Start welding your car!

Some people expressed an interest in welding their cars but the whole subject may seem a little off putting. I thought a little post on choosing a welding machine and getting started will hopefully encourage people to get stuck in and have a go.

First up, the welding machine it self…. You don’t need to spend hundreds on a welder but you should spend wisely. Avoid gasless machines, they aren’t worth the hassle. Also steer clear of ones that have a rocker switch to change the amps, min/max or high/low etc. When using a higher current you need a faster wire speed but the preset adjustment doesn’t account for welding up side down under a car. You want a machine that allows you to fine tune your settings.

What NOT to buy!

So what should you buy? Without getting deep in to the technicals, 150-200 amps would be perfect for a home mechanic. It produces more than enough amps and there are two very good reasons for that: firstly, if you are using it at or close to it’s maximum you will need to keep stopping to let it cool down, so only using 70% of it’s duty cycle allows you to keep on going; secondly, once you have a welder you will soon find many jobs to do with it, so being able to weld some 6mm plate to make a bracket or what ever is a bonus! Look for machines that allow you to adjust amps and wire speed, spot timer is not so crucial but most come with that now anyway, and also with a eurotorch. Something like this Supermig 180 from Sealey would be great:

To practice welding car panels, get some car panels! Go to a local bodyshop or scrap yard and get an old wing and start welding on it. Obviously you’ll need to grind the paint off first and surface preparation is something for another article but the sooner you get doing it the sooner you’ll be able to start fixing your car. Usually inside the cover of the machine or in the user manual it should have a table for the settings for various thicknesses of steel. Start with these and adjust as needed. Experiment with turning the wire speed up and down and also the current. Don’t adjust these settings with the trigger pulled, you can damage the machine.

The key is practice practice practice (and maybe watch videos and ask loads of questions!). If people find this helpful I can write more articles covering more of this subject.