New to the forum so a bit of background, I am a self taught welder (had a useless instructor) did quite a bit of welding building crushing plants and general heavy equipment repair welding, but that was 35 years ago, today in my dotage I only do repairs to my mowers and make tools for my lathe and other bits and pieces.

All my welding was done with stick welding and I have had a small stick welder that has served me for the last 30 years, I recently upgraded? to a small gasless MIG machine, now comes the problem with the helmet, I have an old one I used for years with a 13 lens and sometime ago bought an auto helmet 9-13 auto lens, with the auto it is not dark enough and I can't see the weld puddle, tried the old helmet and it was no better, the supplied hand held face mask is OK - 13 lens, transferred that lens into the old helmet and I can see with it OK.

Problem is my eyesight ain't what it use to be and I found the auto helmet better, as I need one hand to hang onto something or I fall over (lost sense of balance, shut my eyes and I fall over) and by the time I get set up and the lower the mask my point of reference has moved and I end up spurting out a heap of wire as it misses the weld area.

A bit long winded, but now to the question, does anyone know a good cheap auto helmet that works OK for MIG welding? I don't do enough welding to justify spending hundreds of $ on a helmet, so I am open to suggestions, not the sort of thing you can get a try before you buy on, so buying another is pot luck.

Thanks for wading through all this drivel and hope for some suggestions.


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