# MIG versus TIG



## Kev (28 Nov 2022)

Hi all,

Anyone here with experiencing of different weld types. A complete beginner with welding and would like to learn with a view to incorporating some metalwork to my joinery projects, things such a table bases/legs etc. Have read up a bit on MIG and TIG welders and the general consensus seems to be that MIG is easier to master as a beginner but is a bit more clumsy (for want of a better word) in terms of weld size but also tend to produce a quicker weld process, whereas TIG is more tricky to master, is slower and better for finer and thinner work. Have I understood this correctly and if so what do people with experience of either recommend for a beginner. Not looking to use it a great deal and very much looking at the basic level.

Thanks all


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## Myfordman (28 Nov 2022)

Pretty accurate assessment I reckon. Depends on the sort of work you anticipate doing. If you are doing lots of thin gauge/pretty work then get TIG and learn how to use it or if you are more general purpose 3-6mm stuff then get a MIG hot glue gun.

Some good reviews of inverter welders by DoubleBoost on youtube. he might be sponsored but calls a spade a spade in true northern fashion.


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## Noel (28 Nov 2022)

Ed China has a good explainer and goes on to discuss/demonstrate MIG:


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## Spectric (28 Nov 2022)

TIG is the rolls Royce of welding and once mastered will allow you to weld almost anything, it's only downside is that it tends to be slower. It is an all posistional welding style where you can weld up, down or overhead with ease and the most difficult thing to master after the initial machine setup is handling the filler rod and getting the process of dipping it into the weld pool syncronised with movement, it is much easier if you are a competant gas welder where rod feeding has been mastered. Cheap MIG's are renowned for bad welding and avoid gassless ones like the plague, with TIG you will have to factor in the price of pure argon which is not cheap. Tig is not limited to thinner materials, the limiting factor is the power of the machine and my old machine would weld 10mm aluminium or steel plate with the right joint setup but it was a 300 amp machine with a 85% duty cycle and watercooled torch. I would recomend getting some basic training, self taught is not ideal and having someone teach you the basics is worth it's weight in gold and saves a lot of stress, I started on an evening class before deciding to progress to a C&G welding course and having that tutor over my shoulder telling me what I was doing wrong just made the learning curve easier.


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## ChaiLatte (28 Nov 2022)

Spectric said:


> TIG... ...is an all positional welding style where you can weld up, down or overhead with ease... ...avoid gassless ones like the plague, with TIG you will have to factor in the price of pure argon which is not cheap.



I suspect he is not intending to weld up the table bases lying on his back on the Axminster in the client's front room.

Do you have a price comparison between pure argon for TIG and Argoshield light for MIG?


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## Spectric (28 Nov 2022)

Pure argon is around £150 for a refill, what gets me is that you don't actually consume the gas so it is like a homing pigeon in that it returns to where it came from and the supplier has an infinite supply so you may well be buying the same gas over and over ! The gas also does not last that long, especially if you are welding stainless and backpurging the workpiece so it can get expensive on gas. If you have ever tried vertical up stick welding then you would appreciate the advantage of TIG being non positional.


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## Kev (28 Nov 2022)

Thanks guys that's really helpful. The video were actually very useful and helps understand the basic requirements and I think you are right about finding a training course. Hopefully can find an evening introductory course in my area. 

Will let you know how I get on!


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## hunter27 (28 Nov 2022)

MIG Welding Forum


Top left of page MIG TIG ARC watch the different tutorials.


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## Sideways (28 Nov 2022)

I did a 10 week x 2hr hobby welding course.
We did 4 weeks of stick, then 4 weeks of MIG and 2 weeks of playtime to include gas, TIG, etc.

MIG was most popular.
TIG is definitely harder to master, I've barely started, but it is much more refined.
I would guess the argon cost is about £10 / hour use after you have paid the deposit on a rent free cylinder. £50-55 refill of a bottle that will give you 5 to 5.5 hrs at an average flow.

Don't underestimate stick. It's good for outdoor welding and heavier fabrication like a robust workbench. TIG sets can usually do stick with just a change of lead / electrode clamp.

Duty cycle on welders is how many minutes you can weld "continuously" in a ten minute period. The welder then sits for the rest of the 10 minutes cooling down before you can repeat.

A beginner can't actually weld any where near continuously for 10 minutes. 60% duty cycle is probably ample.


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## Agent_zed (28 Nov 2022)

I would love to learn TIG but it is expensive. A TIG machine is significantly more expensive than MIG. I've managed to weld 0.5mm stainless with my mig but it wasn't easy. I've welded up my kitcar exhaust in stainless and it looks great, not quite as good as the stacked TIG welds that the pro's can do but certainly passable for most people. 

Not sure with TIG but MIG likes clean metal, stick welding seems a bit less fussy. I was quite surprised how good the ALDI stick welder is. I was expecting it to be terrible but it was easy to start and held a nice stable arc. Might be worth getting one to have a play as its the cheapest way to start welding and getting a bit of experience


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## Lons (28 Nov 2022)

Spectric said:


> Cheap MIG's are renowned for bad welding and avoid gassless ones like the plague,


Hi Roy
I know you only get what you pay for but in the context of a hobbyist who only welds on the odd occasion what's wrong with gasless? Genuine question as I honestly don't know.
I have an ancient SIP 130 stick welder I inherited and am a rank beginner but it is handy on occasions however a mate who can weld reasonable well, I think has a cheap gasless MIG and seems to get decent results with 0.8 fluxed wire, so much so that I've been increasingly tempted to buy one.


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## TFrench (28 Nov 2022)

As with all things, theres a sliding scale of cost & quality. If you're just planning to do odd bits of thick-ish steel a cheap stick welder will be adequate. If you want to take it further you can always upgrade to a decent mig. Bear in mind a couple of things - 
1 - its not just a welder, its the gloves, hood, grinder, discs, gas (if you go mig/tig) clamps, squares, jigs etc. There a lot of bits and bobs you need that you dont consider when you think you'll "just" get a welder.
2- Fire. make sure you shield the rest of your workshop from the inevitable sparks. Have an extinguisher ready before you start working rather than panicking when you really need it! We have a welding bay at work thats seperate to the rest of the factory where we don't have to worry about it - if I weld inside the main workshop I make sure I'm around for an hour or so after I finish to keep an eye on things.
3- practice. Get as much hood time as you can. It's the only way you'll get good at it. Watch people like weldmonger on youtube - once you understand what you're looking at in the puddle and how to influence it/ what it SHOULD look like your welds will improve a lot.


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## deema (29 Nov 2022)

I’m not a welder, but I’ve run welding shops and went with @Sideways to learn how to weld. I now ‘dabble at it’ If you’re just sticking steels together MIG (it can do aluminium) is an easy welding system to learn. It can stick any thickness together from thin to thick. On the welding course a few had bought gasless systems but couldn’t get anything like good results. The tutor suggested a skip would improve things…..for the welder. As soon as they tried gas MIG they were making good welds.
Stick can also do anything and can weld almost anything together. It’s probably the easiest to learn, basically if it Welded it’s stuck, no worries about penetration unlike MIG
For thin stuff silver solder is brill. Easy, most basic tools and very cheap for small scale. Oxy propane torch can cut as well as bronze braze which can stick stuff like cast iron back together / build up broken bits.
@Sideways and I play at restoring machines, we have a big MIG and a TIG. About 99.9% of the time the MIG gets to party and the TIG (and @Sideways bought just about the best TIG money can buy!) is left in the cupboard. Now, that’s probably because we aren’t as competent at TIG, but also because MIG does everything we want.


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## Fergie 307 (29 Nov 2022)

I would say if you are going to regularly weld stainless or aluminium then TIG is the way to go. If it's steel, and over 1mm thick, then MIG, cheaper and easier to get good results. MIG will weld thinner stuff, but TIG is better. And until recently I would have entirely agreed with the comments about gasless, however there was a recent post on here from someone who bought the Parkside machine from Lidl. He got on very well with it. This prompted me to get one for those occasions where you just want a quick tack or whatever, and it's not worth the faff getting out the proper machine. Have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Far better than the very early ones, which were truly dreadful. Still wouldn't advise gasless as your only machine though. I now buy all my stuff from R tech. Good machines and well priced, and they know their stuff and very helpful. Best tip, get an auto darkening helmet. Best thing I ever bought, and cost me a bomb when they first came out. Now they sell them in Lidl for about thirty quid ! And if you go TIG then well worth the extra cost of a foot pedal control.


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## PhilipL (29 Nov 2022)

Auto darkening helmet near essential. Welding can destroy your eyes without one.


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## clogs (29 Nov 2022)

just to say I was tought to stick weld at 16 by a life long friend.......now 73....
I have two oil cooled stick welders 225amp and 500amp plus a 180 copper wound buzz box....
the mig which is still packed is a 180...bought the extras to try to weld ally with it....

Now
a decent AD/DC Tig is/starts around £2,000 for and at my time of life I can get a lot of welding done for that money....not as conv tho as DIY at home....
Coming on strong is Lazer welding....I will be looking at that soon but guess it will still be mad money....anyone use Lazer welding on here......

I worked with a coded welder on boats......truely amazing what they can weld.....


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## Jameshow (29 Nov 2022)

I have a stick, which I obtained from Hutzl on here, which I've done a little welding with, but didn't get good results, got it out again last week, for our santa sleigh, and with new sticks it light and day! 

So always use fresh sticks.


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## highwood122 (29 Nov 2022)

Kev said:


> Hi all,
> 
> Anyone here with experiencing of different weld types. A complete beginner with welding and would like to learn with a view to incorporating some metalwork to my joinery projects, things such a table bases/legs etc. Have read up a bit on MIG and TIG welders and the general consensus seems to be that MIG is easier to master as a beginner but is a bit more clumsy (for want of a better word) in terms of weld size but also tend to produce a quicker weld process, whereas TIG is more tricky to master, is slower and better for finer and thinner work. Have I understood this correctly and if so what do people with experience of either recommend for a beginner. Not looking to use it a great deal and very much looking at the basic level.
> 
> Thanks all


hi, find a college or night school course


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## clogs (29 Nov 2022)

here u go ....
well worth a look.....but it's $20,000 dollars....


If I was starting out again I'd have one....


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## Spectric (29 Nov 2022)

Lons said:


> I know you only get what you pay for but in the context of a hobbyist who only welds on the odd occasion what's wrong with gasless? Genuine question as I honestly don't know.


Once you heat ferrous metal upto melting point it will combine with the atmosphere and oxidise which is no good for a weld so you need to shield the weld pool from the atmosphere using a inert gas such as CO2 to protect the weld. With stick welding it is the flux coating on the rods that leaves a crust over the weld for protection but in MIG and TIG it is gas. Gasless mig has no gas supply but uses a self-shielding flux cored wire which you have no control over, you cannot control the flow and cannot always guarantee complete exclusion of the atmosphere.


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## Agent_zed (29 Nov 2022)

Jameshow said:


> I have a stick, which I obtained from Hutzl on here, which I've done a little welding with, but didn't get good results, got it out again last week, for our santa sleigh, and with new sticks it light and day!
> 
> So always use fresh sticks.


My uncle used to keep them in the airing cupboard so they didn't get damp sitting in a cold garage.


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## Spectric (29 Nov 2022)

You will never weld with damp rods, if you think they are a little damp then stick them in the oven to warm up and dry out.


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## clogs (29 Nov 2022)

dont be suprised if some rods get damp....damp not wet...they will never work even with a lot of extra amps.....
Agent_Z has the correct idea.....
my wife soon got used to it........lol...
plus only buy a known brand of rod....some of the cheap Chinese stuff can be very bad......
Join the MIG welding forum....mig-welding.co.uk.....
loads'a great people and a couple of very good suppliers...most will post rods.....
or find an engineers / welding suppliers near u......often good deals on demo machines when u want totrade up.....


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## Seascaper (29 Nov 2022)

Kev said:


> Hi all,
> 
> Anyone here with experiencing of different weld types. A complete beginner with welding and would like to learn with a view to incorporating some metalwork to my joinery projects, things such a table bases/legs etc. Have read up a bit on MIG and TIG welders and the general consensus seems to be that MIG is easier to master as a beginner but is a bit more clumsy (for want of a better word) in terms of weld size but also tend to produce a quicker weld process, whereas TIG is more tricky to master, is slower and better for finer and thinner work. Have I understood this correctly and if so what do people with experience of either recommend for a beginner. Not looking to use it a great deal and very much looking at the basic level.
> 
> Thanks all


Hello,
If you are new to it I would suggest you forget about Mig and Tig, and get yourself a modern MMA stick welder. The new machines available from a company like Jasik are so easy to use compared with old stick welders. They are east to strike and start up and control, one can get a very good weld, very simple to use even on stainless steel. I have had Mig and Oxford type arc welder but the new machines take some beating and so portable. Take a look at the Jasik MMA 180 SE, you can add a TIG torch to it later.
I had a Lincoln Mig, and 2 Oxford oil cooled welders, this little machine does everything much better, and no gas.





Regards


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## --Tom-- (29 Nov 2022)

Spectric said:


> You will never weld with damp rods, if you think they are a little damp then stick them in the oven to warm up and dry out.


Or the ghetto trick of sticking the rod, letting it heat up and drive off any moisture then unstick it and off you go- not that anyone sensible would advocate doing that….

My welding course got shuttered by covid so I bought a stick to carry on practicing with, don’t do regularly enough to get good, but having the early lessons at least helped with knowing what to aim for.

I wouldn’t rule out stick as a cheaper way to get going and learning the theory of what to aim for- most people say to do stick first to learn and then it’s easy to jump to mig once you’ve worked out the investment in kit is worthwhile


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## Ollie78 (29 Nov 2022)

Interesting thread, welding is one of those things I keep meaning to learn. But there is a welder opposite my workshop so have yet to need do it.
Just wondering if laser welding has become hobby friendly yet ?. I know it can be super neat in industrial applications and has no requirement for gas.

Ollie


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## Lons (29 Nov 2022)

Thanks Roy
I know the principles of how it works but in cases like mine the amount of welding is always very small like earlier this week when I welded a nut on to a blade to make up a chisel plane, it is hidden so doesn't need to be pretty as long as it doesn't come off and other little jobs like the odd repair to garden tools etc. The gasless MIG my mate has seemed easier to use than my stick welder, or probably it's just that he makes it look easier.

I cant justify the cost of a good quality gas MIG for the amount it would be used so I'll hang on for the minute. Thanks for the advice, much appreciated.


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## Lons (29 Nov 2022)

--Tom-- said:


> Or the ghetto trick of sticking the rod, letting it heat up and drive off any moisture then unstick it and off you go- not that anyone sensible would advocate doing that….


I do that but it isn't intentional.


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## BillK (29 Nov 2022)

Amazingly useful things, wouldn't be without one. Like my main workbench has been three other benches. Got chopped & glued back together in different ways as needed. Same thing with a trolley a drill & bandsaw live on. Or making castor platforms for a heavy tool to live on. Stands, jigs, etc. You find uses you never imagined and can do things you never thought you'd want to, even if it's not used week in week out. I made things like security door bars for my other half's workshop, a holder/dispenser for giant rolls of fabric (like a massive fancy bog roll holder basically  ). All sorts of bits n bobs.

If you want to MIG thin sheet steel, looking at the lower number in the amp range of a machine is worth doing. A machine that goes down to 20A gives you more chance than one that goes to 30, or 40. I used to make metal flowers from 0.5mm steel, welded those no problem. Car bodywork likewise.
I use my MIG for stainless as well, weld s/s to mild, all with the same gas - you're not 'supposed' to and mixing the metals outdoors will lead to rust. But indoor use is no problem mixing the metals, and the welds go nicely.


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## Fergie 307 (30 Nov 2022)

Jameshow said:


> I have a stick, which I obtained from Hutzl on here, which I've done a little welding with, but didn't get good results, got it out again last week, for our santa sleigh, and with new sticks it light and day!
> 
> So always use fresh sticks.


The trick is to keep them dry. Used to keep mine in the airing cupboard in the days when we had such a thing, next to the immersion tank! Now live in a corner of my study. The flux coating will absorb moisture from the air and deteriorate very quickly.


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## julianf (30 Nov 2022)

I would not say that I, personally, found mig easier.

I, sadly, had a lot of experience with electronics construction, and, with a soldering iron, the heat source and the filler are independent. I was very used to this concept.

Tig is the same. Mig, on the other hand, is all connected. Your wire feed, amps, movement across the material must all be correctly related. For me this was harder.

Id probably still tig everything if it was quicker, and evreything was clean. I mean I've even tigged bits of landrover before.... 

Tig isn't that expensive. My first DC tig was something like £100 second hand. My current parweld ac was £450 used. I think my mig was around that price (used) also.

Gas price is neither here nor there really. If you're only doing a bit of welding, a 20l tank will last forever. If you're doing enough that it runs out quick, you're probably earning enough from welding that the cost of the gas doesn't matter anyway.


I guess the advice I could give is that if you're wanting to do welds on things that will be looked at closely - maybe things like hifi enclosures (?) then tig is the way to go. If you're wanting to repair rusty landrover chasiss then mig.

Speed is a real issue. The previous owner of my ac tig was doing alluminium work commercially. But boat hulls. He just found tig too slow, so changed to a spool gun on a mig. But that is even more specialist.


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