New toy gloat (Little Airco MIG welder)

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I got my MIG welder project finished yesterday. Involved making several parts and putting them all together.You can supposedly buy an adapter to fit a Tweco gun to this welder, but I never saw one that looked like it would fit and they want more than I thought to buy them anyway, so I made my own. Another advantage is that I was able to make it function like I wanted rather than settle. Never surrender!So here's a picture of the welder. It's in pretty good shape! The bottle attached is one I had that still had a bit of gas in it, though it's nearly empty . The one that came with the welder is the next size up but it's  completely empty. That will be exchanged next week. The spool of new wire won't arrive 'til tomorrow anyway, so it's all coming together about right after all.Also note the spot welding controls in the upper right corner of the panel. Hey, that might be handy to figure out.Here's a closeup of the adapter I made. Required 11 parts to make it. Some are hidden inside so not apparent. A few of the parts were pretty minor and simple (one being the trigger wire) and a couple were pretty interesting. If you look close, you can see that I used a bit of liner through the adapter to allow a close fit for the wire and easy change in case I want to use other sizes (not really likely, but it's there if the need arises).Here's a closeup of the outside Tweco connector. I wanted the attachment point on the outside of the machine rather than the inside so it's easier to deal with. Also note that it's insulated, including a little delrin thumb screw I made for it, so there's no chance of things getting zapped (including me) from just casual contact. The metal gas connector on the bottom doesn't touch the brass core and is only in contact with the delrin shell, so no danger there either.And finally here's a closeup of the inside which shows how close I ended up getting to the pinch rollers. Probably a little closer than OEM anyway and as long as it doesn't interfere, I figure the closer the better.All in all it turned out really nice. I think it will work like a champ and I'm very happy to finally have a MIG welder in my shop.I suspect it's officially not a true MIG welder, or maybe doesn't work quite like an official MIG welder works since it's a buzz box adapted to suit (maybe I'm wrong about that and it's actually designed differently than I'm imagining), but from what I've read, these little DIP/STICK 160s work pretty well on smaller stuff and seem to be thought of with fondness by those who have used them back in the day.
Reply:So what was your total cost of refit vs buying the parts retail.Work looks good.
Reply:Nice job on the retrofit tyrone and nice looking rig. I had to make a replacement wire inlet guide for a feeder a while back and just completed a power plug adapter for a feeder to accept Miller back end guns for a suitcase welder I'm putting together.  Got a little more work to do on it and then I'll be putting up a thread.Again, a really nice job on the Airco. MM200 w/Spoolmatic 1Syncrowave 180SDBobcat 225G Plus - LP/NGMUTT Suitcase WirefeederWC-1S/Spoolmatic 1HF-251D-1PakMaster 100XL '68 Red Face Code #6633 projectStar Jet 21-110Save Second Base!
Reply:So what was your total cost of refit vs buying the parts retail.