Welding Tips and Tricks

I have a chance to pick up a Lincoln Idealarc Tig 300/300 AC/DC unit for next to nothing. After looking it over, it was manufactured in 1984 and is currently set up for stick welding. I am just wondering if it would be worth the trouble of buying a torch, finding and purchasing a foot pedal that will work with it, regulator, etc? or would I be better off just saving my money and eventually picking up a newer machine?

New to the forum, so thanks for any replies

If it's in good working order, that's a fine machine. Depending on what you mean by "next to nothing", I'd sure jump on it. Regulators are $15-20 on ebay. They probably have pedals, too. All you need to know is how many pins (9 or 14) in the connector. You can also buy a refurbished pedal from a Lincoln dealer. Actually, you can probably find a torch on ebay. Price all this (and check craigslist), and you might be all set up for very little scratch.

BTW, how would you say ebay in pig-latin?

Steve

Thanks for the reply Otto...I brought it home today after putting a plug on it and testing it out. It is set up for stick welding and probably has never been used for tig. I ran a test bead with it just to see if everything seemed to be ok. If I never use it for anything else, it's a great stick welder....To the question of the foot pedal, the plug on the machine is a 6 pin connector. I was able to find several operating manuals on Lincoln's website that appear to be the same machine, but not one for the code listed on this particular one. In those manuals, it lists the foot pedal as an Amptrol K813. The only Amptrol pedals I seem to find on eBay are the K870 model. There are some 6 pin plugs on there...maybe I can get a plug and fix one up. Thanks

Nice welder, I have one of the rounded ones from early 80's late 70's I believe. I was given the machine from a friend who bought for his son who didn't end up welding, he tried to sell it but no takers, mine had everything including consumables, except a tank for argon, as far as welds its awesome, I used a miller 350 square wave at work and this welds just as nice, no kidding. the tig welds perfect except aluminum needs to be super clean unlike the miller it would weld crap castings full of porosity. as long as theirs some heat and its clean you can weld pop cans together with it. have fun welding with the new machine. let us know how the tig goes.