To help you, you need to give a little more info on what you want to do/accomplish with it. I have used some of the 110 welders and they surprised me on what they can do and how nice it did. Now let me preface that. I was NOT welding thicker stuff, I was using them cars and such. A friend had me come over and button weld a front frame section to the body as he wasn't too sure about doing it. Did a few practice welds till it was dialed in and he was MORE than happy with the results. The thing you get into with the 110's and smaller welders is duty cycle. Duty cycle in an eggshell is how long you can constantly run the machine and will tell you how heavy duty it is. It may something like 50% at 120 amps. That would mean run 2 minutes and let it sit idle for 2 minutes. Bigger welders have thermastatically controlled fans to cool them if they get hotter. With a 110 welder you will have a hard time getting enough heat/penatration to properly weld 3/8". Your welder will get hot and there is where the duty cycle comes in. If you get impatient, you'll end up burning it up causing a machine failure. even with waiting it still may not be a sound weld. You can get away some by angle beveling with several passes. You can see that process in my splitter build album. Some of that steel was over an inch thick but it's the same principle. With all welding cleanliness is VERY important. The first thing you need to buy is an angle grinder. Start with clean steel. Grind away the rust, paint or whatever is on there. Impurities will mess up your welds. That is what the flux or gas is for to "shield" the cooling weld from impurities till it is fused. When you burn the impurities up without cleaning first. You make those impurities part of your weld, messing it up strength wise. I started stick welding and have done lots of it. I'm not certified and have not gone to school for it. Some of the stuff I do probably isn't correct either but my stuff holds up pretty good and after a while you can tell weak links in a design. I do a lot of MIG now and have a TIG as well. Kinda rare to stick anymore but my MIG and TIG are production grade. I tend to steer away from Flux core wire. It's just harder to get a nice weld of it consistantly for me anyway. Where I used to work we had a portable that was for emergency repairs and had flux core on that. Like I said, I'm no expert but I'll help if I can.
Oh man, did you open a can of worms! Welding is great big world... First, I'm a high school / college welding teacher by trade so I get this question a lot. Second, especially in the welding world, you get what you pay for. Third, welding is a skill, it takes practice, a lot of it! I have a whole bunch of kids who want to be Beethoven and Mozart, but don't want to learn how to play a piano. Those little flux core machines are cheap, but very limited in thickness. Think welding up your muffler, grandma's wrought iron stair railing, etc. One super critical point to make... Because you are laying a weld bead does not mean you are welding the parts together! When you weld you are fusing the metal together. You can lay a bead that doesn't actually fuse the two parts together. Think glue that doesn't hold. For the average guy the best bang for your buck is a little "buzz box" like the one in the picture. Is it harder to master? Yes. Can you do it? Yes. Can it weld most any kind of metal? Yes. Can it cut metal? Oh yeah. Doesn't it need like crazy wiring? No, same as for a electric dryer 240v How thick of metal can it weld? As thick as you can get your hands on... Check CL, these can usually be had for $200 or less. Here is a hint, the older the better... Oh, and try and get a machine that will run both AC and DC, that will come in very handy later on.
I have several stick welders and a gas MIG welder. I was certified years ago in TIG for aluminum and stainless, but have since let that certification run out. I'm a pretty good welder if I say so myself, and I'll concur with others that a gas might is much better than Flux core. I like stick for different applications as well, especially heavier stuff or cast iron/steel. The thicker the metal, the more heat/welding material you need. Of you'll be doing thinner stuff more often and just the occasional thicker stuff I'd invest in a good gas MIG (hobby size). ESAB makes a good hobby welder....I have an older Two (sold by Snap-On Tools EONS ago. Still gets the job done...
Flux core with shielding gas welds better. That's the process we use on thicker stuff. We would use .035" Flux core for welding 1" thick hangars. Welding 4-5" thick pipe we use stick or a tig.
as Hellbent stated welding is a skill, lots of time and practice. getting two metals to stick together is not welding. most of what you will use it for at home, probably will be 1/4 or less. a good flux core Lincoln will be capable of welding better than a novice for a long time. it is easy to blame a cheap welder for a bad weld. it is a skill that takes along time to learn. welding at home a few times a year is not going to give you the experience.
Mind your puddle not your arc...the best piece of advice I can give you. On small(er) MIG welders; a buddy and I split the cost on one of the bigger 220 volt ones that Fleet Farms was selling a few years ago, just under $500 if I remember correctly. It's capable of gas and flux core but we've just never committed to the gas but I'd like to just because the flux core wire is so much more expensive. Someone earlier said that they can struggle with wire feed issues and I've found that is mostly the case at really low settings, both current-wise and wire feed speed-wise. It seems like as soon as I'd turn up the wire speed a tad it would take right off again. Our's is pretty dang sensitive to the tip being up to snuff as well. Once it starts wearing out it'll pitch fits and eventually weld the wire onto the end. I also own an old Monkey-Wards tombstone type AC only unit that I'll use on anything over 1/4" just for piece of mind. I often find myself tacking things together or mocking up a piece with the little MIG and then going back and burning it all in with the stick. I love me some 6011 with that welder. I know it's not the strongest weld but damm it if it doesn't strike and hold an arc easy and doesn't flow too bad either. If I need to do some serious stick welding I'll fire up the old Lincoln pipe-liner. It is by far and away the smoothest stick welder I have ever ran and probably my lifetime best buy. Picked it up at an auction 15 years ago on a trailer and not running for $175. I think I caught the scrappers sleeping on that one! Took her home, cleaned out the gas tank and fuel line, threw a battery on it, and she fired right up. The old 4 cylinder Continental flat head likes to only hit on 3 until she warms up a bit. After that she'll sit and prrr away all day, idling down and bumping up with an arc strike just like she's supposed to.
Sam- those old pipeliners are a dream! You'd be shocked at what guys are selling those for now. A lot of guys are liking older machines now and figuring smooth welding beats the computer controlled stuff.
Love my stick welder, its a DC unit (started out on DC at work) and love the versatility of it, thin (right rod and skill), thick, dirty, rusty, and stainless metals all with just a change of rod.
My son was in accident(car went off the road jumped a ditch flipped 3 times) he broke three vertebrea in his neck and lost memory .God is good.It was summer of his senior year after that he took up a welding class during school.While wearing neck cast for 24 7 he took good at learning the trade started off with welding with the torch.Then with the stick instructer noticed him moving right along learning at a good pace.After a about a month he came home one day said thats what he is going to do after school.We started looking for a lincoln tombstone style found ac/dc like new with lots of extras everything hardle used.The guy selling decided is wasn't for him.Brought it home and he laid down some welds that impressed me way better than the chicken scratch I was doin.He started teaching me.That welder paid for itself in short term.Now he is in a 2 year associates in science and math plus his certificate at the end.There is a local company that he landed a apprentice job that do structual Iron work a good handfull of guys.They were looking for the right guy and the owner knew him from his football days.He interviewed for the job went in laid down some welds impressed the owner.He works there during the day college at night hes a good kid don't know what I would do without himJust wish I could have hog tied him to keep him home.I just wanted to add we opted out of surgery and seen a chiropractor found a good on palmer colledge graduate for his thoughts.After 8 weeks the cast came off seen a sergion to get approval to play the remaining 3 games of the season after being with his team on the sidelines.He played didn't want him to but that's what he wanted and worked towards.
I have a Hobart Handler 140 and have no issues with it. Also, recently got a Lincoln Tombstone too but have very little time on it.
I learned to mig and tig weld at my first job. I'm a desk jockey now, have been for over a decade, but I have a Hobart gas or flux core mig welder for odd jobs like trailer welding, and anything else I feel I can do. It's a very handy piece of equipment, and the welds are very strong, even with flux core.
