aluminum welders

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This board is really great I'm glad I found it.  I have a few questions about buying a new welder.  I have started a boat project that requires welding of 1/4'' plates and some 1/16''sheets of aluminum. I have little experience welding aluminum.  I have done some tig on stainless, stick and mig weld other steel but my skills are in the beginner stages.  I like the simplicity of mig welding with one hand but if tig is the better choice thats fine to. Input power is not an issue all sources are available. I have been looking at the Miller syncrowave 180 and the Millermatic 210 with spool gun. price range is $2500.  Thanks for any helpBen
Reply:The feeder isnt ging to work well on that light alum if that any help. It will eat the 1/4 plate though. There is no perfect answer here. If it was me I would stretch and get the synchro AND the 210,, ha,, and skip the spool gun. The alum and steel use different gasses. You could do all the work with the synch but once you have the 210 you wont look at anything else for steel.www.urkafarms.com
Reply:I got the Miller 210 w/3035 spool gun.  I can 1/4 with out a problem.  The 1/16 I bet you can if you get some practice first. I got my Miller 210 w/3035 spool mate, dual cylinder racks, for $2000.   $200 for 2-80 cu fts.  One argon, one argon/co2Lincoln 300 Vantage 2008300 Commander 1999SA250 1999SA200 1968Miller Syncrowave 200XMT350MPA/S-52E/xr-15Xtreme 12vs Millermatic 251 w/30A  Millermatic 251 Dialarc 250 Hypertherm 1250 GEKA & Bantom Ironwokers
Reply:Where I live, there are probably 2 dozen aluminum boat building companies. They mostly use push pull mig setups. Old cobramatics, or new miller XR guns. For running long beads in aluminum, a spoolgun gets old fast. I have both a spoolgun and an XR, and the XR is light years better. Two motors are better than one.  The little spools get used up fast too, and they seem to jam more often. The boatbuilders are doing production work, where time is money, but they also are selling boats for a lot of money, so they have to look good. And they seem to be able to get both from a push pull setup. Some of them are switching to pulsed mig for aluminum, and they like it, from what I have heard, but the machines are pricey. The new miller 350PM is one I would like to see in action. That said, if you are only building one boat, and you have time, you could tig weld it. It isnt as quick as mig, but the welds are prettier and require less cleanup. Spool guns in particular are pretty messy, and mig welding aluminum is trickier to get a nice looking weld than on steel. If this was my only welding job, I would get a mig push pull, not a spoolmatic, and sell it when it was done. If I was gonna weld for the rest of my life, I would buy a CC/CV inverter power supply, like a miller dynasty, and then set it up for both mig and tig.
Reply:Thanks everybody I failed to mention that I already have an econotig if that makes any difference