Welding Tips and Tricks

So a friend of mine had an old stinger layin around his garage and told me to replace my stinger, which is really awkward to use due to the large size and thumb spring setup, to the one he has, which is a tweko. Looks just like the ones they use on the miller machines at work.

He also told me to think about upgrading the leads to #2 cable. I priced em out, and I didnt think the prices were to bad. So my question is, is it worth buying new leads for my lincoln buzzbox? Or should I just save the money and buy a whole new machine? I noticed miller has a nice inverter machine for about a grand.

It depends what you are doing with it. If you use the welder a lot then i would go with a new welder. You lincoln buzzbox only does AC I'm assuming so getting a new welder would give you the option of AC and DC. Before investing more money into your old machine i would search around for a good deal. Look for a used machine you can get a good deal on a nice machine if you look around. That is my opinion because i owned an old stick welder and bought a new stinger and ground clamp just to have the welder die a month later.

Well the only welder I want in my price range(under a grand) only does dc. So im kinda planning on keeping the buzzbox if i ever need an ac machine for some reason. Is there a reason to ever have an ac machine for doing stick? I know you need ac to weld aluminum but I kinda thought that if your welding aluminum tig was the way to go.

Im kinda leanin towards just savin up for the new machine anyway. However, the new stinger is a HUGE improvment over the one that came with the old thing. Ill post some pics later.

The only time that you need AC is if you have electrodes that require it. You also don't get magnetic arc blow with AC while you do with DC.