The time has finally come, I am diving into metal fabrication head first. After a few years of owning a proper project car, I’ve taken it upon myself to learn some metal fab. The main motivation being so I can properly work on the car without dependence on shops.

After reading what seemed like a million reviews, and watching countless youtube videos, I settled on a Lincoln Electric 140 HD Mig Welder. While not the most effective welder in… well most situations… it is a good entry level welder with a good brand behind it. It can do both gas and flux core, and can weld the thicknesses I will need for most of my work. It also runs on 110v, which means I don’t have to pay a ton of money to get 220 run in my garage. I did end up having to get a dedicated 20 amp line run, as it kept popping my little 15 amp shared line in the garage, but that wasn’t too expensive since the panel is on the other side of the wall.

I decided that I really needed a better/safer way to cut metal than with my angle grinder, so I started looking up bandsaws. I know a lot of people praise the portable Harbor Freight (HF) one, but I didn’t think I really needed a portable one. Then I came across the HF horizontal band saw. The reviews were a bit more mixed, a lot of people didn’t like how cheap the stand was, but I actually had a coupon for HF (who doesn’t) and that style of saw was what I was after. I took a chance and picked one up for $200. Assembly was a mess. Instructions were off in multiple places, the stand was incredibly wobbly, and in general I was anxious how it would perform once assembled.

After about 90 minutes I got it put together. It was totally worth it.

Overall the quality was clearly on the cheaper side. The stand was pretty bad, but once everything was fully tightened down it was a little better. The cool advantage to this style of saw is that it locks upright for use as a vertical bandsaw.

I’ve cut a handful of pieces so far, all 3/16" steel, and it has done well. I did have to loosen the spring adjustment to basically minimum resistence to get it to cut well. The blade it came with is doing alright, but I will definitely be swapping it out soon.

Moving on, I also needed to get a table to weld on. My existing workbench in the garage is wooden so it would not work. I went again with the HF option here, and bought their adjustable welding table. It was a great buy. The instructions again were a mess, and a few bolts didn’t line up right, but once together it was solid. It has guides you can raise/lower on the ends of the table, and the table itself can be adjusted to be at an angle.

I picked up a Jackson welding hood, the W40 INSIGHT. It is the one I used during my welding class weeks before, and I knew it fit and worked well. Additionally I ordered a few other odds and ends such as MIG pliers, magnets, and some clamps.

Lastly I bought a pair of Vulcan MIG welding gloves from HF. They fit me the best of any gloves I’ve tried so far, and they seemed quality. We’ll see if they hold up long-term.

At this point I’m still just messing around on random stuff. The most productive I’ve been so far is fixing broken welds on our futon, which turned out okay actually. I’m going to keep practicing, and hopefully before too long I will look at some work on the car itself (bigger radiator!).

Stay tuned!