[AT] Update: '47 B - First starting attempt

[szabelski at wildblue.net]

It’s a good welder for doing small jobs, like those done by somebody doing artsy craft things, which is what I believe it was probably intended for. You can’t really do a large deep weld since it doesn't have a lot of power, only about 50A. It also doesn’t do a good weld if you try to use too large of a stick. I went and took a look at it again and it indicates using a 1/16 stick for up to 1/4 inch thick metal and 3/32 stick for up to 1/16 thick metal. My primary welder is also a HFT welder that I purchased from them when they used to sell refurbished welders. Got it for about half price. I figured that if it was returned because something was wrong with it, that they had already fixed it and I wouldn’t have any further issues with it. It’s worked without any issues for over 15 years. The only thing I don’t do is use their wire. I found that it has a tendency to splatter a lot and not do that good of a job. I switched over to using something like Lincoln or some other name brand wire. The price difference isn’t really that much different.

Carl


----- Original Message -----
From: Roger Moffat <rogerkiwi at gmail.com>
To: Antique Tractor Email Discussion Group <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Wed, 16 Dec 2020 08:41:40 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: [AT] Update: '47 B - First starting attempt

I have one of those same welders - my father in law gave it to me more than 20 years ago. I have only used it a couple of times.

I also have a 170amp Harbor Freight wire/MIG welder that cost around $200 maybe 6 or 7 years ago. It works OK for what it is and how much it cost.

Roger

> On Dec 14, 2020, at 10:06 AM, szabelski at wildblue.net wrote:
> 
> I have an old Montgomery Ward 120V welder that I purchased as my very first welder. Used it primarily for doing simple small weld jobs. It’s a simple small box, about 1 cubic foot. It has an aluminum tube on the end of one cable that serves to hold the welding rod using a simple thumb screw. The other has a typical spring loaded clamp with an aluminum tube on the handle of the clamp opposite where the cable is attached. The neat thing is that you can insert the one rod holder into the other handle of the spring clamp. Then using two copper clad carbon rods that are about 1/4 inch in diameter, adjust the distant between the two carbon rods to create a flame that will literally melt steel. The only draw back is that as the carbon rods burn you have to readjust the distance as the flame reduces. The rods would last for about 10 minutes before becoming too short to work. Haven’t used it in probably 40 to 50 years and don’t know if the carbon rods can be obtained for it anymore. It was great for heating nuts that I wanted to remove without spending a lot of time and effort. Got them cherry red real fast. I also used it to heat metal when I wanted to bend something. I could get the area where I wanted the bend cherry red, and bend it by hand without using any tools as long as I had enough material to grab with a gloved hand. Had to be careful with small pieces since once or twice I started to melt what I was trying to bend. Now that I think about it, I may drag it out of the basement and play with it a little.