Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire TIG Welding???

What affordable options are their for TIG welding aluminum as far as new machines??? I am totally ignorant to this type of welding although I do MIG and Stick weld.

If you currently own an AC/DC welder then a high frequency box added to your set up would be a viable addition.

Miller EconoTIG.

B, is that a scratch start on aluminum ? Took a brief look at the specs

No,..the Miller EconoTIG is a full featured 150 amp high frequency TIG welding outfit with foot pedal actuation.

It's a very high quality unit.

+1 on the Miller. Very nice set-up. Tom

I dont know much about tig welding but ill definitely speak in favor of a miller machine anytime.

I was first introduced to the Miller EconoTIG when I worked at a shop that had one.

Later, I opened up my own shop and bought one for myself. I never found any TIG welding chore that it wouldn't handle.

The place I work now has this huge Lincoln TIG setup,..ain't no tellin' what it cost. I'd guess somewhere in the $5000 range, but I've yet to find it capable of doing anything that the Miller EconoTIG can't do.

Unless you get into some very exotic application of TIG welding, the $1600 EconoTIG will do the job and do it very well.

If the aluminum your thinking isn't just real thin have you thought about purchasing one of the many small spool guns for your mig outfit.

I got a really nice unit for my little Lincoln 140C that wasn't so cost prohibitive (does require a different gas though).

The spool gun for my Power Mig is quite a bit more, but with the 140C it's a whole lot more portable running on 120 volts.

Phil

Agreed on the Miller Econo TIG. We had one where I used to work mounted on a cart for portable spot jobs and the thing worked great. Never did use it for aluminum because we had higher amp and duty cycle machines for that. I could see where the 20% duty cycle and 160 amps on the high end could restrict to the thinner aluminum. For "most" jobs or the backyard hobbyist, the Econo should be fine.

I hire a lot of contractors for doing sanitary stainless tubing jobs, along with other random stainless fabrication work. Everyone of them uses the thumb control rather than the foot, but they are doing all field work rather than bench. They all say they'd never go back to foot no matter what. I'm just a hack when it comes to welding, but I've sure watched a ton of guys do it.

The thumb control is indeed an asset when in awkward positions or climbing around and the foot control has been around forever. Both have their applications.

I had a small tool & die shop. The TIG welder was something that I mainly bought just because it was so handy to have around for doing repairs and fabricating small tools, but it turned out to be a money maker for me.

My shop was located in an industrial park with various businesses surrounding it,..truck repair, auto repair, a small paint factory, and a large trash pickup place,..some others,..

I was the only guy in the neighborhood with a TIG and when word got around about what kind of welding could be done with it, people were constasntly dropping in to get some stuff done.

TIG is the only type of welding that I care to do.

I hear what you're saying but a tig setup is just so much nicer to work with. Esp when it comes to delicate little work. I've done small work on thin material where I used .030 stainless wire for filler rod.

You just can't beat a tig setup. Especially with a rheostat.

TIG is indeed versatile. I used to work for an outfit that mfg'd. pressure vessels for the petro/chem/pharm industry.

Sometimes the customer spec'd that ALL welds be stainless, preheated, TIG welded and then tested with ultrasound. These were usually jobs in the inch to inch and half range and took FOREVER to complete.

Things of beauty when they left tho'.

tig is versatile as processes go, but impractical in many applications due to it's sensitivity to moving air and the loss of shielding gas...

any outdoor work generally has to be tented up to achieve good heliarc welds... fans are a detriment...

i was on a small outage (outside boiler) a few weeks back where engineering finally approved a 5p root for the wall tubes... this results in a lot of effort to flush tubes after welding, and/or shortened turbine life...

tig is great where it works, but not a true do-all process....

bristoe's econotig is a great unit...
the welding manufacturers are extremely competitive in this economy... lots of good options....

How thick of aluminum are you wanting to weld and do you have TIG experience with other metals?

Aluminum is an entirely different animal and will have a rather steep learning curve. MIG and spool guns and aluminum say up to 1/4" is much more user friendly. Probably easy for you to get the hang of since you already have MIG experience.

I've got what's rumored to be the third Dynasty DX 300 Advanced Square Wave Inverter Power supply ever to hit Arizona,.....

Brought it in for a Gov. Contract, and it payed itself off on the first job.

As a Year 2000 "Rocket Ship" it's now somewhat Passe', ....but apparently can be updated to latest spec with the addition of a coupla' new boards.

This thing has been FANTASTIC, compared to the old transformmer power supplies.......powerful, reliable ( NO problems at ALL in 10 years, and I've run the BAG offa' it)

Since than , I've had a chance to play with ALL of the new Miller and Linc stuff,.......the "Econo-Tig is indeed a good choice.

It (if I'm not mistaken) IS however an AIR COOLED torch rig, so SLOW will be the order of your days. Air cooled, combined with a "Lean" duty cycle will keep you in the 3/32 tungsten range, and Aluminum , in particular will not be a high production range venue.

Sit down, before pricing out a 100% duty cycle, water cooled rig these days,.....spendy arena, sure certain.

All best of luck,......You're about to arrive in a whole NEW universe of welding potentials, and perfection.

TIG's addictive,......so just go ahead and become hard core, right from the get go.

Best Regards,

GTC

Spool guns SUCK, compared to TIG, or a proper "Push-Pull" wire rig, like a Cobra, or such.

I've run literally TONS of 1 lb spools of 5356, 4043, 308,309, and other wire through the dirty fussy little bastids,.....

'bout the time they're running right, you gotta' stop and screw with em'

GTC