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Welding
Wire Welders or MIG(1) Wire welders or MIG (metal inert gas) welders have a spool of wire inside and a motor drive that pushes the wire through the umbilical to the gun. Along with the power for the arc, and shielding gas such as argon to keep oxygen away from the weld. A trigger on the gun starts the power, wire, and gas. A ground camp must be attached to the work so the electric circuit is compiled.
My welder is a Hobart Ironman 210 purchased at an auction for $600 then I purchased a 5 foot tall, 300 cubic foot gas bottle for the argon gas needed for aluminum welding. Shielding gas for steel welding is optional, as you can buy flux core wire for steel that generates it's own shielding gas. The biggest problem with wire welders come when you have a big build site, like a large boat. Because the wire has to be pushed by machine through the umbilical, the length of the umbilical from the machine to the gun is only 10 to 15ft. You can upgrade to a gun that has a motor in the handle and drive wheels that pull the wire. These are called push-pull guns and while that are much more expensive they will only get you about 30 feet. (2) The other and less expensive option is to use a spool gun. These don't use the wire feed in the welding machine. Instead a small spool of wire is mounted on the gun and the gun connect to the welder to get it's power and possibly gas supply. I use a low cost Spoolmate 185 spool gun with my Hobart welder to do all of the welding on my submarine. Spool guns are cheaper to buy than push-pull guns and they can be extended to give you lots of freedom to move around with having to move the welder, but the wire spool makes them more awkward to use than a normal wire gun and the wire needs to be replaced more often and if it runs out in the middle of a weld you will likely burn up the tip on the gun and need to replace that too. Buying wire in 1 pound spools is also more expensive that buying it in 40 pound spools. And keeping Aluminum wire it clean and dry like it should be as it rides around on the gun is extremely difficult. Arc Welders or Stick Welders(2) Arc welders or Stick welders start around $300. They use electrodes that burn in the arc's heat creating their own shielding gas while melting filler material into the weld. Since there is only a power cable that runs from the machine to the stick you can extend the cable to100 feet and move around a build site without having to drag the welder around. They down side is they require more practice to use, especially if the joint is not laying flat. They are also considerably slower than wire welders in the same power range. The Best of Both Worlds : MIG/Stick WeldersNothing gives you the easy of moving around like a Stick welder. Just add 100ft of welding cable and go. But the Stick welder machine and the same welding cable can be used to supply power to a portable MIG suitcase. The suitcase contains the 40 pound spool of wire and the push feeder. It can also include a gas solenoid valve to allow you to use gas shielding for the weld and a small gas supply hose then runs back with the power cable to a gas cylinder sitting beside your welding machine. The loaded suitcase will weight 80 pounds but it's a lot easier to move around that the 120 pound MIG welding machine. (3) (4) The Miller XMT VS at a street price of almost $3000 is high dollar example but it will power a sick as well as a $1,700 X-treme 8 VS SuitCase wire feed box and Bernard Q300 gun.
Welding VernacularWelding vernacular is often needed to describe the position and
direction of a weld. All welding is flat, horizontal, vertical or
overhead and most are fillet or groove as shown in the diagram. You can read more about our experiences with welding aluminum or steel here: Welding Aluminum or Welding Steel.
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"Give
me five minutes, and I can teach a monkey to wire weld." 
