B Gillespie from the mtbr forum gave this response to my question "What is the best welder for TIG steel bike frame building?":
"First, your question is somewhat akin to, "I want to buy a four door sedan, what should I buy?". There's a lot of answer to your question, so I'll cut it into a few categories.
First--budget? Prices range from ~$1,500 to $8k+.
IMO, features to look for are 1st--pulse and 2nd--AC.
For thin tubing, pulse makes it way, way, WAY easier. You can certainly weld thin sheet and tubing without pulse, welders successfully did it for decades, but jeebus it is way easier, less frustrating, and prettier with pulse. When using pulse, you're going to be using the 0.8-1.7 pulses per second settings 95% of the time, so don't get too wrapped around the axle if a specific welder model is limited to say 20 or 150 pulses per second. The higher settings are cool, but not a lot of use for them in bicycle making.
Second, if you have the budget, definitely consider a welder with AC capability so you can weld aluminum.
If you're concerned about budget, the Lincoln Squarewave 200 is a great machine with all of the features you will need to build virtually any bike frame. Includes pulse, AC, and several other useful features. It's similar in price to the Maxstar you mentioned, but way more "usable" IMO, IE higher amperage, more duty cycle, AC, etc. The small Maxstar is designed to be a portable tig machine for field repairs such as sanitary tubing, and it's a great machine, but not necessarily the best selection for bike frame building. A lot of people start of with Miller Diversion's, and they're not bad at all, but the Lincoln beats it out in multiple factors.
If budget isn't a concern, you can't beat a Miller Dynasty 210 DX with CPS. Although it's a $4k machine, it can run on 110-480v inputs, has a load of great features, SD card slot to allow for expansion of features (a la setting independent AC balance), and Miller tig machines have great resale. My personal setup is a Miller Dynasty 200 DX with a coolmate 1 and 20 series torch. The water cooler is kind of a love hate relationship. I love being able to weld while basically holding the cup, but listening to tit run for hours is kind of annoying. I also have an air cooled torch, but it's sitting on the shelf and never gets used, so overall I definitely prefer the advantages of water cooled setup, it's definitely not a requirement, more of a luxury.
Honestly, I wouldn't really consider any other machine than those two. The older transformer machines (IE Miller Synchrowave) come up for sale often, and they weld great, but suck power like mad, super heavy, not portable, and limited on features such as AC wave forms, AC balance, AC frequency, etc.
The other important factors to consider with tig is accessories and consumables.
For accessories, invest in a great helmet such as the Speedglas 9100xxi or ESAB Sentinel. It's hard to stack dimes if you can't see.
The other major item is torch selection, tungsten selection, tungsten preparation, filler metal selection, etc. I could go on for pages about each item, but the moral of the story is don't skimp. You'll eventually end up with the nice stuff anyways, so pay once and cry once.
For smaller, detailed, tight tig work, you can't beat a 9/20 series torch. 9 is the air cooled version and 20 is water cooled, both use same consumables. I started out with a 26, use a 20 now, and have no clue how I welded with that giant club of a torch. For torch brands, I'd recommend CK Worldwide. Second, GET A GAS LENS SETUP for welding anything other than aluminum. For high end steel alloys and the occassional Ti job, you're going to want a variety of cup sizes ranging from 8 (.5") to 16 (1"). I use a combination of normal alumina cups for basic bitch errday welding and Mike Furick cups when I need to see better or if it's a critical weld on stainless.
Dont skimp on filler. After battling with Harris and Radnor quality issues, I mostly use Lincoln, Hobart, American Filler Metals, and Voelkemp (sp?).
Figure out some way to sharpen tungsten, cause jeebus you'll be sharpening often when you first start welding. With the low amp arc starts associated with thin bike tubing, you'll need to either run 1/16" electrodes or 3/32" and sharpen them to a long point. I prefer Thoriated (red) on steel, stainless, and Ti, 2% Lanthanated on aluminum. Don't get cheap electrodes, so stay away from amazon/ebay brands. CK makes a nice product. Sharpening tungsten is not very glamorous, but it's important to have a system that gets repetitive results. I use a 12v dewalt cordless drill and sander with higher grit discs and belts, but it's definitely a personal preference thing. There's a lot of ways to do it and I haven't found one that works much better unless you drop $2k and that's dumb.
Like I wrote earlier, I could go on for pages on each item in this message, but moral of the story: you get what you pay for, don't make it harder than it has to be, make sure you're comfortable while welding, clean and prep your weld material 50x more than you thought you needed to, and keep learning. Tig is a load of fun, frustrating AF, and rewarding all at the same time. You're probably going to suck for a year, but that's ok, stick with it and things start to click.
One more thing, watch all of Jody's videos on weldingtipsandtricks.com. Hands down best tig videos on interwebs and most of his wealth of knowledge carries over to bike welding. He also has a web store, weldmonger.com, where he sells a variety of good products. I use his tig fingers often."
"First, your question is somewhat akin to, "I want to buy a four door sedan, what should I buy?". There's a lot of answer to your question, so I'll cut it into a few categories.
First--budget? Prices range from ~$1,500 to $8k+.
IMO, features to look for are 1st--pulse and 2nd--AC.
For thin tubing, pulse makes it way, way, WAY easier. You can certainly weld thin sheet and tubing without pulse, welders successfully did it for decades, but jeebus it is way easier, less frustrating, and prettier with pulse. When using pulse, you're going to be using the 0.8-1.7 pulses per second settings 95% of the time, so don't get too wrapped around the axle if a specific welder model is limited to say 20 or 150 pulses per second. The higher settings are cool, but not a lot of use for them in bicycle making.
Second, if you have the budget, definitely consider a welder with AC capability so you can weld aluminum.
If you're concerned about budget, the Lincoln Squarewave 200 is a great machine with all of the features you will need to build virtually any bike frame. Includes pulse, AC, and several other useful features. It's similar in price to the Maxstar you mentioned, but way more "usable" IMO, IE higher amperage, more duty cycle, AC, etc. The small Maxstar is designed to be a portable tig machine for field repairs such as sanitary tubing, and it's a great machine, but not necessarily the best selection for bike frame building. A lot of people start of with Miller Diversion's, and they're not bad at all, but the Lincoln beats it out in multiple factors.
If budget isn't a concern, you can't beat a Miller Dynasty 210 DX with CPS. Although it's a $4k machine, it can run on 110-480v inputs, has a load of great features, SD card slot to allow for expansion of features (a la setting independent AC balance), and Miller tig machines have great resale. My personal setup is a Miller Dynasty 200 DX with a coolmate 1 and 20 series torch. The water cooler is kind of a love hate relationship. I love being able to weld while basically holding the cup, but listening to tit run for hours is kind of annoying. I also have an air cooled torch, but it's sitting on the shelf and never gets used, so overall I definitely prefer the advantages of water cooled setup, it's definitely not a requirement, more of a luxury.
Honestly, I wouldn't really consider any other machine than those two. The older transformer machines (IE Miller Synchrowave) come up for sale often, and they weld great, but suck power like mad, super heavy, not portable, and limited on features such as AC wave forms, AC balance, AC frequency, etc.
The other important factors to consider with tig is accessories and consumables.
For accessories, invest in a great helmet such as the Speedglas 9100xxi or ESAB Sentinel. It's hard to stack dimes if you can't see.
The other major item is torch selection, tungsten selection, tungsten preparation, filler metal selection, etc. I could go on for pages about each item, but the moral of the story is don't skimp. You'll eventually end up with the nice stuff anyways, so pay once and cry once.
For smaller, detailed, tight tig work, you can't beat a 9/20 series torch. 9 is the air cooled version and 20 is water cooled, both use same consumables. I started out with a 26, use a 20 now, and have no clue how I welded with that giant club of a torch. For torch brands, I'd recommend CK Worldwide. Second, GET A GAS LENS SETUP for welding anything other than aluminum. For high end steel alloys and the occassional Ti job, you're going to want a variety of cup sizes ranging from 8 (.5") to 16 (1"). I use a combination of normal alumina cups for basic bitch errday welding and Mike Furick cups when I need to see better or if it's a critical weld on stainless.
Dont skimp on filler. After battling with Harris and Radnor quality issues, I mostly use Lincoln, Hobart, American Filler Metals, and Voelkemp (sp?).
Figure out some way to sharpen tungsten, cause jeebus you'll be sharpening often when you first start welding. With the low amp arc starts associated with thin bike tubing, you'll need to either run 1/16" electrodes or 3/32" and sharpen them to a long point. I prefer Thoriated (red) on steel, stainless, and Ti, 2% Lanthanated on aluminum. Don't get cheap electrodes, so stay away from amazon/ebay brands. CK makes a nice product. Sharpening tungsten is not very glamorous, but it's important to have a system that gets repetitive results. I use a 12v dewalt cordless drill and sander with higher grit discs and belts, but it's definitely a personal preference thing. There's a lot of ways to do it and I haven't found one that works much better unless you drop $2k and that's dumb.
Like I wrote earlier, I could go on for pages on each item in this message, but moral of the story: you get what you pay for, don't make it harder than it has to be, make sure you're comfortable while welding, clean and prep your weld material 50x more than you thought you needed to, and keep learning. Tig is a load of fun, frustrating AF, and rewarding all at the same time. You're probably going to suck for a year, but that's ok, stick with it and things start to click.
One more thing, watch all of Jody's videos on weldingtipsandtricks.com. Hands down best tig videos on interwebs and most of his wealth of knowledge carries over to bike welding. He also has a web store, weldmonger.com, where he sells a variety of good products. I use his tig fingers often."
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