Arc vs Mig vs Flux

[junya92toy]

No one is going to be welding 2 inch plate at home, but I have done full pen vertical up on 3/8s with mine and it was fine.

[IronClad]

No one is going to be welding 2 inch plate at home

i wouldnt be so sure of that.. i use alot of 1"- 1 1/2" + flat bar for some stuff

[rock slider4x4]

dualshield or flux i have welded alot of bumpers together an sliders with it an they always hold i went to school for welding as well so i know what im doing an running my beads hot for it an not to good because i want solide penatration 

[junya92toy]

i wouldnt be so sure of that.. i use alot of 1"- 1 1/2" + flat bar for some stuff

Thick or wide?

[IronClad]

thick

[junya92toy]

What do you do with stuff that thick?

[IronClad]

Tabs for hydro assist rams, tow points, 0 rate spring blocks (welded to the spring pad) quick and dirty small bracket drops and bunch of other crap. Ive built a few dana 44/60 steering arms out of 1 1/2 aswell

[junya92toy]

cool cool now do you just do a fillet weld, partial pen weld or a full pen on those.

[IronClad]

I just do a pretty big bevel and a couple passes with the welder set on super glue. Never had an issue so far in the past 10 years or so ive been using it for that sort of stuff *knock on wood* I even have a chunk welded to my makeshift anvil for a hot cut and i havent been able to break it off yet even with pounding on it with a 8lb sledge lol

[junya92toy]

Hey, well you can do a lot with a smaller welder and bevels.

[IronClad]

For sure ! alot of people think they need some giant ass welder to install their cute lil sas kit when in reality they could get the job done with a cheapo harbor freight welder.. sure it will take longer due to duty cycle but it will do the same job if they do proper prep work !  If i need to weld somthing retarded big/weird i just break out my old arc welder and go to town. I  love my 220 miller 175 but a larger welder would suit me better for what i do in terms of duty cycle and doing most of my brackets out of 1/4 and 3/8ths for single pass

[junya92toy]

I have a miller 211, and it runs .035 dualshield awesome, when I need to weld something thick and critical, thats what I use.

[emsvitil]

You can fix the duty cycle problem with the harbor freight welders................

I used to get thermal shutdowns until I added a big-ass internal fan  (takes about 30 seconds to spool up to full speed, it was once a fan for mid-size computer disks (20 years ago, when the mid-size computer and disk drive cabinets were the size of 3-4 refrigerators))

Closed off some vents on the case and baffled the air flow thru the welder so air goes in one side, around the transformer, then out the other side...   

Never had a thermal shutdown since...

[junya92toy]

Personally, Id never trust a HF welder....