qwakers

or a vfd

very cool

this is what it originally looked like..

might send them a email

yeah, cant find anything that old.

it was ‘cosmetically refurbished’ (paint and labels) about 10 years ago. its a hobart tg200hf https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hobart-TG-200HF-200-Amp-AC-DC-Tig-and-Stick-Welder-Single-Phase-/113540591569?_trksid=p2047675.l2557&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&nma=true&si=8hK6Q95Hs%2Bxh9HMAbBSVLj8q4NI%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc

any users of older kit know what that toggle switch over on the right does? i cant find any form of manual for this. only function of the old welder that i miss is the ability to switch from 2T to 4T...

so ive been welder shopping for the last month or so. (since last post, infact) i recently went and collected its replacement.. old welder.. german company but i suspect chinese made welder. as said above, went pop. got a email from the factory the other day whenit arrived 'home' he said the inverter/transformer (sorry bad translation lol) was split open, he was surprised it didnt catch fire! he gave me a refund and promised a large discount if i wanted to buy another model from him. fair enough so then i had to decide on a new welder. i quickly decided if it was going to be new the cheapest i would buy is the base model from r-tech, but that is WAAAAY over budget so second hand it is. this opened up a whole lot of new options for me, from cheap 2nd hand hobby welders like i just blew up, to old (and i do mean old!) transformer industrial stuff from miller, hobart etc. then up on ebay came a very old skool hobart tig. and it was cheap. very cheap, so i bought it! jesus it is heavy. wish i took the lorry up so i could use my taillift! i certainly wasnt paying for a courier! lobbed it in the back of my estate car and got a free lowering job out of it! its been sat in the garage for a while, waiting for me to have a min to try it out. i took a risk on it as although i took some rods and gas with me to test it, he had a propriotory gas fitting on it and had lost the bottle side. so i sparked it up to see if it would do anything even without gas and it didnt want to play, it would only scratch start and generally messed around. as there was no gas i took a punt on that being the reason and took it home. today i chucked a gas hose on it and sparked it up. its not a very clean bit of ally but i was in a hurry to play... no pre or post flow and too much amps (and took tungsten for a swim) better, but dirty and too slow with the rod. i can now successfully stick two bits of ally together but i wouldn't call myself competent. thing that surprised me is just how much current this thing draws! im not going to like my electricity bill one bit i think! i need thicker rods, cleaner ally and a LOT of practice...

your instincts are bang on. from experience butane torches wont do it, a MAP torch will or a miny oxy-propane torch (which i used) works very well.

they are brilliant and makita ones are spot on. the cheap titan one i had on the other hand lasted about 6 months before the chuck broke (into 3 pieces) and stopped me being able to change blades.

ive used a dremel (or several) for porting.. just dont. with a grinding stone id get through 2 cylinders before it lets the magic smoke out and i took it back for a replacement. i went through 4 dremels on one (alloy!) engine. if they wernt under warrenty id have bought something else,

yeah luckily i was on the last weld i needed to do. its about 1/2” shorter than planned, but as i was only stitch welding a panel anyway, its not a biggie.

so ther i was, tig welding away making a box to put a generator in when there was a loud bang from the welder and the 16amp breaker tripped. no smoke, just dead, switched the breaker back on, pulled the trigger, lights in the garage go off. grab a torch, all breakers ok but the 16a has tripped again. but the rcd and lights are ok. wander into the house.... the 100a main has tripped! so that welder is dead. i was about to give it rave reviews, but if it cant even last for a bottle of gas before blowing up, its no good! bugger. well, thats going back then!

agreed. however... bending force in the application is irrelevant. it will be bolted to a very sturdy floor (amongst other things...) also it will be plug welded together every 2" (got side tracked before doing that and havent got round to it yet) resistance to shear forces is much more important in this application. so it'll be fine

so i have a winch, now i just need something to bolt it to. my local steel supplier didnt have any 6mm plate so i cut everything out twice and welded 2 3mms together. im WAY better with MIG than tig lol but i cant measure to save my life, hence the two slotted holes. will weld square washers to the back at some point so it doesnt matter.... irritating though.

thats just it im not sure. total cost of the winch was £45 spare parts to make it work will be £55 (give or take) a box to put the electronics in is £17 a wander lead and socket will also be needed. thats 72 plus a wander lead. its a 24v winch which is relativly unpopular in this configuration so im not sure i can make a profit.

no it didnt much like it, but tbh, it worked better than i thought it would.

i suspect the contamination was because i was using argon/co2 mix gas. i was just playing around a the pure argon cyl isnt here yet.

ok, so thoes arent all of my attempts...

this is my first ever go.. and my second attempt.. not as absolutely appalling as i thought it would be...

thanks, all the advice from everyone is much appreciated.

im in st austell. where abouts are you based?

oops. double tapped paste, obviously. 😒

so winch buildup time! as i received them: as you can see one of them is missing the freespool lever. other than the missing lever this works fine, so i swapped the lever over from the other one. the other one the motor runs ok but it doesnt turn the drum. that might have something to do with someone having nicked the driveshaft/brake assembly out of the drum! so i took both apart cleaned both drums up and painted them then rebuilt one up with the best motor, gearbox and drum. i now have one spot on rebuilt winch, and one pile of bits that can easily become a good winch with the addition of 2 cheap(ish) parts. now the dilemma is do i keep the spare or build a second winch up and sell it? anywho, all built up and wired up and ready to go:

the worktop is not carpeted, its granite effect. bad light and angle