The best garage welder in my humble opinion is a tig welder. Yes it requires gas , but there are no sparks flying around at all. It's a slower process, but more forgiving as you have a foot pedal to control amperage. It does however always require two hands, one to hold the torch and one to hold the filler rod. It will allow you to weld any kind of weldable metal. You can set up an account with a local weld supply store, buy or rent the gas cylinder and call them when you need it switched out and they will deliver it for you. It does require a certain amount of skill, but because of the speed of the process you are able to see that you have 100% solubility of the filler metal with the puddle, no cold lapping of the joint. To me it just takes coordination to learn. You can poke around and find a good used one for sale. They require 220 single phase power, kind of like your dryer or your kitchen range.
You can also change them to stick welding with a couple of flips of a switch. Usually they start at about 200 to 250 amps. I have seen less though. I think lincoln once made one that was 180 amps.
Oh one more thing. The most dangerous gas given off is ozone. Very clean and won't smoke up your garage.
Last edited by Mortek; 11-17-2003 at 08:08 PM.
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