On Sat, 05 Feb 2005 17:00:56 -0800, Eric R Snow
vaguely proposed a theory
.......and in reply I say!:

remove ns from my header address to reply via email

I tend to agree with what's said, but:

Mig is the easiest to learn.

but notoriously the easiest to make a good-looking, useless weld.

Gas welding (oxy-acetylene) is more
versatile because you can cut as well as weld with it. But then you
need to have a selection of tips. You can also soft solder and braze
with gas. And, the torch on your gas welding outfit can be used for
just plain heating up stuff, like frozen pipes or that part you want
to case harden.

Versatile yes. But for me, very expensive, because of the cost of O2
and cylinder rent. MIG has gas ana cylinder rent, but O2 disappears
with horrible rapidity.

If I was
ONLY gonna weld thin steel (up to 1/4") then the Mig is the answer.

Here I disagree. You need a _good_ MIG to weld thicker steel. You may
also need patience, as you have to shape the weld area to start the
max thickness the MIG can do, and fill the weld. however, there is a
_huge_ advantage to this. On many steels, heat input maxima are
critical. With MIG, you shape the base metal to suit, and simply run
multi passes, at often quite low currents, waiting only if the temp
gets too high, or the MIG's duty cycle runs out (which is where the
good MIG comes in).

I have welded a boot onto the ripper of a D8 dozer for use in rock. It
was 3" thick and about 12-15" deep. It's cast steel alloy of about
..3%-.4% carbon content IIRC. It took a lot of work. But a 220A MIG did
the job easily. I could have done it with less, but I am lazy! G

I am afraid that I have to admit that I used OA to prepare the weld
shape. And there you have it! G