On Wed, 2 Jan 2008 00:40:30 -0800, Larry Caldwell
wrote:

In article , not-registered-
) says...

Angle grinders are one of the easiest
way to cut metal in a small home setup, unless you got lots of money
to buy power tools and torches made for cutting metal.

I use a sawzall with a metal blade or a 14" cutoff saw for almost all my
cutting.

I personally own and use an old Sears AC stick welder. It gets the
job done.

Yeah, I have an old Wards AC welder that works just fine. Only 40% duty
cycle at 200 amps, but I don't do production work, just farm welding.

That's exactly what I use mine for. I dont know what my duty cycle
is, I just know it works, and never stopped welding on it's own. I
dont do production either, except the time I made 16 ten foot fence
panels out of some scrap metal I got. That was a chore !!!!

I've never used a DC welder. I have no idea what it would feel like.
I once used a small (borrowed) wire feed welder. Either the welder
was too cmall, too cheap a brand, or something else was wrong with it.
All I did was fight to keep the very thin wire from getting too long
or too short or getting stuck. I was not highly impressed, not to
mention the price of the wire compared to plain stick rods.

Not to discourage the OP, but I think the wire feed welder was
something like Harbor Freight would sell. Cheap junk if you ask me,
but then I wont even step a foot into H.F. or places like it. I
normally I buy quality tools, but if I only need something to use
once, or for light duty, I generally buy them at Menards, which have
proven to be fairly decent for the price and easy to return. (They
dont sell welders though).

My only problem with the AC welder and stick rods is welding thin
material. Sometimes it just burns thru no matter what I do. Although
the choice of rod types helps somewhat.

Have you (or anyone else) ever used a DC welder? What's the
difference? I learned to weld with AC, got fairly good at it, and
that's pretty much all I know.