What types of welders do you guys use to make mild-steel or stainless-steel manifolds?

 

(not that i know much about it but) MIG or TIG process.

 

I use a Lincoln TIG welder, works great!

 

do you own the tig or at your job or something?

if you own it how much was it?

 

I beleive it was close to $1500.

 

any one know where i can get a used tig?

 

same here....

1FastT2 - where did you get yours from and how new is it? does it have the square wave technology?

 

I used to use a MIG but just bought a TIG.

It's a Kemppe AC/DC machine with pulse control and every good damn function known to man goes up to 200 amps so it's strong enough for the type of jobs I will be doing.

Master TIG 2000 AC/DC model air cooled single phase with pulse panel control - cost $4300 Aus.

Be prepared to spend a bit on filler materials, regulators and Thor & Zirc electrodes if you want to do Aluminium + cleaning gear not to mention a "drop saw" for cutting pipes accuratley as well budget another $1500 Aus for all the supplies you need

Then get some materials and plan to spend alot of time in the shed geting up some practice and you will be right

Oh yeah the only other thing I forgot was the gas too you gota pay for that too ! It's expensive but if you plan to do lots of mods or have money to burn and have some free time on your hands go for it ! PS... A MIG will do an excellent job (with practice) and will be heaps cheaper about a 1/3rd of the all up cost but you will be a bit limited in materials you can work with.

Have fun and take pride in saying you did it yourself

 

i reakon if you havent welded b4 and dont plan on making a **** load of stuff the MIG is the way to go. I bought a Lincoln MIG for about Aus$1100 with everything but the gas bottles (which i hire). It does take a bit of practise but its heaps easier than TIG so I've been told.

As RICE said tho MIG isnt any good for some materials like thin aluminium...ie intercooler end tanks, but for manifolds out of steel and stainless it'll be fine.

 

i have a mig which i love but i feel like a tig would give me a lot more control from what i hear. anyways i found a guy who will teach me tig so i guess ill try it out.

will

maybe an autodarkening helmet would help my miging

 

this is slightly off topic. what do people use to bend the pipes for their projects? i saw jesse james (of west coast choppers) bend a big pipe using a plywood form and a torch, but maybe for tight bends this wouldnt work.

will

 

I have a Lincoln ARC welder, but I can't seem to get the welding to look clean. It keeps beaded up. Little round pepples are all over the place. Do I need to use any gas with this welder? I don't have a gas welding tank right now.

 

after having access to great TIG and MIG setups at school for the past year before graduating, i'm dying to get a welder so i can do something with all of these stupid ideas of stuff to build and try out that i have in my head....

rice - sounds like a very nice setup, but quite a ways out of my price range....especially with all the other accessories i'm going to have to get

mx-7....sounds like maybe you should try gas shielding or maybe you're trying to weld pot metal or something cast....sometimes the settings are a little tricky if it will even allow itself to be welded at all??

 

MIG is easy and quick, but very sloopy.

TIG takes time but is extra extra nice.

the only bad **** is that MIG, once you start you can't stop or it'll be pretty ugly. TIG is best if you want to make it look nice, but both MIG and TIG works, just you got to know what type of steel your using. If your using 304 tubing it is best to use a better steel for holding the 304 tubing (321).

 

i don't have gas either! too damn cheap, haha
it's best to use gas or the weld will end up becoming like volcanos from all the oxygen stuck in it.

the beads prolly come up because your not holding it in one place long enough, if your using the MIG maybe you should speed up/slow down the wire feed and cruise your welding slowly, too fast you'll make beads.

how i work the MIG is - i hold the welding in once spot until it turns into a glob, then widen the glob going the way you want in very little circles.

 

I found that my welding ability improved drasticly after spending $100 on an auto darkening welding helmet.

 

With the mig machine, ,make sure the polarity is right for the wire you are using, when you switch from flux core wire to gas and vice versa, you need to change the polarity of the welder, or it will not weld very well at all..
You can get really nice quality out of a mig, but you need a mig with a delay and pulse control, the Home Depot backyard special type wire feed welders do not have delay or pulse, step into a light commercial machine to get more power and more options..
I have aquired alot of welding tools over the years, one thing I can honesly say, is welding ability and quality is directly proportional to the money spent on the welder, a cheap welding machine will give cheap looking welds...Max

 

Wow thanks for the many responses. I'm actually looking to get myself a Lincoln MIG welder... Just don't know which one yet.

 

Miller syncrowave 250 tig

 

yeah i have the same question

 

I've been doing some plate welding lately with a stick welder, and I have gotten pretty good at fillet welds. However, I tried welding thin ERW muffler pipe with 6010 and 6011 1/8 and 3/32 electrodes, but I have to use such a fast travel speed that it becomes quite difficult to lay the weld down on the seam. The electrode also gets smoked when it is only about half way used, and I can't turn the amperage down any more without the electrode constantly cold-sticking to the base metal. Is there some trick to this, or is a stick welder just not going to work on muffler pipe?

Also, is there some trick to cutting pipe with a chop saw (aka drop saw) and not getting a bunch of flash? Or is there at least some easier method to removing the flash besides grinding it down and potentially ruining the nice straight cut of the chop saw?

Maybe I should just leave all this kind of work up to my crew chiefs?

 

I use a 14" Makita drop saw with idividual abrasive disks for stainless, mild steel, and aluminium. (I don't mix disks)

If you do not use to much pressure (on small gauge pipe) all you end up with is a little lip of material on the inner edge of the pipe which can be easily trimmed of with a de burring tool (like a knive with cool attachments).

Works great for me and results in a perfect edge.

The deburrer you can get from an engineering supplies store, has a cap on it which pops of and lets you store 3 or 4 different tips in the handle which are required for different positions.

 

Every rotary owner should have a diegrinder for deburring the insides of pipe.......
I use a chopsaw as well, and a bandsaw, which does a nice job with no left overs in the pipe...
If you are without diegrinder, a round file will also make quick work of it...
eastwood company use to sell a time delay device for stick welding thin metals, but I think it may be discontinued with the advent of cheap mig/wire feed welders... You can stick weld exhaust pipe with 1/16 rod, but its time consuming and slow, one trick for stick welding really thin metal is to stitch it in a figure 8 motion so you spread the heat around on the pipe, you end up with a fat but not very deep weld, and if you start burning a hole in the pipe, you can two hand weld with a piece of plain steel oxy filler rod, this takes coordination, but essentially you dip the plain rod into the puddle to control the heat of the arc...Max

 

I also used a 14" chop saw. Then take them to the bench grinder to get the outer flash and a die grinder will make quick work of anything inside.

I used a MIG. Also, be carefull to not get slag inside the pipe, restricting your flow and potentially leaving something to fall off later. I also pushed a clean towel through every finished pipe. I only ended up with 2 that I couldn't see. Oh, and I got my pipe through a local guy but Summit sells mandrel bent pieces. I used mild steel and coated it. It came out nice.

 

I've been getting into the FAB mode my self
{too much monster garage it seems }

I was going to pay a shop to do my IC piping
but I got tired of depending on others

I bought a new 2HP 14" chop saw $49.99
and even tho I never really done any custom IC/DP making stuff
I've always been good at viewing something in my mind and producing it

Here is a pic on the TB side I did yesterday
and tack welded it in place , to make sure it's to my liking and IT IS! came out better then I thought

I used a 3" dynomax U-Bend
I used the side of the cut-off disk to clean the cuts
and a file
I'm going grind down the Welds a bit after I finish welding it all up (smooth them out) and then have the pipes ceramic coated