Building your own... Welder?

When I tell people that I built my own welder, I usually get mixed responses. Some people say "Wow, COOL!" and others look at me and probably wonder where the bodies are hidden.

Truthfully, my quest to build my own welder started when I didn't have the money to buy one and desired to learn to weld so that I can build my own bicycles from plans and from scratch.

The purpose of this is to document my build, not to show you how to build one. the best instructions are found here, by Randy Gross: http://www.geocities.com/aaawelder/

His instructions are top notch. I recommend reading through them so that you'll know what the heck I'm talking about next:

The first thing I did was get the materials needed. I bought 50 feet of 10 gauge stranded wire and collected 3 microwave ovens. You only need two of them. I disassembled the microwaves and pulled out the transformers as Randy's instructions say. The next step is to knock the secondary windings out of the transformer.


I tried a number of ways to get them out. I'll spare you the agony of reading about all the ways that failed. The quickest way was to take an angle grinder with a cut off disk and carefully cut the secondary's off right at the part where they go into the transformer. Then use a hammer and some kind of blunt punch to knock the rest of the windings out. That was very fast and very effective.

My other suggestion is that instead of winding as many turns as you can get of 10 gauge wire, do 20 turns of 14 guage wire and then 20 more turns of a second set of wire and then put them in parallel. You'll end up with 4 leads coming out, with both of them together putting out a higher voltage. Its easier to wind, too!

I followed Randy's directions and ended up with a nicely working welder that puts out 60 amps. I didn't get as many winds on my transformers as he did. That is OK though, as the welder works great as it is. I used a pair of old jumper cables as welding cables and one of the ends as a grounding clamp. It really does work well with 1/16" 6013 rod. I haven't tried other rods yet.

I have a gallery of all of the welding pictures at my website rykoala.org. Click here to check them out. There are more construction notes as well.

Doing it yourself- Why?

Some people wonder why anyone would want to do things themselves when you can go out and buy something that works right out of the box? Well, welcome to Ryan's DIY and more. I look at things and think "Hey, a man made it, another man can figure it out."

I've taken on projects I never thought possible. As consumers we're told that things are complicated. "Better leave that to the pro's." Why? They were not *born* a "pro" at what they do. Yes, they're good at it. Why can't I be good at it? I can at least try.

My main motivation for doing things myself is often a mixture of curiosity and lack of funds. The first project that I'm going to tackle in this blog is building my own welder. I desperately wanted to learn to weld, but I don't have the money to blow on a good welder. Or, ANY welder. Sure, I found one at Harbor Freight for $35 on sale for a 55/70 amp arc welder. But it was chintzy! And to be realistic, I don't buy anything there that I intend to rely on to work well.

I have used the welder and have learned to weld with it. Other things I've done myself include ham radio antennae, a recumbent bike (which I'll cover, its still in progress) and other simple things. I even made a pencil holder for my desk with an old coke can and some rocks.

So, can it be done yourself? That's up to you. The main tools you need for DIY work are curiosity, will power ("if they can do it so can I") and the ability to handle failure. If you don't know what I mean, go watch "Meet the Robinsons". It explains the whole thing quite well, if you ask me. Its a good movie too!