Looking For A Mig Welder

I have a Miller 140 and I originally bought the spool gun with it. My advise is to NOT buy the spool gun for use with the 140 machine. It simply does not have the power need to make a decent bead on aluminum thicker than maybe 1/16". I ended up selling the spool gun. Eventually I bought a tig for welding aluminum.

We had a Miller 251 at work with the spool gun that I burned miles of wire with (well, almost). A spool gun is great if everything is working but a real PIA when things are a little off.
 
I'll second the Millers. I have a Millermatic" 141 welder with the autoset feature. I've owned a small lincoln, and a small craftsman personally and used a few others but for a small welder the Miller is the easiest to use and creates the best weld of any I have tried. Great with thin materials and heaver stuff too. I've been happy using an argon mix and also without gas using flux core wire for outdoor stuff that you're not as picky about. Get a good auto helmet while you're at it, you'll never look back.
 
Groundhog said:
My advise is to NOT buy the spool gun for use with the 140 machine. I ended up selling the spool gun. Eventually I bought a tig for welding aluminum.
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Do yourself a favor if you want to work with aluminum and get a tig machine. I've played around with mig and Ox/Ac for aluminum and although you can make it work, results are mixed and effort/time levels can be high. You don't have to spend thousands on a Tig if you're willing to go with one of the more popular imports (or a used lincoln or miller) . Most will run on both 110 and 220 and allow TIG and stick. I got myself an AHP 200X a while back and am really pleased with the results I've been able to achieve with aluminum, stainless, mild steel and even some tig brazing joining copper to steel. Only change between metal types is settings on the machine and different filler rods. Makes life much easier.
 
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