Which came first; the welder or the skills?

Wanna buy a welder, I can weld to save my life, but not well enough to do neat things with it, especially track worthy. Do I need skills learned, or learn skills by do?

Buy and practice? Or practice then buy?

May be a dumb procedural question- but how do you practice without a welder?

I bought, learned a little, practiced, and then welded. While it's very intimidating at first, it's pretty easy to pick up to do reasonably well.

A buy and practice. i don't see how B is feasible.

i bought my mig machine when i was 19(holy crap my welder is almost 17 years old, we've been through a lot together). i learned on a bunch of scraps, then made some not so safe welds that broke on me, then i figured out through those failures and pretty soon i was making chassis parts that are still holding up today.

If you own it you can practice whenever you want.Practice makes perfect. As some people have noticed no two welders function exactly the same, if you own it you get used to its idiosyncrasy.

Purchas and practice. Once you get over the noise and the sparks you can get down to actual welding.

If you can find some one to get you going to show you the basics. Setting up a machine so the heat and wire speed are correct so you get the feel of what doing it right is early on. Do this and you will be miles ahead. I mean how do you know if you are doing it right if you have never done it before.

I look at it this way a really good welder can make a sub-par machine on the edge of spec dance.

But all the welding equipment in the world does not make a operator welder wll. Though it can go along way to hiding their lack of skills.

Buy a machine that can do 2x the depth and 1/2 the thickness you think you are going to do and grow into it.

I took a 65hr class at a local Vo Tech for $400 or so, then, armed with some basic skills and a little knowledge of what I needed in a machine to do the projects I had in mind... went shopping.

It worked out - that was 6 roll cages ago and a hundred little projects on suspension, brackets, wing mounts and so on. I'm now what I'd consider to be an "adequate" welder.

I'm going to take another class after ski season is over just because I want to be a good aluminum TIG welder and the class comes with the use of top notch equipment, scrap metal, instruction and most of all... time where your wife won't ask you to take the garbage out or drive the kids to soccer practice instead of playing in the garage.

I took an evening class at a local tech school, one night a week for 10 or 12 weeks; fewer hours than what Huckleberry did but it cost less, too. Check around in your area to see if there's an adult education or extension class available. For me it was well worth it, the instructor was excellent and I didn't have to shell out a bunch of money for a welder before I knew if I was going to be any good at it.

I would go get the highest amperage 110 volt Lincoln welder you can find. Great to learn on and will do most anything you can think of.

Learning on a cheap welder or should I say a poor quality welder can be frustrating. When you are starting out you want consistent heat and wire speed. A welder tgat does not have this will make learning to weld very frustrating.

All good advice here. I second the practice, take a night class, and big 110 volt Lincoln. (or Hobart or Miller) Leave the Harbor Freight stuff on the shelf, and buy the gas setup.

A good coach can eliminate much of the frustration level a beginner can experience. Starting out it can be difficult to know when the operator is screwing up or the machine isn't set right. A crappy machine won't do anyone any good. Also helps a bunch to have a good helmet with the correct shade. Go to school, take a class, learn some different techniques, and then you can best decide which machine you will need.

I also did a night course. Very worthwhile, 'cause you'll learn stick, TIG, MIG, Gas, plasma cutting.

Yeah I was referring to classes and then buying. I have a buddy that's a pro welder, wonder if I throw him a hundo he would teach me skills. Other note- has to be a 110v. No 220v in the garage. And im not wasting money and time to have it bright in. Can a 110v weld sheet metal and brackets? How about chassis bracing and cages?

I think you'd be stretching it for cage work. A 140ish amp 110 welder is going to have a pretty short duty cycle at a high enough setting to weld tube properly.

I came to suggest a short course at the local community college for a solid foundation. It won't hurt to start with the welder first and teach yourself but your save at least a decade if you go through a course.

I speak from experience, I've welded for just over a decade and am just now taking a course, I don't consider myself an adequate welder although I can stick metal together. There a fair bit to it but not to much.

Practice makes perfect. Buy then weld.

I bought a welder and learned on my own so I could build this:

I found after buying it, I got lots of scrap metal and practiced a LOT. You will find odd things to weld on/fix/build once you get one before you weld new suspension brackets to a 4500lb Jeep going 70mph down the road.

My first welds looked like crap:

Eventually you'll be good enough to weld someone's shiny happy person shut

Weld someone's arse hole shut. That's a good one.

Buy, read, practice, you just gotta go screw around with scrap for a while after learning how it all works. Making strong welds with a mig/fluxcore on mild steel doesn't take much practice if you have a mask dialed in so you can actually see the puddle, and know what good penetration looks like, how the settings effect things, etc. Making strong welds look pretty every time or in odd positions does take a lot of practice, and some degree of talent, but you don't need that "stack of dimes" look unless you're building a space vehicle.

I went the buy and practice method. Round three of practice will happen sometime this week after a trip to the metal man. I ran out of scrap in two sessions.

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/i-was-told-i-need-a-welder/108732/page1/

The noise and sparks was a non-issue me. Using the starters guide provided on the welder door, various YouTube videos, and tips from GRMers were VERY helpful.

Been through half a dozen vo-tech courses over the years. The good thing is everybody chooses to be there to learn so there are no class clowns to drag E36 M3 down. A lot depends on the instructor, some are just minimum, some are excellent. Most were 60 hours costing $250-400 depending on the course and another $100 odd for textbooks. Could sell back the book but they were all keepers. Met a lot of good folks there. One tip on welding classes, bring your own steel already cleaned, saves a lotta time when ya should be welding instead of picking through discard piles and cleaning on class time. Scrounge the local scrap yard, fab shop etc. for practice pieces.

For the same $400 or so you could pick up a decent used MIG and learn at home. Plenty of online sites: Miller has excellent tutorials, lots on YouTube and Googles also.

Chose to skip school and buy a new closeout blue MIG machine. Start running beads on 1/8"- 1/4", see the cold and hot. Burned holes through light body metal at first (I think you're supposed to do that just to see what not to berkeleying do), played at my leisure to find my comfort level. Before ya know it ya got 20, 50, 100 lbs. of wire through the machine and it becomes automatic.

Either way, it's all good.

Just took my 1st class last night, and will be once a week for the next 5 months. We'll see how it goes! Need to learn this....

I am still waiting for the skills to arrive, but it has been ten years since I bought the welder and I have made a E36 M3load of stuff using it. No idea how you can live without one.