G'day all,

Both forum newbie and welding newbie here.

I would like to venture into oxy/acetylene welding and brazing, as a hobby. After watching lots of youtube material about on how to safely operate this stuff, I'm evaluating my options on purchasing an oxy kit and would like your advice. As with many other things, it's challenging to find online reviews on the brands they sell here in Australia.

For Stick welding I have a small Cigweld machine that served me well for a couple of times I needed it, and my natural incline was to consider their Cigweld 208007 Tradesman Plus Gas Cutting & Welding Kit - Oxy/Acet. But I couldn't find any reviews, the warranty term is not listed, and Cigweld support team has never replied to my inquiry. So I broadened my search and stumbled upon this Weldclass brand. Their kit is notably more expensive, but it comes with 7 years warranty (the longest I've seen by far), their support team replies in a couple of hours, and while I couldn't find reviews on this particular kit, reviews on their other stuff on productreview.com.au are generally positive which is a good sign. I've also compared my Cigweld stick unit and helmet to similar-class item from Weldclass and the latter are both cost the same or less, have better specs, and much longer warranty period.

In general, I like well made tools, that are a joy to use and last for a long time (hence I appreciate long warranty period). However I don't use tools often and take a good care about them, hence I see no point to pay extra for something that, e.g. designed to be bashed around job sites. To illustrate my point - Brymen multimeters are really good enough - I don't need the toughness of Fluke; or, for powertools I really like Makita (got only one Ryobi tool and every time I use it I'm still asking myself whether it was worth saving a couple of hundred $, but I wouldn't got for say Festool, Mafell or Hilti.

So back to my original question - which brand/model of oxy/acetylene rig would you recommend in my case? What is the "Makita-grade" here?

Cheers


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