[TheForge] several questions

[Ries Niemi]

Miller has owned Hobart for some time now, and some products are the 
same, with just different labels. Others are unique to one brand or the 
other.

As far as plasma cutters go, I would heartily recommend buying either a 
hypertherm or a thermal dynamics.
These are the two industry leaders, and for a reason. Their machines 
are much better, and both of them make plasma cutters as their primary 
business, not just to fill out their product lines.

Plasma cutters will indeed cut stainless steel, but the edge quality is 
not the best- Unless you use a non-oxygen sheilding gas, such as 
nitrogen or argon, which is very expensive, the plasma cut on stainless 
will be black, rough, and have very hard slag that eats up grinding 
discs when you try to remove it.
You should go to a welding supply store, with a sample piece of 
stainless, and get them to demo the cut for you.
I cut plenty of stainless with the plasma, but when I need a perfect 
edge, I have to pay to have it waterjet cut.

As far as tig welders go, that is definitely the tool you want for 
welding stainless. The tigrunner is a great welder, but depending on 
your needs, you might want to look at the new inverter power supplies.
There are a lot of different models made by Miller alone, with varying 
amperages, some ac/dc, some just dc.
You need to figure out how thick of material you need to weld, whether 
you really need AC for welding aluminum or not, and how much you want 
to pay.
The new Dynasty inverters get rave reviews from all who have used them- 
better quality welds, easier to use, and very flexible in their 
abilities. Autolink, which means just plug em in to any power- 3 phase, 
single phase, varying voltages, the machine figures it out.
Also smaller, lighter, and require a smaller breaker size.
If you dont need AC, there are some great small dc only inverters, 
which will kick butt on stainless.

Ries Niemi
Industrial Artist

http://www.RiesNiemi.com