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I have done some small gas welding/brazing over the years. Have always wanted to get a real welder.

In late 2006 I purchased a Clarke 130EN MIG welder. This has proven to be an excellent machine and I have used it for numerous projects. I can no do a lot of new repairs, fabricate special tools and build various projects. It has changed a lot of the way i do things; I should have gotten one years ago.

Here is my current welder setup:

Top: Airco 300 amp AC/DC Heliwelder. Will do TIG, MIG and arc welding. I do not use it for MIG as the Miller is designed specifically for MIG use.

Actually the Airco welder will do up to 460 amps, but still can go as low as 5 amps. It was made by Miller, so I repainted it blue.

On the left of the unit, the upper coils of wire are the TIG torch and remote control cables. Below is the ground lead and the arc (stick) welding electrode and cable. About 30' reach. I also have two 25' extensions for the cables.

The lower welder is a Miller CP-250TS converted to single phase. To the right of that is a MIG cart and an Airco wire feeder. The cart has 25' of cable to the welder. On the side of the upper welder are two Tweco MIG guns: a 12' #1 180 amp and a 15' #4 400 amp gun.

I have also obtained a Smith gas mixer (on corner of bench.) This allows me to select any argon/CO2 mix. Behind wire feeder is the argon and CO2 gas bottles.

Surprisingly, the Airco beast will run on single phase. It is old, built in 1973; it is still an amazing unit that does Arc, MIG and TIG welding. I have a set of web pages dedicated to its restoration here. Airco Welder

The setup gives me Arc, MIG and TIG welding.

This equipment was all part of an unbelievable Ebay deal.

Welding Info:

Projects:

This section is still under construction

One of my early projects is a motorcycle stand:

Another is the rear gate for the trailer. It used to be a long ramp. It proved to be heavy and a lot of drag on the highway. I cut it down to the height of the sides and welded a rail on top:

One project is shown in the above photo. The wire mesh seen on the sides used to be the floor for the trailer. I upgraded the floor to wood and welded the mesh to the sides.There was also a steel support added to the floor.

Also, got fed up breaking the cheap lights, so found some recessed ones on Ebay and wrapped them in a steel frame:

Here is a foot pedal I made for the Airco:

My gas grill had no lower grate, so made one out of 1.5" x 1/8" L-steel:

Wire feeder cart: