Since I couldn't find a good welder locally, or at least not one I could afford who had time for my little projects, I decided that I needed to learn how to weld. I bought a couple books on welding and spent quite a bit of time agonizing over what kind of welder to get. Eventually I settled on a TIG because I wanted something relatively clean that I could run in the basement without fear of burning down the house and I wanted to be able to do good aluminum welding eventually.

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The welder came with the stand, the table and the small Argon bottle. I've since rented a large 240sqft bottle as I was having to refill the small bottle on a weekly basis!
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The table is actually half the table.. When I went to pick up the welder and table, the seller and I were unable to get the table onto the truck 'cause it was too heavy! He used an oxy-acet torch to cut it in half which made it much more manageable.
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This was some of my very first attempts at welding. As you can clearly see, it was pretty horrible!
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Callie, my picture helper. She's pretending to be related to a chipmunk, I think.
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This was one of my first successfull welds.
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The weld didn't crack when bent and the metal broke first when I pulled it apart.
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That's enough. Callie says, "My fans will have to wait!"
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Here's the first 'real' thing I welded. The welding, after a week or two (2-3 small bottles of Argon!) of practice has definately improved greatly!
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I had planned on making it into a stand for my grinder but haven't gotten around to it.

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