Request for help: Rear sill

[roadstr6]

A little 140v MIG does great around the house. It will weld up to 1/4". I wouldnt weld up a cage with it but sheet metal is cake for a small MIG. I have a Hobart. Miller and Lincoln make good ones as well. They are all priced about the same. You can go really cheap with a Harbor Freight one, but buyer beware.

If you do decide to get a MIG, skip the flux wire and go get a bottle and do it right. Going gas is the RC equivalent of tossing the crappy NIMH batteries and going to LIPO. It is worth every penny you will spend.

 

[little_joe]

Hey Dave, I had a Lincoln HandyMIG before I moved to Raleigh, it was a nice, handy economical welder. And I already have the gas for brazing, so that cost is already take care of. I wouldn't bother with flux at all, BTDT and did not care for it one bit.

Why would you not weld a cage with something along these lines? They seem to get the penetration required?

 

[roadstr6]

Joe, In theory a 140v MIG should be able to get good penetration on .120 wall tubing but in reality it struggles in the upper range of its duty cycle. You can do it but it is not ideal. For a safety device that my life could depend on I don't want to worry that I didn't get it right. For a cage, maybe tack it up with a small machine and take it to a certified or at least an experienced welder with a bigger machine to finish it.

What I have done before with my little machine on thicker critical parts is to really spend a lot of time prepping with the grinder, chamfering the joints really well, making one pass through the chamfered valleys and then making a second and third pass on either side of the first welded bead. This method works pretty well but it takes forever. You use a lot of gas, wire and time for a job that would take only a couple of minutes with a 240v machine.

I do like my 140 Hobart though. It does 90 percent of what I need it to. The rest I take somewhere else.