if you might be considering buying an older used unit, here is my experience. Hope you may get a chuckle from it. Farmer John, w/Wittman W-10 w/13B Mazda
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, January 19, 2014 11:17 AM
Subject: Welding
Now that the fuselage is all welded up, piece of cake, it is time to move on to the the fuel tank. I ask around at the local machine shops which had the capability and no one wanted to take on the job. So I called down to the valley in the high rent district to the welding supply outfit the company was using and and asked if they ever had any used TIG outfits, the guy says we got one in last week and it was old but it worked well, so I told him I would come down and take a look at it. Well, it was old all right, it looked like the one that Fred Flintstone and I took our instruction on, so I said, lets see it work. The guy hooks up the ole buzz box and the exciter box and all the other things and starts welding, well it is doing a real nice job, so for $300.00 dollars I have a TIG outfit. The guy says what do you have to haul this in and I said the ole Plymouth K-car wagon, he got a funny look on his face and said, drive around in back and I'll get the fork lift and we'll load this up. We finally get all this equipment into the back of the ole wagon, by the way there was over 100 ft of welding cable larger than my thumb for the stick operation.
By the time all this was in the wagon the rear wheels were nearly cutting thru the sideways on the tires. It was two blocks to the gas station and 45# of air in the rear tires gave them the appearance that I might make it home if I didn't go over 40 mph. I folded up my winter coat to set on so I might see over the dash and started out for home, thankfully I only had 90 miles to go. Those front wheel drive vehicles are not real stable with the front tires just barely touching the ground. It was one of those solar vortex days at 0 degrees and a 30 mph breeze, so I had the freeway all to myself, I'm the only fool out there. When I got home, in hindsight I should have thrown a chain around it and a fence post and never looked back.
After getting every thing into the garage with the loader and getting all the cables hooked up to the many places and purchasing a tank and flow meter it is time to practice on some aluminum. So with the copper piece lying on the aluminum, which is needed to start and stabilize the arc on these old machines. Now the new Tig welders use square waves and round waves but these older machines use Death Waves, when you turn it on you become aware that you have many fillings in your teeth. Upon striking an arc and moving off the copper on to the aluminum, the metal seemed to vaporize with aluminum scattering 10 feet in every direction, WOW!!!! (censored). Raising the hood, I'm thinking I must have gotten one of those cables connected to the Outhouse by mistake. Anyway I became aware that the garage door on my wife's side of the garage was cycling up and down and smoke was coming out of the drive box, I unplugged the door opener and noticed the wireless telephone was stuck on a continuous ring before it went POOF!! and died. I ran into the house to check on the wife, fully expecting to see her looking like a burnt piece of toast and the TV in flames as she watched Oprah.
The wife is okay and unaware that we could have lost the garage, house and everything in all this excitement. I ask her if she would like to go out for lunch, realizing that this could have been real serious I stopped at the local steakhouse and relived myself of $30.00. After dinner it was up the road, she says were are we going, answer, you know we have been having trouble with your garage door opener, well it died, so at sears, new opener $150.00. Now where!! I've got to stop at the Big Box store and pick up a new wireless phone, that cheap one just didn't last long, another $20.00. Two weeks later at the EAA meeting I was talking to a fellow who doesn't come often and telling him about welding up the fuel tank and he says, I have one of those large Miller 220V machines in the garage as his son is an aluminum welder and I should have brought it over. Will I use this machine again, I hope I've forgotten how to turn it on. If the price of copper stays high, I'll recover the cost. Father always said, to soon old, to late smart. At my age I hope I live long enough to see it happen. Farmer John .... It's a good thing I can't add, I think the numbers would scare me