How much for welding gear? | GTAMotorcycle.com

How much for welding gear?

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bombshelter13

Well-known member
How much would it cost to buy a basic welding setup, including whatever tools would be needed for the sort of welding involved in customizing/building motorcycles?

Just curious how practical this is, if it's economical maybe I'll give it a shot at some point.

ALSO: Is there a law that would interfere with me welding things in my garage / back yard? Do you need a license/certification to do this privately in your own home, or are those just if you actually wanted to be hired professionally?
 
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No license needed unless you are doing certain types of professional work for others. For example, if you are welding pressure vessels, in which a fault in the welding could result in an explosion, or welding structural steel, in which a fault could result in a building collapsing, you had better be certified.

Keep in mind that a motorcycle frame is a highly engineered structure, and if it fails while you or someone else is on the road, it's going to result in a collision of some sort. If you welded it and you're riding it, you can't sue yourself. If you welded it and someone else is riding it, what happens? Who's liable? Also, insurance plays into this, too.

But for non-structural stuff ... No problem. I have a basic flux-core wire-feed welder and it comes in handy for exhaust systems, fairing brackets, birdcages, etc.

What do you want to weld - steel, stainless-steel, or aluminum? Welding mild steel is something that can be done with a wire-feed or MIG. Stainless or aluminum generally require TIG, a different and more complicated process with a more expensive machine. You can do mild steel with TIG. Although I've heard that it's possible to use MIG for aluminum, it's tricky. Wire-feed flux-core is a no-go for aluminum.

If you are only welding steel then a flux-core wire-feed machine will be the cheapest but a MIG will be easier to use and give better results - but you'll have to deal with gas bottles.

http://lincolnelectric.ca/knowledge/
 
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Thanks for the info... got any sort of estimate for what a basic setup might cost in total? Could something be put together that would work for say 1000-1500$?

As far as what metals I wanna weld... I can't give you a 100% answer, yet - I don't know enough about welding to know what metals are required to build the sort of things I would think of building.

I'd probably be mostly considering non-structural things - storage racks, crash bars, maybe an exhaust, things like what. The only thing I would maybe consider doing that's structural might be a subframe or something (if I were gonna make a streetfighter or something and needed to reduce the tail, for instance). What sort of metals would I need for that?
 
bombshelter13 said:
I'd probably be mostly considering non-structural things - storage racks, crash bars, maybe an exhaust, things like what. The only thing I would maybe consider doing that's structural might be a subframe or something (if I were gonna make a streetfighter or something and needed to reduce the tail, for instance). What sort of metals would I need for that?
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Racks for the garage will be mild steel (cheap heavy and strong), stunt cage for a bike is mostly mild steel, most bike parts you want to keep the weight down, so chromoly steel, aluminum or ti are better (but all are more expensive materials and are much harder to weld). Exhausts are normally stainless or ti. You could build your subframe out of mild steel, but it will be pretty damn heavy (or super thin wall and a ***** to weld).

Unless you are willing to commit a reasonable amount of time and scrap material to TIG welding, it will be cheaper/easier to pay a great welder (like weirtech) when you need things put together. TIG is not that easy to figure out and your first many welds will look (and work) like baby puke. A small stick or flux-core welder is handy to have around the shop for small projects like hangars, shelves, fenders, etc.
 
i got myself a cheapo flux core welder for around the house when needed. 90Amp and it welds just fine. flux core spatters a lot so if you really care what it looks like maybe go for MIG? I paid $120 at harbor freight in USA for mine and its exceeding my expectations (they werent set high to begin with but for 120 dollar welder its working good). I also recommend the auto tinting helmet, an arrangement of vice grips and magnets, gloves and welding apron.

If you really feel you want to weld aluminum, you have to step up your price range significantly. A/C and D/C Tig welders are best for steel/SS/alu but they are not cheap and TIG is alot harder to work with.
 
I picked up welding by asking questions and experimenting. My number 1 rule is never stand under anything I've welded. I've turned out some decent items but if it was critical I would turn it over to a pro.

My welder is MIG and works great. I took a couple of Saturday course at Centennial College to get a start and it was well worth it. I bought new but there are used ones available. I prefer used quality to new junk.
 
Problem with learning to weld is unless you have a pro to critique you during your learning process you won't know if you're progressing or not. A nice looking weld is not necessarily a good weld. I'm not trying to discourage you from trying to learn.. I'm trying to encourage you to find someone who can teach you if that makes sense lol.

Welding and fitting comes down to experience... and patience, and when learning from someone who is experienced they can put you on the right track quicker. Also they can help you get rid of bad habits early on.

$1500 bucks can definitely buy you something to play around with. But do a little looking around and talking to people before you commit to buying anything just yet.
 
If you going to get a mig, plan on spending the money on a gas bottle and regulator. There is hell of a lot less smoke and i imagine less toxic fumes then with flux core. I think you can get 180 amp mig at cdn tire for about 1200 bucks. I have an older 170 amp lincolne mig and it's only good for about 1/8 or 3/16 with single pass welds , with out using tricks. I have no issues welding stainless with it , just have to change the filler wire. You should change the gas but I get buy ok with the same gas as for mild steel. Most mild steel motorcycle stuff could be done with ox/ace torch and a bunch of practice. The other cool thing about a torch is you dont have to wórry about frying you electronics, only melting them :)
 
One other thing about welding is getting things straight. You make perfect cuts and line everything up perfectly and build yourself a new square workbench with perfect welds. When you stand it in place it's warped all out of shape. The welds pull on each other as they cool so it's a mix of art and science to sequence the welds right to minimize the movement.
 
I have an ESAB AC/DC Tig and a ESAB Plasma cutter. I am by no means a great welder but figured get the good stuff and learn how to use it rather than teaching myself on crap then wanting better stuff. So far so good. Its a definite learning curve but rewarding.
 
MIG welding aluminum is fairly straightforward. You will need a spool mounted gun as you can't push aluminum like you can with steel.

How much are you willing to spend?
 
$1500 might as well get a TIG welder..

paid $1100 for my TIG (Thermal arc 300GTSW)
$125 for an 80CF bottle of Argon
$165 for a Lincoln Electric Welding mask (Got the Viking 2450... but the new 3350 came out with more viewing area)
$25 on a couple pounds of aluminum and stainless steel filler


Already had some heavier leather gloves from work and some scrap metal I already had.
I had to do some electrical work to my house before I could hook up the welder, but I don't really count that in the price because it was so old it needed changing anyway. But it cost me $500 in material to do.

So a budget of $1500 is pretty realistic to get yourself into a pretty decent set-up. If you go for an older transformer machine I have seen some miller synchrowaves go for around $800-900 sometimes with a bottle, and a bunch of filler rod. So the budget is definately doable, the only difference is with a big transformer machine they can be tricky to move due to weight/size. If I had room in my garage I probably would have just got a large transformer machine like kneedragger did.
 
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Cool, sounds like the prices involved might be achievable for me. Guess I'm gonna do a lot more reading on this topic over the winter, thanks for all the insight so far as to TIG/MIG/flux core, etc... very useful for me as I'm pretty much a newb in this area.
 
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