welding

R

river

Member
I have an 1100 with LT720 Blizzard plow and I'm in my third season of plowing. All has worked well so far, but one of the driveways I plow is very rough, so rough I have to go slow and pick up the plow a bit off the surface or it will be catching every few feet. Anyway, like I said, all is well so far. But I've been thinking that the plow hardware will succumb to the rough surfaces eventually and I'll need to weld something.

So to the question.... I don't have any kind of welding equipment OR experience. I remember a discussion in this forum back on the old CTR site about one particular type of welder being the only kind you really need, but I don't remember which type was preferred. So which type of welding equipment should I get for my shop?

Thanks in advance for your advice.
Doug
 
Doug,

Can't really help with the welder but wanted to ask if you have plow shoes on it so you can keep the blade up a bit for that particular driveway.
 
it all depends on how thick the material is anything 1/4 or over you gonna need atleast a 180 amp wirefeeder. now for stuff under that a 140 or a 100 amp will do . i would recomend a wirefeeder with innershield fluxcor wire so you won't need to have a bottle of gas when you use it. stay away from them cheap old crackerboxs they never put down a nice weld and i would never rely on anything welded by one.

i have a 100 amp and a 140 amp lincoln and for my big jobs i have me miller bobcat 250. if you need any help feel free to ask.
 
I use a Millar "firefly" 130amp wire feed. It will do gas or flux core but I don't do enough welding to justify the gas. Trouble with a welder is if you don't do a lot of it, you'll never get very good at it. On any project I've ever built, the last few welds are starting to look a little professional...In my opinion a 100-150amp wire feed will do what you are looking for. There is a pic of Bordercollie welding some pipe on another thread about feed troughs..Maybe BC will pipe in...
 
bc - I do have shoes on it, and when the plow is sitting on the garage floor, the shoes hold the blade 1/2" off the floor.
 
By the way, I want to get a versatile welder that will also handle lighter materials and also possibly aluminum.
Thanks again - Doug
 
i use my 140 amp lincoln wirefeeder for all my aluminum work right now but the max i can push it is welding 1/8 and maybe 3/16 thick aluminum i have a spoolgun 100 or spoolmate 100 i forgot. i know it can only weld for about 15 minutes straight til it shutdown to cool off. but it does just fime for what i do right now . i will be getting me a aluminum setup for my bobcat250 to i can weld up to 1.2 with no problem and weld for more than 15 minutes .i have a computer program i am messing with soi can build my own boats with my two sons.
 
I have the exact same setup (RTV 1100/Blizzard720). This is the first year for me with this plow. I had a new covering of very large shale placed on the 1/4 mile long driveway in the spring and knew it would be hell on my new plow. I had the Blizzzard dealer install a very thick (about 2 in. thick) rubber on the bottom. I hoped this would cause less wear and tear on my plow. So far, it seems to be working OK . The rubber was fairly expensive. I probably will not replace it after it wears down. I am thinking the shale will be pounded down quite a bit by next winter and shouldn't be near as rough. Just a thought.
 
My Daddy had 2 Lincoln idealarc 250s. He used them to make huge winches and steering systems for off shore vessels and ones in the intercoastal waterways. The machines did well for him and provided a livelihood for us. He gave the welders to us to use on the farm when he became ill. They are old and antique featured but they put out a good bead and will tolerate most any rod size. That is what I'm using on the feed troughs.If you also needed a generator you might be interested in a Miller trailblazer or such. They weld nice and will also double as a generator. You can weld and use the generator function at the same time if you need to. Ours is gasoline. If I remember correctly it is 10 Kilowatts. It also has a digital readout on the amps you choose etc , is user friendly and will sound like bacon sizzling when welding It's a pleasure to use. There are some really good dvd's out there that covers and teaches welding and all. If interested, post it and I will look up the address. I also bought a plasma cutter several years ago and it cuts clean and like a hot knife thru butter but you need really dry compressed air- Or it will eat the tips up. You will also need a good helmet. I have one of the auto darkening ones and I love it because it makes welding for us amateurs much easier to start( No more stuck rods) Get a good quality one so it will work correctly and protect your eyes.. Enjoy the search and take your time and the right thing will come. Bordercollie
 
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river said:
By the way, I want to get a versatile welder that will also handle lighter materials and also possibly aluminum.
Thanks again - Doug
Click to expand...

As soon as you throw aluminum into the mix I say go for a new Lincoln 140 or 180 welder, they are spoolgun capable out of the box. Depends on what you've got for available power which one you want, if you've only got 110V there go for the 140 and don't look back. If you ever run into something that's too thick for you to weld you can always bevel your workpieces from each side to get it done. The spoolgun Peanut mentioned is what makes all the difference, I bought one last year and it welds aluminum way better than shoudl be allowed for a 110V unit. I bought the Lincoln 140C which is a great welder, it has a very nice aluminum wire drive system that feeds wire very consistently...it also has has continuous voltage adjustment rather than the 4 or 5 tapped selections of the 140T....to me the better wire drive and buying from a welding specific shop were worth the extra $$
Here's a link
http://wagnerweldingsupply.com/pdfs/140C.pdf

If you're looking to get out of it cheap and having a Chinese product doesn't scare you Real Gear USA makes a China clone of the older Lincoln SP welders that is also spool gun capable for a cheap price but the overall build quality looks questionable.


The big reason I'd say Lincoln over the others is the that if you weld aluminum the spoolgun is going to take all the headaches out of it, on the Lincoln you just need to buy the $200 spool gun and hook a couple wires up the first time but after that you just flip the side door, flip the gun switch to spool gun and then swap your gun/gas over. I can swap from aluminum to steel in under 10 minutes and vice versa. I had also considered Hobart which also claims to be spoolgun capable but what they fail to mention at first is that you need to buy a $700 controller to use the spool gun then another $300 for the gun.:bonk:
 
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