I do not have first-hand experience with the Harbor Freight stuff, but I have a Jeeper friend that bought a HF stick welder back in like 2006. Sales guy says to him: "you're going to want to purchase the full replacement warranty on that", friend kind of shrugged it, then sales guy says: "No, you ARE going to want to buy the warranty". He did and he had to take the welder back 3 times to get a new one on his first project.
Then about 2014 he bought a HF 110V, flux core MIG. Got the warranty, to my knowledge has not had to replace it, welded sheet metal in the tub of his CJ-5 with it. Welds look horrible. A year later, he "boat-sides" the CJ-5, but went back to HF and bought the shielding gas kit, a bottle of gas and better wire. Welds look better, but still crappy penetration.
As for TIG- my only experience is a couple friends that do body work on the side and they both have Miller AC/DC units.
I can say that over the years of welding and being around people that weld, I would not get cheap on the welder. Like CID says, buy once, cry once. You will never regret spending the money after the 3rd of 4th time you use it.
Another option would be to look around for a used one. Guy I work with that's a car nut, who has been paying shops to do the resto work on his cars, wants to learn and start doing it himself. I showed him how to MIG with my old Century then he went looking for a Miller suitcase. He finds a Miller 130 at a pawn shop and picks it up for $200 with extra spools of wire, torch parts, power cables, basically everything but the bottle of shielding gas. So rather than new, I'd look around for name brand used.
Then about 2014 he bought a HF 110V, flux core MIG. Got the warranty, to my knowledge has not had to replace it, welded sheet metal in the tub of his CJ-5 with it. Welds look horrible. A year later, he "boat-sides" the CJ-5, but went back to HF and bought the shielding gas kit, a bottle of gas and better wire. Welds look better, but still crappy penetration.
As for TIG- my only experience is a couple friends that do body work on the side and they both have Miller AC/DC units.
I can say that over the years of welding and being around people that weld, I would not get cheap on the welder. Like CID says, buy once, cry once. You will never regret spending the money after the 3rd of 4th time you use it.
Another option would be to look around for a used one. Guy I work with that's a car nut, who has been paying shops to do the resto work on his cars, wants to learn and start doing it himself. I showed him how to MIG with my old Century then he went looking for a Miller suitcase. He finds a Miller 130 at a pawn shop and picks it up for $200 with extra spools of wire, torch parts, power cables, basically everything but the bottle of shielding gas. So rather than new, I'd look around for name brand used.
