Thread: New welder!

every man needs a good bench to work on, try and get your hands on some 10mm plate for the bench top if you can, i personally wouldn't go any thinner. if theres a scrap metal yard close by you might be able to pick some up cheap or drop into a fabrication workshop, they might sell you some desent sized off cuts you can weld together.

Excellent work Matt, have fun with that and no doubt a few metal masterpieces coming up.
Not sure if you meant you are going to build a welding bench, but yeah I agree with kraits, 10mm min thickness. I put mine on some heavy duty castors with brakes from ebay as well, works great.

Cheers guys.
I'm yet on deciding on how to construct the bench. it will be of steel of course! I have to make it somewhat portable, or at least, easy to break apart, as we are still renting.
A nice thick surface would be very handy!

I'm so itching to bust out the welder at the moment! I can't say I'm big on birthdays, but I can't wait till mine this time!

So what sort of thickness could you weld with that welder?

Effectively unlimited thickness. That welder will run 4mm sticks quite happily and way on down to 1.6 electrodes or tig for even finer work.

I have had a Weldskill 130 for a few years and it's been excellent. There's also a 170 at work that hasn't been any trouble either although it's fitted with a 15 amp plug that limits it's use at times.

Now I've had a bit of a chance to play with the welder, I'm really liking it!

I was originally thinking going with the 130, but when the 170 was only $20 more, and already heaps cheap, I just couldn't resist. I'll rarely use it at its higher amps, but its good to have that ability there, and it should have a great duty cycle at lower amps.

Portability shouldn't be a major issue for me as I don't really ever to anything away from home.