Recommend me a MIG!

[Kevin Bacon 5]

No not the plane, although that would be nice, but the Welder :-)

 

Not getting very far with a custom turbo pipe, so thought I'd have a crack at it myself. I wouldn't know a good Mig from a w@nky one tbh, so can any of you budding welders recommend a half decent Mig welder that won't cost the price of 5 custom made turbo downpipes?

 

Cheers!

[GazzaG60 0]

what do you want to weld?

 

ali, steel

 

what thickness?

 

i have little experience but if its ali then id go tig. thin ally is difficult to mig from experience of my inlet. thinner wire and ultra clean gas was my issue. warming the metal also helps. my mate has done most of mine for me. ill ask him what steel ones he uses and get back to you. we have made a couple of downpipes before one with wastegate dump, the other without. one stainless the other mild. no issues here

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Cheers for the reply.

 

I want to weld stainless to make a 3" V band downpipe. I've seen a few Migs in Halfords and machine mart for reasonable money, but I don't know what brands are any good and which are pants!

 

I'll need to teach myself how to seam weld pipe on some scrap metal first!!

[Toad 0]

TIG is the only way for aluminium.

 

They're like everything in this game Kev, the bigger, and more expensive the better. We had some decent ones at my old job, think they were £5-700 new, stood about 3-4 foot high on little wheels..

 

You want a good long lead to the hand peice, and a nice long earth too.

 

I wouldn't bother with any of these ones that you can just about pick up, they've not got the beans, although the new inverter technology is making stuff smaller and cheaper.

 

I'd try to get on a bit of a course too, even if it's just to learn the what the settings on the welders do.

 

A decent Mig will do you well, it'll do anything you want in automotive terms, so it'll be a good investment.

 

The only thing i'd make sure you do, is take the spool of wire out and store it somewhere warm and dry. because they do get a layer of corrosion on the wire, which seriously degrades the quality of the welding.

[Toad 0]

Sorry, I just noticed you said stainless....

 

I wouldn't bother, there are various mettallurgical issues with stainless, although my brain hurts and i can't remember right now. But it goes along the lines of making the weld area more brittle and corrode easily due to the inclusions in the steel, (the chromium and the other stuff) forming 'clumps' in the FeC phase... or something

 

Perhaps it's the presence of the martensite phase that's the problem???

 

Sorry mate, I just can't remember the reasons right now, but without the use of proper heat treatment-time/temp controlled ovens it's a real bugger.

[Kevin Bacon 5]

OK cheers for that dude! Good info!

 

I've found all the bits I need here:- http://www.jetex.co.uk/website/custom_p ... a=3.0+inch

 

So what I'll do is peice them together with tape and then take it somewhere to be tack welded, offer it up to the car to double check/adjust and then get it fully welded up! I think this is the cheapest/easiest option!

[Toad 0]

Sorry i wasn't very 'with it' last night, and I still can't quite remember what I'm trying to say, I only spent 4 1/2 years doing metallurgy at Uni :oops:, If you were to weld it up yourself you'd want stainless steel wire, which would be fairly pricey I would imagine. Best bet would be to Tig it up.

 

I think you've gone for the best option, the last thing you want to be doing is distorting your nicely shaped downpipe with the welder, or leaving imperfections that'll need more work shortly down the line... It'll get pretty hot too I imagine.

 

Welding is a proper art, and takes a lot of patience and practice to get right.

 

Forgot to mention earlier that you should be very carefull of the UV given off by the arc, it's very very easy to get sunburnt by it, as I've learnt twice now, most recently leaving a 1 1/2 by 3 inch blister on my leg!