

iTrader: (2)

cheers peeps! thats whats making me want the thermal arc as it has tig capeability aswell which i would like to learn!

1.9 xr2 on 40's

151turbo mig, very goood and i treat it badly

Mr Whippy

Just a shade over budget, but this is what I use, and its very very good.

http://www.r-techwelding.co.uk/Mig_W...-Tech_I-Mig200

liam-rst

iTrader: (1)

my mates murex tradesmig is the bollox

stevieturbo

I have one of their TIG machines, and certainly cannot complain about it.

But for a MIG welder, that's a whopping price. And unless things have changed, they are largely Chinese based ( everything inside my TIG was Chinese when I opened it up )

I'm not knocking them though by any means. A friend has one of their MIG's and has no problems with it either.

But for around £1k, you can buy a Murex of similar power etc as a friend just bought one a few weeks ago locally. That just makes the R-Tech sound expensive.

A 215A Portamig is some £250 cheaper, and go as low as 15A which seems to be a unique feature of theirs

Wide variety here

http://www.migtigarc.co.uk/MIG_Welder/mig_welder.html

zetaboostboy522bhp

now that sounds like the dogs , thats the only thing that lets the thermal arc machine down that its not pulsed as this is how you get fantastic neat welds in tig mode.
the thermal arc fabricator 181i is inverter based instead of transformer with gives you a very stable welding arc in all modes plus the machine only weighs 14.9 kg which is around the same as a hand bag. also in mig mode it goes down to 10amps and upto 180amp which is better than a portamig machine. now if you wanna learn mig , tig and stick then you cant get better than this machine imo for the price as it was meant to be £1000 and is on offer with a stick tool , euro tourch for around £580
the tig touch is around £100 mark so its great value for money.

cheers paul

langer

iTrader: (1)

Seally 185 mig welds anything you'll need to weld had mine for about 8 year from new and there's nothing it can't do

caprizetec170

I use 250amp INE's at work. but for home car stuff i use a sealey supermig170 great little welder just swap to 0.6mm wire for body work and 0.8 for everything else comes with he small shroud torch which is handy for tight spaces and only cost £350 brand new off equitech solutions on ebay

Mr Whippy

A valid point, however in my defense it was a package deal with an AC/DC tig and plasma cutter, so paid considerably less than list. If you make the effort to go see them then they dont mind a deal

stevieturbo

It would be very expensive for me to go and see them lol. I'm not exactly local.

When I bought my TIG from them, I'm sure it was massively cheaper than their latest 200A machine
That was what drew me to it. The 2 year warranty, and good value pricing. I'm sure their newest stuff is better, but is also hugely more expensive.

The one zetaboostboy is on about sounds excellent though.

When i bought my Murex 151A machine some 15-16 years ago or so I wanted a good quality brand that could take a 15kg roll.
And apart from replacing a torch and one other small part, it's been totally faultless. I dont use it that often, but it is one tool I would not be without.

Mark V8

iTrader: (2)

I'm using a 20 year old Sealey 100 amp mig

Never let me down since I've had it BUT I've just changed from pub gas CO2 to Argoshield mig gas and it welds soo much hotter.

With 0.6 wire I had to set the wire feed almost to the max setting and have the power as low as it will go to help stop blowing holes in car bodywork.

I could really do with a gas somewhere between CO2 and Argoshield as a compromise

stevieturbo

The actual Argoshield isnt that expensive. Just annoying you have to pay bottle rental.

Mark V8

iTrader: (2)

I don't pay bottle rental, just a one off deposit.

http://www.weldinggases.co.uk/index....od&productId=5

stevieturbo

No such options here. BOC almost have a monopoly here.

zetaboostboy522bhp

HERES THE MACHINE







HERES MY MIG WELDING , DONE A BIT BEFORE , NOT A GREAT DEAL BUT ITS GETTING NEATER EVERYTIME





ANOTHER ONE JUST TO SHOW ITS NOT LUCK LOL



AND I ONLY GOT MY TIG WELDING GAS LAST WEEK SO IVE ONLY PRATICED A FEW TIMES , I WATCHED A YOUTUBE VID ON HOW TO TIG WELD AND GAVE IT MY FIRST SHOT



NOT TO BAD WITH FILLER ROD BUT COULD BE NEATER

SECOND GO WITH FILLER ROD AND GETTING NEATER BUT STILL SOME WAY TO GO



AND JUST FUSING USING THE TOURCH



HOPE THIS SHOWS YOU HOW GOOD THE MACHINE IS IN BAD HANDS LOL
I WILL DEFO POP IN ON MONDAY AND SEE IF ITS STILL ON OFFER

CHEERS PAUL

stevieturbo

That's a TIG though.

Or does it work as a normal MIG too ?

Only downside with a compact MIG. Is nowhere to fit a 15kg roll of wire, and nowhere to mount the bottle, big/medium size

The main criteria when I bought mine, were both of the above.

weegaz22

it does MIG work though, look at the spatter everywhere

zetaboostboy522bhp

no its not a tig matey , its a mig ,tig and stick lol all you do is change the polaity and thats it as its a multi process inverter , it holds a 5kg reel so not to bad and i will be buying a trolley soon just for ease
the machine has burn back , arc inductance for tig allowing a soft arc or an aggresive arc ,slope up slope down , oh and you get 3 years warranty

cheers paul

weegaz22

How much was it paul? it lays quite nice welds by the looks of it for a first go

i take it doesnt do ac/dc tig?

EDIT*

Nevermind, see the price further up the thread