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Inexpensive Tig welders

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My understanding is that welding equipment from the US is duty free. Has anyone been charged/not charged duty that can confirm this? I did my best to look it up when trying to make a cost comparison between buying from PrimeWeld or from Great Western Saw.
 
mickeyf said:
My understanding is that welding equipment from the US is duty free. Has anyone been charged/not charged duty that can confirm this? I did my best to look it up when trying to make a cost comparison between buying from PrimeWeld or from Great Western Saw.
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Primeweld themselves may know. UPS/FedEx are both pretty bad for throwing high $ duty on everything.
 
mickeyf said:
My understanding is that welding equipment from the US is duty free. Has anyone been charged/not charged duty that can confirm this? I did my best to look it up when trying to make a cost comparison between buying from PrimeWeld or from Great Western Saw.
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If there’s duty, someone has to pay it, be it yourself directly or indirectly via the price from Great Western Saw.
I’m advocating for direct from Primeweld for @PaulL because he can get a greatly reduced shipping cost by using a cross-border shipping service like Seawings.
 
Jswain said:
Primeweld themselves may know. UPS/FedEx are both pretty bad for throwing high $ duty on everything.
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They can’t charge more than the mandatory duty and taxes but they will absolutely screw you over with a massive brokerage fee.
Using a service like Seawings is a game changer especially when a company offers free US shipping.
Seawings has an office in Blaine WA. They receive your package, bring it to their office at the Victoria airport. You go there, pick up the paperwork, walk 200 feet to the customs office, present the paperwork, pay any taxes, walk back and pay Seawings and leave with your package.
 
They can’t charge more than the mandatory duty and taxes but they will absolutely screw you over with a massive brokerage fee.
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I discovered this about UPS years ago, and have avoided them ever since.
But someone who has bought a welder recently from the US should be able to say whether or not they had to pay duty.
 
mickeyf said:
I discovered this about UPS years ago, and have avoided them ever since.
But someone who has bought a welder recently from the US should be able to say whether or not they had to pay duty.
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I bought a MIG180 from Primeweld last summer but I cannot remember if I paid duty. Taxes yes, but can’t recall if I paid duty.
 
I'm going to the US this March and I'm considering getting one of these cards.
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Have not actually been to the US in years, but got this very card back then when we did travel, and still use it regularly. No complaints. No annual fee and cashback, what's not to like?
 
DavidR8 said:
They can’t charge more than the mandatory duty and taxes but they will absolutely screw you over with a massive brokerage fee.
Using a service like Seawings is a game changer especially when a company offers free US shipping.
Seawings has an office in Blaine WA. They receive your package, bring it to their office at the Victoria airport. You go there, pick up the paperwork, walk 200 feet to the customs office, present the paperwork, pay any taxes, walk back and pay Seawings and leave with your package.
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Yeah anytime I've had anything shipped from UPS/FedEx a couple weeks later comes a (usually) high bill. Whether it was duty or a brokerage fee I've never looked at the difference
 
I have pulled the trigger and ordered the TIG225Xthat I've been lusting after for a few years now. (Merry Xmas to me!) I note that HomeTrust Visa did send me a text message (and an email) for me to confirm that this was not a scam on my card, presumably since my billing address and the shipping address (seawings) were not the same. Good on them I guess!
 
mickeyf said:
I have pulled the trigger and ordered the TIG225Xthat I've been lusting after for a few years now. (Merry Xmas to me!) I note that HomeTrust Visa did send me a text message (and an email) for me to confirm that this was not a scam on my card, presumably since my billing address and the shipping address (seawings) were not the same. Good on them I guess!
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I’m very happy with mine. I just don’t use it enough.
 
Ugh.
1736303429773.png

Tomorrow I'll probably frame it and put a $240 price tag on it. </sarcasm>

The progress is mostly bottom to top, with some better beads than others. I've been going out to the shop, putting down a filler rod's worth of bead, then coming in to do other things for a while. I figure short repeated practice will learn faster than just banging my forehead against it.
A *lot* of dipped tungsten. I need a better way to sharpen than to break up the wheels that usually sharpen my HSS tooling.
 
PaulL said:
Ugh.
View attachment 57434
Tomorrow I'll probably frame it and put a $240 price tag on it. </sarcasm>

The progress is mostly bottom to top, with some better beads than others. I've been going out to the shop, putting down a filler rod's worth of bead, then coming in to do other things for a while. I figure short repeated practice will learn faster than just banging my forehead against it.
A *lot* of dipped tungsten. I need a better way to sharpen than to break up the wheels that usually sharpen my HSS tooling.
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When I first started Tig welding it was a tungsten dipping marathon. To the point where I thought it was pretty lame, and left it to the side for awhile.

I'm still a crappy amateur at best, but can usually go quite awhile without dipping(for the most part)

I guess you just need to get through the banging your head part is what I'm getting at, and it will probably take a full bottle of argon.(At least)

Your progress looks good!
 
Jswain said:
When I first started Tig welding it was a tungsten dipping marathon. To the point where I thought it was pretty lame, and left it to the side for awhile.

I'm still a crappy amateur at best, but can usually go quite awhile without dipping(for the most part)

I guess you just need to get through the banging your head part is what I'm getting at, and it will probably take a full bottle of argon.(At least)

Your progress looks good!
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That pretty much describes the efforts of about every person I have ever seen, starting out in TIG!

Face it. It's a Skill! You don't start out ANY skill, being good at it. But the folks that are capable of seeing both their own weaknesses, and their own strengths, are gonna do just fine!

Same as the way to Carnegie Hall! Practice!

I would suggest (esp., since I wasn't allowed to do this during my training!) sharpening a whole box of electrodes, so that you can simply switch them out when you dip them in the puddle. A couple seconds, vs. however long it takes to grind off the contamination and make a point again. Concentrate on make a puddle the right size, add filler, move forward... Rinse, repeat!
 
I’m so far from an expert that I’m unable to even spell expert.
But two things that helped me were at first to just practice running straight lines with no filler.
Second was to feed filler with my dominant hand, that being my right. The rationale is that my dominant hand is more used to the fine movement required to accurately dab the rod into the puddle.
 
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The other big thing that made a huge difference for me was when I relaxed my grip when holding the torch. If you're death gripping it's going to be hard. If it's balanced in your hand and the hoses aren't dragging it down then it's a light touch.

You may want to work a foot inwards of the edge of the table or even further.

For shorter welds rest your whole arm and just hinge at the wrist with the torch, filler hand can basically stay stationary.

For longer welds hinge at the elbow. Whatever it takes to make it comfy & feel like you're not wrestling the torch
 
I got one of KMS's Magnum Wave 200 TIG/stick when they first came in for $800 for a bare welder. It needed a stinger, flowmeter, pedal and of course a bottle . The pedal I bought at KMS, the rest at PA. it was cheaper. I had the argon bottle. It will do aluminum, DC Pulse, up to 1/4" They are clearing them out now at $1500. Again, bare. They are a decent welders, they are made in a different Shanghai factory than the ESAB 186i .They are both clones. Both are good but not great welders. It has done enough work that it is paid off .
 
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