Ya get what ya pay for. A few extra bucks will pay off in the long run with better quality stingers and clamps. I had some HF ones years ago, they were soon scrap.

 

I have a used 250 amp Tweco stinger I will send you for shipping cost...

It has a slight crack on the plastic end cap/ near the rod holder.. ... but works fine.

perfect for starting out.

lemme know.

and I absolutely LOVE these... http://weldingweb.com/showthread.php?549641-Magnetic-clamps-on-Sale&highlight=

 

Thanks for the offer but I live so far out on the left coast I'm almost standing in salt water. :laugh: Freight would probably more than if I bought a new one. I'll look around some more and see what I can come up with from some of the replies I got here. I know I don't need anything fancy or capable of very high amperage. That magnetic clamp looks pretty cool, but what if I want to weld a piece of wood?

 

his stinger will be a good deal, you can make a ground clamp out of a c-clamp.

 

Or

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

yea, the only problem i have w/ vise grips I've had though, is eventually i don't get it grounded good, and eventually the current tries to go through that little spring. it takes about 3 seconds to turn cherry red and snap.

 

yeah,
It was beer inspired ingenuity...

I've converted over to the magswitch
so far, so good.

 

Go to your local welding supply store and get some good stuff. The cost difference isn't going to kill you and you will appreciate the benefits. You don't need 400 amp gear for a weldanpower. Go with smaller stuff that is easier to hold onto and move around. I have 10 feet or so of the orange superflex cable in size 2AWG for my stinger. It is like $2/foot. See here: http://weldingweb.com/showthread.php?476301-Orange-Super-Flex-Welding-Cable

For your ground, any old cable will do. You can get good cable cheap from electron beam technologies, for like $1/foot. Get a decent ground clamp and any old half decent electrode holder. If you set these up right with DINSE or some other connectors, you will be able to move this set up around to any welder you end up owning. You might spend $30-40 on cables, maybe $20 on a decent copper ground clamp. and maybe another $20 for a decent Jackson electrode holder. In the end you might spend $70-80 bucks on your leads, but it will be worth it. And it will make your life easier when you are learning to weld.

 

O.K. So I go down to a local welding shop to see if maybe they have some old cables laying around that they would sell me cheap. They didn't, but I talked to the guy and he said I needed atleast 1/0 wire and they used the c-clamp type ground clamps. I thanked him for the info. I'm not going to be welding on the Golden Gate bridge anytime soon. Do I really need this heavy duty stuff? Honestly, I paid 100 bucks for the 225 Weldanpower, and I really don't know at this point if this thing will not eat itself, so I don't want to sink a whole lot of money into it until I can see some results. I used #4 jumper cables just to test it and it did strike and maintain an arc. I did it by feel because I don't even have a helmet so I couldn't look directly at it. I think you can understand where I'm going with this. That's why I was looking at the HF stuff. What's the minimum wire size I can get away with? 25 feet at the most is all I need. That's why I wanted a portable welder. Take the welder to the work, not the other way around. Could I live for now with #1 or #2?

 

Not enough of a price difference between #1 & #2 to loose any sleep over. Get #1.

 

 

Thanks. From the looks of the chart #1 will be more than enough for my needs.

 

That is awesome! Great idea. I was needing to replace a ground....good move!