[TheForge] Which is the better Mig. Miller or Hobart. Does Tig beat em all?

[jon.sloan]

Is this Hobart the same that makes the Kitchen Aid mixer??
Jon

Ries Niemi wrote:

> Miller vs Hobart vs Lincoln used to be just like ford vs chevy vs dodge-
> rabid opinions on all sides, with all three actually being perfectly
> good machines.
> But now miller has purchased hobart, and so they are virtually the same
> machine.
>
> As far as the spool gun goes- if you think you may ever have a good
> sized aluminum project, then you ought to get the machine that will
> take the spool gun, but I wouldnt buy a spool gun til the deposit check
> clears for the project you need it for. Spool guns are a sloppy
> solution to a very difficult problem. They work, I have welded
> thousands of feet of weld with one, but they are big and clunky and jam
> a lot, and the wire is expensive in those little spools, and runs out
> quickly.
> When I had a really big aluminum job, I splurged on a push pull, which
> takes a full size spool of wire, and has two motors- one at the spool,
> one in the much smaller gun. They work much better than a spool gun,
> and you can put regular size spools of any wire in em. Miller, Lincoln,
> and Cobramatic all make em.
>
> Personally, I couldnt  see being without both tig and mig.
> I tend to use my mig welder for quick and dirty projects, like a jig or
> a fixture, or for big jobs that dont need to be real pretty- steel
> racks, shop carts, square tubing fences and the like. Even when you get
> em dialed in just right, there is a fair amount of spatter, which you
> have to chisel, wire brush, or grind off to get a good looking joint.
> But they are easy to learn, immediate to use, and awful handy.
> My tig, on the other hand, gets used a lot more on actual product-
> things I am going to sell to other people. If you practice with it, you
> can do welds that will require only the lightest of sanding to
> disappear. You can weld really thin sheet metal without even using a
> filler rod, you can weld stainless steel, aluminum, and best of all,
> you can tig braze. This is using a silicon bronze filler rod. You can
> tig braze dissimilar metals together, patch cast iron, and it is great
> for putting really thick things together with really thin things. I
> used to have a production candlestick that we would make 50 at a time,
> that I used a stamped steel 24ga candle cup, tig brazed to 3/8" round
> bar. Nothing else would have put those babies together without blowing
> big holes in em, but tig brazing did it quick and clean.
>
> So for my shop, I would go for tig first, then mig. But I tend to make
> a lot of ornamental ironwork and furniture, where final finish is
> really important, and I can charge enough to take the time to tig weld.
>
> your mileage, as they say, may vary
>
> ries
>
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