110v welder

Joined
Jul 23, 2017
Messages
6
Location
Canada
I started off with a 220v Lincoln stick welder. Honestly, I think it's too unnecessarily powerful for these bike projects. I found it messy, tougher to use, and constantly burning holes through everything. Especially thinner stuff, like putting the pedal assembly onto the brackets.

Now I have a 110v Mig (cheap Mastercraft brand always on sale at Canadian Tire) and I have never gone back to the stick welder. I've built plenty of bikes with the mig and never had any failures at all. It is plenty powerful to weld the types of tubing recommended in the AZ builds.
 
Joined
Feb 20, 2013
Messages
869
Location
Axedale, Victoria, Australia
Website
axerail.coffeecup.com
There are plenty of stick welders in daily use for welding all sorts of things - DIY bikes included.

Welding thin stuff can be frustrating. From my experience, and I certainly don't consider myself a welder by any means, the stick welding problems you faced can be addressed by:

Setting output amps lower,
Holding the stick closer to the metal,
Concentrating the weld on the thicker of the two metals being joined,
Tacking the metal in a few places first,
Withdraw the stick quickly when finished.
 
Joined
Aug 31, 2020
Messages
1
Ok. Bad manners to post to an old thread, I know but....

I used OA to build my version of the HighRoller. Thin to thin was no problem. Some very pretty welds if I say so myself. The problem came when joining the thin stuff to thicker stuff. The main boom to the fork legs used for the chain stays and bottom bracket to "seat tube" in particular. Head tube was also a challenge.

To test everything I put an old wheel set on the the frame sat on it and rolled each end off a 12" drop a few times. I weighed 315 at the time and everything stayed stuck and nothing bent.

Cheers!
 
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