TIG welder

Unless you are operating in a heavy production or any continuous daily operation, the water cooled maintenance issue is non-existent. As far as flexability goes, if you hold the cables vertical and the torch hangs straight bown then it's flexable. The worst time to figure out you should have bought a water cooled torch is usually about 2/3 of the way into a critical weld. Air cooled torches get hot and when they do, it's hot, right now.

Quality equipment is very durable and is made to hold up in less than optimal operating conditions. Welders and their attachments, especially so. When you buy brand name quality their lifespans are decades, not months like the foreign knockoffs. A good "quality" welder will out live it's operator. Of course if you are going to run it 24-7 and continous duty your mileage may vary. The biggest issue with water is damaging the cable and coolant lines, which happens.:(
 
I have a couple of non-TIG welders from Miller and Lincoln that are built like tanks, and they are nice machines, but when I was in the market for a TIG, the Eastwood TIG200 caught my eye. It was on sale for $699 and came with a 3 year no questions asked money back warranty, I figured I had nothing to lose and bought one. I don't know how it would hold up in an environment where it was used daily, but for the occasional use that a gunsmith sees, it has been just fine. I do all my gunsmithing stuff with it, and a lot of hobby stuff over the last four or so years and it has preformed flawlessly. I have even taught myself to weld aluminum with it.

Looks like it is on sale now for $629.97:

http://www.eastwood.com/tig200acdc....O41ZvvFx0Uce88MKfkCJPyabj5gl-GNgaAqQnEALw_wcB
 
If you have somewhat deep pockets and want deal on a very high end TIG welder, I have a line on a Miller Aerowave with very low time for about one-third the new cost. Do a search for a picture and details on that model. If you like a lot of buttons and dials, this one can't be beat.
 
Here's my 2 cents. If you decided to get into competitive target shooting you might ask, "What are the winners using". If the answer is a $6000 custom rifle, should you say, "I'll have one of those". No, you should perhaps start with a Savage 12 or something like that until you learn more about the sport.

Although much of the advice in this thread is good, I would suggest starting out with a simple rig. I've owned a few welders over the years but one of my favorites was a little "lunch box" (portable inverter welder) TIG rig. It used an air cooled torch with a thumb wheel and the gas bottle was something about the size of a 5 pound fire extinguisher. You can carry the whole thing in one armload. It works on 110 or 220 volts and you don't even have to select which; it figures it out automatically. If you don't need to weld aluminum or if you're not doing production welding, a simple air cooled rig like this can do all kinds of TIG welding. Units like this have more capability than you might suspect, especially considering how light they are.

The big advantage of course is that you can tote the thing around so easily. Need to fabricate a special bracket at your friends house? No problem and no 220 volt required either. Perhaps you need to weld a muffler bracket on someone's car or even do a little repair job on your friend's yacht. A "lunch box" welder is a great tool.

Of course it won't do everything, but it just might do everything YOU need. If you KNOW a "lunch box" welder is what you want, then buy a good one. But if you don't yet know what kind of welder you really want/need, then you might buy a cheap "lunch box" rig and either sell it when you buy your dream welder or hang on to it for those small portable jobs for which these little rigs are so handy.

Something to think about anyway.
 
A Tig welder for my gunsmithing in reality would be a very rare occasion . Building fluid tanks and repairing some equipment on our farm would be more the norm.
My father is in the process of building a 41 willies coup, and i think we are gonna find a machine that will work for us both. I have a very nice Lincoln Mig unit now that i use quite a bit. Its a great machine and it does most everything we need it to do.
Boys like me love tools and machines and new welders. LOL!! Truth is, Dan up in Alaska cant be beat for price and quality. Some things are left to the specialist. That doesnt mean i dont want to learn though.
If we do buy a new Tig, i would like for it to be able to do the bolt handle type of work. I like good challenges, and i like the feeling of doing good work myself. Im a pretty steady hand and a quick learner, so i want to try something new. Thats the long and short of it.
My Local welding shop has one of the little linclon Tig 200 units on hand and it seems to get pretty good reviews. I think we will go give it a look in the next few days. thanks Gentlemen. Lee
 
Drink a Miller and weld with a Lincoln.
You work within a mile of Gano, that's where I bought my Lincoln Square Wave 200. No need for water cooling the welder for short welds on bolt handles. The tig 200 has a variable pulse option that can be set so the current is constantly pulsing up and down so there is enough amperage to penetrate the material and get a strong weld but once set correctly it will help reduce over heating the area directly around the weld.
Think of it as reducing 30% of your duty cycle to a lower amperage while the 70% still does the work as intended.
 
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