Harbor Freight 91110 stick welder for 19 gauge and 1/8"

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Hello, I'm a newb and this is my first post here. Have done plenty of browsing here but well, I'm starting a thread so I can selfishly ask my own questions that will apply specifically to my situation I've seen all the "don't weld with HF", "don't stick weld thin stuff", "just invest in a used brand name mig"... and I may regret this but I plan to ignore all that wisdom. I already have this HF welder and I want to see if I can make this work for my purpose... there seems to be a small segment of you who have done it and would do it again, so I guess you are the ones I need help from! I have played with this welder quite a bit, in particular building bicycle frames with thicker tubing, but I'm all self-taught and have lots of gaps in knowledge.This might seem like a big jump, but I'd like to do some sheet metal rust repair on my car. So I need tips on stick welding as thin as 19 gauge. I know there's already lots of info about this situation, but I think the tricky part may be this...I also need to weld together 19 gauge sheet metal to 1/8" structural square tubing. So I believe I'd be welding the full range of this 80amp welder's capacity. I do plan to practice plenty, so just need tips and ENCOURAGEMENT. I have prob already heard the common tips, but I don't mind hearing them all again... if you don't mind saying it again. I'm starting to play with 1/16" 6013 rods DC and plan to experiment with others, but I'm a bit direction-less. Thx. Sorry for the rambling... I'm trying to multitask while I write this... I won't do that when welding!Last edited by Jawon; 05-13-2014 at 11:27 PM.
Reply:I wish I could give you encouragement, but I cannot.  I'm currently doing a project on an old car that's using exactly what you are, 19 gauge sheet metal.  I bought some 1/16 6013 to try when the job was gonna be much smaller and needed to be done away from my garage.  http://weldingweb.com/vbb/showthread.php...ght=Body+panelI'm using mig now, and even with .023 wire at a very low 16 volts I'm blowing right through the metal.  And that's with cooling everything with a wet rag when done, running very short beads and starting my puddle on top of the old cold puddle.The only way you could POSSIBLY do this with stick would be 1/16 6013 DCEN with a copper or aluminum backer behind every weld.  You could buy a tig torch, set up a scratch setup, and tig braze/weld the entire thing.  The point is, no one would go through the expense of other machines if there wasn't a purpose for them.What you're trying to do is eat soup with a fork.  It may work, but you run the risk of making a small job into a very long one and the risk of causing more damage to the car than you started with.