Alphatig 200X Tig welder #1- a review.

Yeah, one of those "Cheap chinsy Chineese crap welders".



I've been sort of looking to upgrade my wicked old Century 5-star welder for about 2 years now. It's an decent welder- AC/DC, with a high frequency box, but its really a stick welder that I set up to do TIG. It simply will not work for what I want to do- weld thin aluminum sheet metal.

Finally had enough money that I've been seriously looking for a TIG welder for the last 2 months. I was hoping to buy used, get a decent older welder that met my needs- AC, foot pedal, and LOW amps. I have had ZERO luck finding one locally. I expanded my search to within a 4 hour drive and still couldn't find anything that fit my needs. Best I could do was a decent Lincoln squarewave 175, both out of my price range and too far away to be able to pic up.

Crusing ADVrider, I stumbled acrossed a post about the Alphatig. First thought- yup, junk. But dang, the price sure was good. Got to looking around and they have pretty darn good reviews.

Meh, I'll hold out for something good... and another couple of weeks pass by- while I'm still researching the Alphatig. Sounds impressive. Oh, the 2015 model fixed a few of the minor issues (not problems, but added more features) from the 2014? And its on SALE? Why not.

$790, ordered on amazon.com late Friday night and it was here Wednesday.

 
This worried me a little...



But everything looks okay.



Included junk.



From the upper right hand corner, going clockwise: regulator, foot pedal, plug adapter to go from 220 style to 110, ground clamp, pack of cups, collets, and torch parts, stinger for stick welding, TIG torch and cable, and the infamous "manual".

The welder itself- LOTS of buttons and knobs!



So far, quality looks pretty good. No loose anything like you would expect from something bought at Harbor Freight. I can tell I'm not going to like the goofy cover for the knobs- but it pops right off so it'll probably just store it somewhere and forget about it.

More to follow!

Sentinel Bat

This was my entry in the Batbuild 4.0 buildoff a couple of months ago.  I started out with this casting-


Its called "Screamliner", and I think it is one of the ugliest castings ever to come out of the Hot Wheels factory.  The black one  has had a couple of simple mods and looks great- its missing the big shark fin on the back, the wheels are uncovered a bit, and the windshield was changed just a bit.  The green one in the background is bone stock, just for reference.


Time to do some SERIOUS mods!

Pattern, and some time with the jewelers saw.





Engine donor.



Had to chop the hood off to get it to fit though...




Cut some fins and glued them on.  I was planning on building a custom base for this, but found something that worked sooooo much better!



Test fitting.



Cut this piece out,



to fit in here:



Got super lucky, as it turns out the base with the wheels I wanted to use fits the body almost perfectly with a teensy bit of work!




Interior stolen from a Bone Shaker.



Painted the base,



and detailed the interior.



Detailed the motor.



Mock up.



Paint!



Test fitting bits together.


Well that's that.









And the final pic.



This was a very fun build.  Fairly simple- no crazy cutting / gluing but I tried out several new things- the scroll saw work with the bat logo was a lot of fun.  Ended up finding a good deal on a scroll saw and picked it up for future projects.  Came out great!

A Day at the Drags!

Here's the first division of the "Day at the Drag's" build- "MILD", meaning single car.



Please DO NOT try and figure out which one is mine, JUST VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE!!!

Vote by liking your favorite. You can vote for more than one car if you like.

Vote here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...0078364&type=3

Entries:

Hot Wheels epidemic.

Nothing really to post, but just a heads up- The first build off of 2015 is wrapping up soon. I had a lot of fun on this build. Stay tuned for some sweet Drag cars / trucks / haulers!

Old School Greene #5

The final update- all caught up now with this installment.



Cleaned the gas tank surfaces up with Acetone,



Bolted it all together,



And filled 'er up with Redkote. Seems to have worked okay, although I think I should kept it moving longer. Have a couple of thick spots I can see, but I don't think they are so thick that I'll have pockets of liquid.



I let that mess dry for about 2 weeks.

Mounted the gas tank good and tight.



Flipped it over, and got it back on skids.



My cup was just a little off. Hard to see, but the weights just barely rub on the side of the cup.



Easy fix, just jammed a big screw driver down there and pushed the side out a little bit. No more rubbing!

Got some brass plugs for all of the holes...




With the exception of the fuel tank drain. Spaced that one, but it turns out an oil drain plug from your standard 3.5 horse Briggs and Stratton fits great! Little on the long side but it worked.



SO!!!



It runs! Need to tinker with timing a bit and then see if I can crank the speed down, make it run nice and slooooowwww....

Fast forward a bit to last week. I had a chance to tinker with the timing and de-crudify the governor tension knob. Now it runs smooth and slooooww, without the clickity clack of the missed fires. Will try and get another vid of that eventually. Still need to put the cover gasket on, and now I need to find an old dead garden tractor frame to mount it to.

Student Projects.

Lots going on in the dorkpunch garage lately, both mine at home and the school shop.  Students have been working on all kinds of things.  Been fighting the 3D printer lately but it seems (knock on wood) that I have it figured out.  Had some issues with a sticky z-axis and loosing steps in the y-axis.  The y-axis thing as been going on since nearly the time I built the printer- I had it narrowed it down to a bad control board but thought I would try a few more tests on the y-axis stepper driver.  Tried lowering the voltage- that seemed to work great for about 3 days.  Adjusted and tested it at several different voltages and it seems to be working very well at a slightly higher voltage than its supposed to be at.  Suppose that means it's going to melt here any day now...

Anyways, here's a couple of recent prints with several more to follow.  A headphone stand, and a piston / connecting rod.


Our school has been doing a "FLEX" program- kind of a recess on steroids where the kids that need help can go see their teachers or go do something fun if they are all caught up.  I've had several kids coming in to weld and do lots of other things like these custom Hot Wheels.



The silver one is just a paint and wheel swap- but it's a replica of one of the cars in a Fast and Furious movie.  The other one had the roof chopped off and a new paint job.  Didn't quite get the tape stuck down for the stripes, but not too bad!

Have another kid working on a new body for his R/C truck-


And then there's the welders...



They're getting better.  Have some really good welders- for sure all of them are WAY better than I was at that age. 

On another note, January is almost over.  Time to shave the beard and get ready to drag the bikes out- as long as we don't have the nasty fog / black ice covered roads we had today...