What do you want to weld all of the sudden after all these years? Do you have a specific project in mind?
Don't laugh, but I would suggest you start with a small stick or MIG welder from Harbor Freight. Many of the smaller ones can use 120V.
Then if you find yourself really into welding, you can spend the money to run dedicated 220V to your garage and upgrade to Lincoln or some other name brand welder.
You're not going to weld car frames on 120v, but you can do a lot of maintenance welding on trailers, or hobby welding just to get your feet wet without too much expense.
——>Don’t laugh, but I would suggest you start with a small stick or MIG welder from Harbor Freight. Many of the smaller ones can use 120V.
Yeah, I thought about that. I like the Hobart 240 mig. 120V machine probably not because I have 240 50 amps available right now. It’s just a matter of upgrading the wiring and breaker. Miller bought Harbor Freight. Tractor Supply sells it for about $2200. On the Airgas site they sell it for $3700. simple machine with volts and wire speed. No pulse functions, etc... But, it’s a good machine.
Maybe just making up for lost time 😁
First project will be enclosing my front entrance. I have sections of bars ready to go from another project.
Excellent advice.
Good, sound advice. I was in the same boat. I wanted to weld various projects but was not really looking to do any heavy fabrication. Ultimately I decided to buy the Harbor Freight Omnipro 220. It is an excellent and extremely capable machine that has more than adequately served my needs.
“It sounds like you’re trying to go from zero to 200mph all at once with welding.
What do you want to weld all of the sudden after all these years? Do you have a specific project in mind?
Don’t laugh, but I would suggest you start with a small stick or MIG welder from Harbor Freight. Many of the smaller ones can use 120V.
Then if you find yourself really into welding, you can spend the money to run dedicated 220V to your garage and upgrade to Lincoln or some other name brand welder.
You’re not going to weld car frames on 120v, but you can do a lot of maintenance welding on trailers, or hobby welding just to get your feet wet without too much expense.”
Basically, I agree 100% with the above. You don’t start learning how to ride a motorcycle on a Harley. If you have money I would skip flux welding and go on to MIG (cleaner welds). However, flux/stick welding is useful for outdoor work. TIG welding is hard to do but can give the nicest welds, but I would still start on MIG.
Agree with Yo-Yo completely.
EACH is a different slowly learned skill and different from the others. Same fundamentals, but different.
Start with MIG or stick as YY said.....
That's exactly what I did(both...cheap welders from amazon).
I haven't welded since I was 17(bar-stock for cutting/machining).