Oh Boy Oh Boy Oh Boy am I excited!
I don’t think anything will ever quite match my excitement in 1966 of getting my first Bike for Christmas because I can still remember it 56 years later but this is pretty damn close!
As is customary of late, when ever I am asked what I want for Christmas, I say Harbor Freight Gift Cards.
You may or may not remember a few years ago when I took a bunch of those, combined it with a 20% off coupon from those guys and walked out of there with a $259.00 6 inch Horizontal Band Saw for $185.
Well, I just beat that deal hands down.
I have been wanting one of these for MONTHS.
Patiently waiting for this day.
As requested, I got a bunch of Gift Cards for Christmas. The Wifely Unit alone chipped in $350. Between her, her sisters and The Kid, I managed to collect about $475.
I am also a, “Inside Track Club” member. That costs me $30 a year and pays for its self the first time I walk in there getting some discounts.
Well they had a 20% OFF coupon, with NO EXCLUSIONS for club members that ended today.
With that and the gift cards, I just walked out of there with THIS, for $69.85 cash out of my pocket and that includes a spool of cheap wire that didn’t come with it.
A SMOKING DEAL!!!
Now I have to get an Argon tank and some decent wire but OH BOY am I a Happy Camper!
Normal price in these things is $599, plus tax.
$70 bucks out of pocket?
Oh yeah, DADDY SCORED!
WHOO HOO!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Nice score, Phil.
You don’t want to use Argon, unless you are using a spool gun for aluminum. Most people use straight CO2, or a 75/25% mix of CO2 and Argon.
This gives a guide to the different gases for most situations:
https://weldguru.com/best-gas-for-mig-welding/
Personally, we have used a mix called Stargon for decades, with good success. It is a little more expensive than other blends, but the results are quite good.
https://www.lindedirect.com/resources/gases/stargon-vs-welding-gas-blend.
As for wire, we have just been using plain old ER-70S, for mild steel. We use .030 to .035″ in the Millers. It aids in high deposition rates in the joints. Your machine probably would run a .023″ wire.
I personally despise flux core wire. I have used it, out of desperation, but the results are poor, at best.
Leigh
Whitehall, NY
DUH!
I just noticed that it has a TiG function as well. Yes, you are going to need an Argon tank to go along with your MiG shielding gas.
Leigh
Whitehall, NY
I’ve read some reviews on this particular model, it’s pretty good.
SCORE!!
Nice score buddy.
To covet is a sin, so I won’t.
But I’m still allowed to say that I hope to get one myself someday.
I’ll have to get a Lincoln though. Something about some family lineage going back almost a century with them. To do otherwise would bring shame and damnation upon me should it be discovered.
So, you did good. I know that this will be seeing use shortly and look forward to hear about the uses.
I have a Campbell-Hausfeld stick in 110v, they are very handy.
All the blogroll links are missing from the right sidebar.
We have one of those in our shop. Good for 3/16″ or so, IIRC. Sure is handy when we have some light welding to do & don’t want to fire up the big welder. Been thinking about getting one for the house. I think they’re about $120-125 here, or were a few months ago.
Good going, Phil!
Look again. This one does MIG/TIG and stick.
I have a small Miller 120V Suitcase model that does stick and I love that little thing. I wanted a decent wire feed and this fit the bill. The TIG feature is a massive bonus.
Don’t ask me what happened there, WordPress did yet another one of their fucked up Updates and it disappeared. I had to go behind the curtain and add a Blogroll widget again. Then they all came back.
I’d really like to choke the living shit out of some of those cocksuckers. They update shit but they don’t test any of it for compatibility to previous versions before they release it.
They fuck shit up at least twice a month.
Earlier I couldn’t reply to any comments, a week ago it was that and I couldn’t even create new posts on my own blog!
The really weird thing is that CederQ says none of this crap ever happens to him. It’s just me.
Ain’t I just special?
SPIT!
I sweet talk my ‘puter and it doesn’t give a third of the problems you seem to collect…
After I fixed the blogroll issue, the fucker still wouldn’t let me reply to comments. I shut the bitch down and restarted it and now I’m good to go again.
Dirty sonofabitch is pissing me off.
See? Ya proved my point, She doesn’t like to be cussed at…
I completely avoid any and all OS/System updates, until I’m forced. And have zero choice.
Passing a (welding) bead … a rite of passage. When in the racing game, I spent a good chunk of time, patching cracked exhaust headers.
In the fourth grade, muh Pop bought me a new bicycle. It wasn’t a Sting Ray. I’m still getting over it.
But bless duh idjits at the local pawn. Picked this up last month, for a song.
https://i.postimg.cc/rmvh7dxV/20220829-141902-HDR.jpg
Happy Happy New Year!
Get a new water bottle for it and you’re hot to trot.
Specialized as well. My favorite brand and next purchase when the current road bike fails.
That’s a lot of love Mr.
Probably more than any of us deserve.
But you deserve it anyway.
Merry Christmas.
Well Done, Sir! The only way I could run a welder here would be to make an extension cord for the clothes dryer outlet to the garage and do my welding when the dryer isn’t in use.
I have a couple of 220 extension cords myself. they are handy as hell. I made them up back when I was renting that 3 bay garage
(not a bright move ) anyway, made up one for the welder and another one for the spot welder (miller/240)
was trying to restore a 69 MGB-GT at the time. standard rust problems, floor, sills and other bits.
the few times I do any welding here, I had to use the dryer outlet for power. cords work well for that.
mine are made up with some 8 Gauge braided wire I got from my buddy who ran a scrap yard for a case of beer
each one is close to 20 foot long and they weigh a ton ! but they work very well.
Dr. Jim I use my big generator for mobile welding if you have one.
I suck at welding (stick welder) so I’m jealous of Phil now. Been wantin one of those for a long time
about the bandsaw. watch out for the motor burning out/up. had that problem myself one day. ended up installing a Baldor motor on it. again, one I got from my buddy with the scrap yard. have not seen him in years now, but he did keep a eye out for neat stuff I might want/like to have. sometimes they got a bunch of machines in and he would let me grab the motors if they where any good. and steel stock ?
god I miss those prices ! the first time I had to buy steel, I like to fall over.
and all the BIG machine tools I passed up on because I didn’t have any place to put them would make a man cry.
That is why Phil cries all the time, no place to put them and the wife unit forbids them in their boudoir…
he got in a very old steam engine one time, about the size of a big pickup truck. god knows what it weighs. neat machine
just too damn big. they had to cut it up to scrap it.
but the boiler ! I sure they got over a thousand pounds of copper out of it.
the one I wished I had room for was a old B&S indexing head and tail stand, and a shit load of plates to go with it.
one small problem, it had a 16 inch plus swing. it weighted at least 200 pounds. but it did have a lifting eyebolt on the top of it. he was talking about making a coffee table out of this big ass rotary table they came with it. close to 24 inches across. I did grab and save one tool bit. it is a one inch square one all of 10 inches long.
that was when a lot of the remaining machine shops in and around philly where closing up.
they really don’t make much of anything there anymore these days.
There is gonna a point soon where the next generation is gonna have to relearn all this stuff we learned at the feet of masters and journeymen and grey beards, those guys will be dead. A whole new learning curve.