Recommend a Tig Welding machine for me

my89notchback

my89notchback

Club Member
I’m looking at buying a Tig welder for my garage so I can both weld aluminum and make pretty welds on there stuff. I can’t afford to by a absolute top of the line machine, but don’t want a POS either. Any thoughts??
 
I have the Eastwood - About the same price as the Alpha. It works fine for the inexperienced welder like me...

grr
 
I had a cheap everlast tig welder, and one of the biggest challenges I had learning was not knowing if the welds I were putting out were bad due to me learning or the lower quality machine.

They all have a crazy warranty, and when mine broke it was a 6 month turnaround time and about $150 in shipping to get it repaired.

Have a Miller dynasty and couldn't be happier with it.

I would recommend trying to find a used Miller dynasty 200, but it is a little more $$$
 
Ive also had to opportunity to use a thermal arc machine as well at wcm when I took a tig class and liked it a lot. Pretty sure I seen one on Craigslist recently for around $450 or so.
 
I have a Miller diversion. Works great for everything I do at home. I'd recommend it.

But Lincoln or Miller you can't go wrong.
 
The AHP Alpha Tig is a pretty good machine for the money.

I use a Longevity 200sx at home.

Hear good things about the ESAB Rebel, and the Everlast machines.

And you can't go wrong with a Miller or Lincoln.
 
I have read good reviews on both the Alpha and the Eastwood tigs for beginner, home use. That being said, I purchased the Miller diversion 180 for local parts and support and love it. They always have some kind of rebate going on too. I got a $500 rebate, but right now I think it's at $400. I'd wait for the winter rebates to see if it goes up again.
 
I have been modernizing my welders. I recently bought a Millermatic 252 with an Alumapro push-pull gun and a Multimatic 215 with the TIG kit (I have the TIG kit for sale, I have no need for it). The last thing I need is a modern AC TIG welder. I want to be able to easily weld copper which isn't easy with a small TIG welder.

I have come up with the conclusion of:

Cheap seats: Lincoln Square Wave but really only good for steel and aluminum (~$1600 on perpetual fixed-price sale)
Fine, way more features, but missing a name in the US: HTP Invertig 221 (~$2400 on sale/Black Friday)
Need another hole in my pocket: Miller Dynasty 210 DX (~$3400 on rebate/freebies/store cash back).

You're going to end up buying a torch and cables with all of them because I haven't seen any I liked out of the box... so might as well just buy the power source alone if you can.

I am a novice welder on a good day. But if you learn on shit machines in welding in shit conditions when you get a fancy welder everything is easy.
 
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i have a ahp alphatig along with a handful of buddies, everyone's very happy.
spent quite a bit of time researching before making my choice between price ,customer service and and reviews, even a few people said they prefer alphatig over this their millers and such.
 
I don’t know shit about tig welders.

If i was looking to buy one,
I’d call josh, Dragula and Moneypit Ken. In no particular order. Sorry to anyone not on that list. But those 3 guys are masters
 
The Miller is what I would like, but don’t think I can afford it. The alpha is sold at Home Depot right?

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I just want to be able to weld aluminum stuff together and maybe exhaust pipe. Always wanted to make my own aluminum parts.
 
I don't think the Alpha is sold at Home Depot...at least not in stores. And showing not in stock online either.

Everyone I know got it from Amazon. 750 +30 shipping.
 
DarkoStoj said:
I had a cheap everlast tig welder, and one of the biggest challenges I had learning was not knowing if the welds I were putting out were bad due to me learning or the lower quality machine.

They all have a crazy warranty, and when mine broke it was a 6 month turnaround time and about $150 in shipping to get it repaired.

Have a Miller dynasty and couldn't be happier with it.

I would recommend trying to find a used Miller dynasty 200, but it is a little more $$$
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I've been welding with an everlast 185DV TIG for about 5 years now. I bought the import machine because I didn't know if I would like TIG welding, well i love it. I picked up TIG welding really easy for some reason; feels natural for me. I, mainly TIG and stick, i never MIG anything anymore (i ended up bringing my lincoln MIG to the pawn shop years ago). That said, since I fucking love to TIG now, I wish I would have bought a Dynasty at the start because I feel like i'm outgrowing this machine.

(KNOCK ON WOOD) No issues with the EVERLAST machine at all, been very reliable, nice arc starts, and nice stable arcs for me. I mainly weld steel 4130, stainless tube, and mild; have welded up to 1/2 plate on multiple passes, and did a cast iron fix with no issues. LOL, I put ALOT of weld down with this machine and the only thing i've had to replace AFTER 4 years, is the foot pedal, and the rubber on the original torch body eventually wore away. I upgraded the pedal (instead of replacing the potentiometer), and run several different torches (have a few 9 & 17 series for different jobs) - no issues with the machine, been very happy for the money (KNOCK ON WOOD).

I really want to start doing more aluminum and really want to start building suspension out of titanium so i'm leaning more towards a Dynasty (if i can find a good deal), or I will just go with the Everlast equivalent of the Dynasty in a pinch.

Not sure what you will be welding, but get something with a high-frequency start, AC/DC if you plan on doing aluminum. Just be patient, and practice, practice, practice, practice. Best of luck.
 
What a lot of people do with a cheap TIG welder and aluminum or ferrous metal you can do with a decent MIG welder. And be done with the project in minutes instead of forevers.

The nice thing about a TIG welder is that you can do small stuff and precision repairs. The problem with a cheap TIG welder is that most of them don't go low enough to do anything small. You can TIG weld the tab back on a barrel key for furniture but you're not going to do it with a cheap machine because most of them won't go under 10amps and certainly won't start under it. Try welding a bung on a radiator tank with a cheap TIG welder...

I'm not a good welder by any means, but once you've used great equipment it makes a mediocre skill pass for tolerable.
 
Honestly for home use, I'm sure someone is gonna talk crap, but the Vulcan multi process from harbor freight is a very hard mig/tig/arc to beat for the price. Very comparable to Lincolns multiprocess they offer for $500 cheaper. These welders do weld very nice if you are truly a welder and know what you are doing with, and how to identify material.
 
Axis said:
I don't think the Alpha is sold at Home Depot...at least not in stores. And showing not in stock online either.

Everyone I know got it from Amazon. 750 +30 shipping.
Click to expand...

Thanks! I’m leaning in this s direction because I am not welding for a living, but for fun on my own projects. I want to teach my 13yr old to weld too.
 
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