Nice rig, Mike. Love the cart. I've got the older version of that Miller that I bought about 10 years ago and love it. When it comes to wire feed machines, I've always preferred Millers.
Back when I welded for a living, I worked at a place that did a lot of fabrication for sewer and water treatment plants which was almost all aluminum work. Those spool guns work nice when everything is going well, but it didn't take much to bird nest that aluminum wire. Maybe they've made some improvements in the last 20 years.

Bob

I've had a Craftsman 240A stick welder for, like 35 years. It's fine, but I don't use it enough to get good at it. Just bought the Harbor Freight 90A wire feed welder discussed here. It's easier to use, but, certainly has limited capacity. I need to take a welding class at the local community college. It's a skill that I would like to improve, but, as always, it takes practice and my primary hobby of woodworking/furniture making, doesn't call for a lot of welding...

litlmikeyl,

What's that COE project hiding in the background. Would make a very cool cub hauler. Love to see some picts of that in one of the off topic threads.

I went with a Lincoln electric HD feed welder. Model K2188-1
It'll do just about anything around the shop without breaking the bank to do it, and plugs right into house hold current.

Lincoln m-135. has done everything from 20 gauge sheet on to 3/4'' plate i used to build my 20 ton log splitter. may take 6 passes on 3/4'' but it works. i love the little guy.

I have a Lincoln 180C mig. Great welder!

I have a lincoln 225 arc that fell off the back of a truck . it is the older copper coils type and works great . a harbor frt. 151 mig ,I use the most
a 120amp HRB FRT. I bought years ago and use with fluxed wire for moble jobs I also have the $200 TIG inverter unit from HF which I never mastered yet but does weld light steel . without a foot feed or spark start it is tricky to get going -probably need to be 12 to 20 yrs old and chinese- anyone else have it ?


:biggrin2:

It's probably a scratch start. Try scratching the tungsten quickly toward the start of your weld. When you are done welding, flick the arc out quickly. The end of your weld will crater but that's the nature of scratch start

Yes but kinda hard to do ,I want to improve the ground 1st as that has greatly helped the other HF welders. I bought it mainly to weld 4130 thin tube. It sticks to steel or it is to far away to arc now

Also check the way you are grinding your tungsten. You want the grind marks to be vertical so the arc flows down smooth. Grinding marks horizontally will make the arc jumpy and all over the place. I learned that a while back after 3 hours trying to get the welder i have to work. A good ground definitely improves the welding too.