Hit up DH Griffin here in Gso (or your own local scrapmetal yard) for lots of cheap steel to weld on. In fact you can pick up stuff for building projects pretty cheap too.
We did this a few years ago with Triad 4wda (local non dues club) and it was great. Bill Carver had been welding for years and showed us his equipment and some basics.
If it works out where I can come I will bring my ReadyWelder, which is a portable MIG welder. I bought it off a local 4x4er who is a dealer and it has been a good compromise for me, having something I can use at home AND take with me on the trail. (Good enough for most little projects, would not build a tube chassis with it, but WILL likely build some bumpers this year!)
Dad and I then bought a used Miller AC/DC stick welder last year, the reason I wanted it was the DC side can be used as a source of electric for my ReadyWelder
Readywelder.com | There's nothing like it! I got the model 10000ADP which has the DC power supply doohicky.
Since then we ended up just doing mostly stick welding and dad has built a big subframe for under his tractor for mounting a front end loader with the Miller box. (You can pick up AC boxes cheap, $150-200ish, I think we paid $200 and change for our Miller ac/dc which was a good buy - craigslist)
Helmets -
ebay has a decent autodarkening mask for $40-50ish with the solar (no battery) powered part. We used it quite a bit over the last 2 years and then I bought pop a nicer Hobart $125ish version that has a bigger lens for his bifocals.
So all that to say, ReadyWelder is a good option, hopefully I can bring it and let you try it out. Makes a good comprimise for the hobby guy, mated with our ac/dc machine it is a pretty decent setup for home too.
On the trail, you put 1, 2 or 3 batteries in series and use fluxcore wire, not really pretty but does fix stuff. Obviously you can do this at home too..
