Here's my 1 1/2 cents, based on my limited welding experience and observing and listening to crackerjack welders working for me:

For most home work the oxy-acetelyne rig works just fine. Great to learn on as you can see what you're doing (or not doing correctly). And you can cut quickly and inexpensively. Brazing has mostly gone by the wayside in the industrial manufacturing environment because it's hard to control with a machine, but is extremely usefull at home. Tool of choice for exhaust work, per the original question.

Stic welding for those jobs where you need the shielding that you can't get with the oxy/acet. rig. If you can run an oxy/acet. rig then you only need to remember to push the stick in as you go. Rods are cheap compared to MIG/TIG filler metal and gas.

MIG is good for production work as it's easily controlled with a machine. Not so good for the occasional home welder, because it's easy to make a pretty weld that has very poor penetration (strength). You need experience, good (expensive) shielding gas, and good (expensive) wire to do quality hand work.

TIG, in my opinion, is a better choice than MIG for the home welder. With solid filler rod the technique is similar to the oxy/acet. rig, with the benefit of being able to do quality work in steel, stainless, and aluminum. Rod and gas are comparable to the good MIG wire and gas, so the operating expense is the same while knowing you're getting a good weld.

At work I have my pick, at home I have an oxy/acet. rig that I use, a MIG that sits on the shelf, and a TIG on the Christmas shopping list so I won't have to bring the stainless and aluminum projects into work. And I envy those with the older big stick welders. The little stick welders are junk, in comparison. I don't have an auto-darken shield at home, but the boys that work for me do, and they're nice to use (and expensive).

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daBenz - 1970 220D

I'd love a TIG but I don't have 220v in the garage. The 110 MIGs are so handy to have around, just run an extension cord. I must admit, Oxy scares me a little. A local guy blew himself up a few years back from a leaky hose. Not good. Would like to be able to cut though. How do you handle the excess heat from a Oxy rig when welding in a heat sensitive area? A good MIG can be tuned to produce very localized heating. I should probably look into an Oxy rig and take a class..... RT

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When all else fails, vote from the rooftops!
84' Mercedes Benz 300D Anthracite/black, 171K
03' Volkswagen Jetta TDI blue/black, 93K
93' Chevrolet C2500HD ExCab 6.5TD, Two-tone blue, 252K

Ok,,, one more thought... after summing up my original position...
I am all for anyone having ALL the tools their heart desires... good tools are one of the sweetest things in life in my opinion...
So in direct reply to the original question ... since doubts about the actual need for a ' welder' were expressed.... I say get the oxy-acet rig...
However, if you do get a stick welder... check out the " stitch welder" which Eastwood Company carries.. I have not used one but their advertizements make it look great.. especially for what you said you needed a welder for... sheet metal on the fenders.... it vibrates the rod and supposedly allows people to do a good stick weld on sheet metal without burning through...
Has anyone used one of these.... please give your opinion on it if you have.. Thanks.....

PS. the welding of sheet metal panels is not easy because of heat warping the metal...
My old Hot Rod books by Petersen Publishing company on ' customizing " car bodies almost always had the extra pieces tack brazed on... to minimize the heat needed. if you warp something you have to be very good with a body hammer..
But that is a totally different thread.... LOL

I have a stitch welder from Eastwood...and let me say a few words.
1) It works as advertised ...BUT like any welding procedure, you need to practice, practice, practice.... I got some very good looking welds and some of the other kind, too.

2) A word about Eastwood--they used to be located outside of Phia, on US 30--not far from where I live. I visited the store on a few occasions; one of these was to buy the Stitch Welder. After using it for a few years, I burned it up--I grounded the housing. My fault. I took it back to the store to ask if they had a rebuild service, or some kind of exchange. After hearing my story, the counter guy said, " First thing we're going to do is replace this for you..." I was impressed--that wasn't my intention, but I was happy! Good people---Eastwood.

MS, Thanks for the feedback ... I have wondered about that thing for years....Eastwood has huge advertizing in Hemmings... the Bible for old car people... and has for several decades that I know of... I figured they must be good.... or word would have gotten around...

A welding set up comes in handy whatever type it is. I have both an oxy/acet set and a small arc welder, both I picked up cheap at garage sales.
With the oxy set you can't use the same hood as you would for the arc because it would be too dark. You still get sparks and spatter plus when you weld, both hands are occupied.
With arc you can have one hand free but you're usually using it to shield sparks or flipping the hood. Also the auto hood would be a great idea otherwise you're tapping in the dark until you get the arc to start. You also have to have the right current setting, otherwise you're either just burning rods and base metal or the rods stick, another reason why the call it a "stick" welder.
Nonetheless I have fixed many things around the garage and house which otherwise would have cost much more to weld by someone else than what the welders cost me.

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DJ


84 300D Turbodiesel 190K with 4 speed manual sold in 03/2012

"You still get sparks and spatter plus when you weld"... if you were talking about oxy-acet welding of steel.... like around an exhaust pipe.... you have something set wrong or are using the wrong tip....find some local person that can show you first hand... you will really enjoy it more... and set fewer things on fire.....Don't ask how I know that....

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To people who have not welded at all... a note which may explain some of the stuff above...

When welding steel with a rod.... the rod has ground up glass stuck to it and when you weld it melts and protects the steel at the point of the arc from vaporizing...(by keeping oxygen away from it ) this then cools and must be chipped off to see the actual weld.... this is called slag....

But when you just use oxy-acet you are dealing with much less temperature and you do not use flux... you just use steel ' filler' rod in one hand to melt into the seam..... so you can see what is happening while you are doing it.

Both my dad and I have a oxy/mapp torchs which were getting used quite a bit, until I realized something. If you use the gas at all it adds up real quick! My dad also has an oxy/acty 20cf/40cf torch which costs less to fill up 20cf than to buy one of those cute little ~2cf containers. Now is it worth ~$350 upfront, well that is up to the indivdual. It'd be worth more if a person knew how to braze. I've tried it many times myself but never can get it to work. I'll have the metal just glowing red to the point I'm almost melting it, I grab a rod, set it on the surface to get nothing.

IMHO an ARC welder is nearly worthless, it is only good for thick steel. My dad bought one about 15yrs ago and neither of us have used it, ever.

The MIG welder is pretty nice, I just bought one a few months ago, I've used it at least a half dozen times since. I bought a Hobart Handler 135A, it was quite a debate between this and the 220V Handler 175A. While the 220V doesn't concern me a bit (easy to hookup), for the extra money it didn't seem worth it as the welder only did 1/16" thicker. It is small enough to work on any heavy 110V system, yet large enough to weld 3/16" in a single pass. It is also a MIG welder, I wouldn't waste the money on just a flux cored version. The Lincoln was pretty tempting, but I think if I could do it over I'd just buy the Hobart again. The Miller is a very nice unit, supposed to be very high quality, but the price wasn't very competitive IMO. My Hobart has a Miller wand and a few other Miller parts (Hobart is made by Miller). If one were to use the welder quite a bit the Miller would probably be worth the extra, otherwise I don't see it being worth while.

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Jeff M.
Mercedes W123 DIY pages are now located here.
1983 / 1984 300D Sold
2000 CLK430 Cabriolet ~58k Sold
2005 Avalanche 4x4 ~66k

I Bought a century 85 amp mig welder 13 years ago for 199 dollars it has saved me a so much money by doing the repair and fab work I stopped counting . This welder has never let me down. I use flux core wire you can weld outside in the wind with no problem blowing gas away as you do with gas inert welders. I have used heliarc welders stick and mig , and plasma cutters they are all excellent tools of the trade . By far the mig is sooo easy to use I am surprised so many more people dont have one .

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A couple of Ford pickups F 150,250, 350 missed.
1983 240 D 256,000 miles ,auto, ac.

Try learning SMAW on a 20% duty-cycle, AC box. Master that one and everything else is easy.

If offered, you might first take a welding class at a nearby community college. I finally did this after 20+ years as a 'daub and sitck' self taught welder. Professional instruction makes all the difference in the world and you'll probably get a little hands-on experience on all types of machines. Here in Austin at ACC, they have a vocational welding and welding certification program. They have top-rate gear...DC SMAW rigs, really nice Miller MIG and TIG units and oxy acetylene gear too.

IMHO a 'first' welder for most stuff you'd encounter in a home shop would be a MIG machine. They're more versatile than a SMAW machine and much, much easier to achieve good results early in the learning curve. I wouldn't mess with flux core wire...even with anti-spatter they are a damned mess. The additional cost of a shielding gas setup is well worth the expense when comparing the finished product to one done with flux core wire.

If welding outdoors, the wind can/will blow the shielding bubble away from the head on a MIG rig. However, you can always crank the gas flow up, wait for a better day to weld or rig-up wind breaks around your work. 100% argon isn't necessary either and, in fact, isn't recommended for a shielding gas in general MIG work. Welding supply houses sell mixed shielding gasses that contain various percentages of CO2, Ar and He for use in different welding applications.

While you certainly can weld with an oxy-acetylene rig, it is tough to do well, is time consuming and isn't typically as strong a weld. BTW-My gas rig rarely ever has the cutting head removed anymore.

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Never a dull moment at Berry Hill Farm.

Randy, Bring your welding goggles with you when you come out next time... I will change your mind about the oxy-acet...
I have no idea why so many people ( on this thread ) consider this hard to do. First keep in mind that the original question mentioned doing his own exhaust pipe work... oxy-acet is BY FAR the most appropriate tool for this... if you don't believe me stop by a muffler shop and watch them a while...
One of the posts above made it sound like the main difference in the eye protection was just the color of the lens... but the main point when up under a car is that the oxy-acet goggles are just covering the eyes... so you can turn your head or whatever... but the electric welding hoods cover your whole face... and are several inches away from your face... You don't have the same skin protection issues with oxy-acet that one does with any of the arc type machines being discussed.
I used to give these out for Christmas presents... all steel done with oxy-acet...

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I read a few mentions about autodarkening helmets here so let me state a few facts.

The lens on autodarkening helmets are coated with an IR and UV filter. The auto darkening part is only switching off the visible light (this is done with a LCD polarizing lens). The good auto darkening lenses are designed to fail dark so you don't get a visible light flash. A flash of visible light does not cause damage but can cause headaches and eye fatigue over time. The IR and UV light is the danger for your eyes (and skin). The autodarkening lens is always filtering this non visible light so it's as safe as the lens in a traditional lens.

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1972 450SL
1982 300D Turbo

Like several other members I initially learned the art of gas welding in high school. Nice part about a gas rig is that in a pinch you have a whole closet full of "rod" material, hangers make a handy substitute for light work. Later I graduated to stick welding, which was a little more difficult to master. I have burned quite a few cans of rod .

I recently acquired a Hobart 135 MIG, with the short Argon/CO2 bottle. Got it at a great price, about $500 with the bottle and regulator. I was studying the welding big 3, Lincoln, Miller and Hobart. Close examination showed the Hobart to be nearly identical to the Miller. A few questions revealed that Hobart if the lower level Miler line, so one basically gets Miller quality at the Hobart price.

I have both solid and flux core wire, which gives me the versatility of indoor/outdoor welding. Its a snap to change spools and shut off the bottle. With MIG, you don't have to worry about the moisture absorption, with stick you do. Once the can is opened, the flux will start to absorb moisture, eventually breaking down. You know you have ruined rods when the flux just blows off the rod while you're welding.

Gas and stick involve a little pooling and stitching as you move along the weld. Out of habit I stitch with the MIG, but find I move too slow. I'm learning to speed up.

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Mike Tangas
'73 280SEL 4.5 (9/72)- RIP
Only 8,173 units built from 5/71 thru 11/72

'02 CLK320 Cabriolet - wifey's mid-life crisis

2012 VW Jetta Sportwagon TDI...at least its a diesel

Non illegitemae carborundum.

Um... welding on exhaust work with oxy-acet is welding thin stuff. You change the size of the heat affected zone by changing the size of the tip and changing the gas pressures (like turning the knobs on electric welders).

Ditto those recommending a school. You'll accelerate the learning curve by a decade. But you probably won't learn to braze well, unless the instructor has a lot of grey hair. The tricks to brazing are researching the melting point of the filler rod and then learning to "read" the temperature of the base metals as they heat up. Brazing can be as strong as welding and a lot cheaper. My best brazing instructor was daBenz's original owner. "Read the steel, READ THE STEEL DA**IT" was how he taught me.

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daBenz - 1970 220D

DaBenz is correct....
Except I don't understand considering exhaust tubing as " thin".. but if you DO consider it ' thin'... then you know that sticking a 5000 degree rod to it will be much harder to control and very easy to burn a hole in it... you can ease up to it with the oxy-acet... and then you can see the melting happening.. NOT so with any of the sticks... if you make a hole then you really have a repair problem because filling in a hole with a stick is a real trick..