MTFCA Forum

I know some on the Forum are hot to trot when it comes to new toys.

Repairing body panels, mig or oxy-acelyne have been popular.

I see a new welder is on the market using a lazer diode. Appears to give nice clean welds, any one using such a tool for current restoration? What are your results?

What little I saw of it,you can just about think about welding and the parts are together.
I would like to learn more about it. Warpage is the biggest threat with either mig or torch so it would be interesting to see how that works with the laser.

https://youtu.be/OD3Y_MCoWek
Well worth watching, at 20,000 dollars, it will be a while before I can afford 1,BUT I can see how folks could weld up some nice brass radiators with 1 of these

If it’s the ones in videos on Facebook one would think Mack is correct with the “think about welding”. I think they supposedly sell for under $100 but I don’t know anyone that has bought one. For the price I’d like to try one but am always skeptical if I’d ever get it actually shipped to me. The videos appear to be time lapsed coupled with someone demonstrating it that probably has very good skills in welding, making it look so simple. If anyone here has one as described and it works as well as demonstrated let us know & I’ll retract my post & apologize. I’ve just been taught if it looks to good to be true…. It is.

https://fb.watch/lQijOEkWXH/?mibextid=cr9u03

I hope I’m wrong! Best John

this is an infra-red laser. You can't see it but it will blind you as certainly as a normal welder can...you won't blink, you won't recoil and holler "YEOWCH!!"

normally, walking past someone welding on a construction site for example, the briefest glance at the arc will naturally cause you to recoil away...wave that laser around and unless it is melting something, you're never going to know that it is activated and an extreme danger to your eyes.

we were using these things (low wattage, but still very much a risk to vision) in our metrology lab for precision alignment and vibration measurement, and honestly, despite working with beryllium, horrific chemical compounds, diffusion bonding furnaces at many thousands of degrees F, and other non-friendly things, it's the infra-red laser which worried me the most and I did my utmost to extract myself from being around one.

that isolation booth in the video is such a *DANGER* flag, you just can't believe it

When I was in college, the laser we were learning with in the lab was 1/10th of a watt, and it was said it's beam could be detected on the moon as being 7 miles in diameter. If memory serves me correctly, the fellow that was working on inventing the surgical laser was killed when he walked thru the beam and it cut him in half?
With all that said, I agree, it is odd that suddenly this tech is out there for 20,000 dollars in a box the size of a dog house for anybody to buy and use the wrong way.

This was also erase the idea of welding quarter panels on my 74 lincoln with it!

I think John is spot on these are a scam just like the laser rust remover from last year. They take your money, send you something
worthless that can be tracked then they have proof that you recieved it and refuse to give you a refund. Buyer be ware.
As far as panel welding goe's the two best solutions I have found are .023 wire stitch welding & a spot welder. One of the best panel welders
I have is a Dan-Mig that is a programable stitch welder the liner will only take .023 wire and you can program weld & rest time to about 24
different settings + wire speed & volts infanatly. I had a customer decide it was not worth the cost of a repair and told me to scrap it & keep
the money for my effort. Later I found the parts to repair it at told some friends how well it worked & it's been out on loan to someone for the
last 10 years. The only time I see it is if something on it needs repaired.
Craig.

everyone is certainly free to follow their own scam-detector senses, and pooh-pooh laser welding, but it IS a thing, and it can perform amazingly well in the right hands. Weld.com (as directed to by Mack) is not selling anything - only doing product testing, reliability testing, and offering video tips which are usually very good for beginning welders. Videos such as can be found there as well as Fitzie's Fabrication on YouTube provided me with enough information to fabricate and weld many panels on my runabout.

As far as Lightweld, nowhere have I seen anyone suggest that it is ideal for repairing a Model T - and at it's $21K price it is clearly for high-end fabrication, not for things where people are more used to using a coat-hanger and a deep cycle auto battery.

As for purchasing a $100 welder, anyone buying one will get exactly what they deserve: $100 poorer

A new breed of snake oil salesman or anything else for that matter. True "Craftsmanship" is an on going learning with discipline in perfecting the "Craft". New methods are acceptable but only after they can "Prove" value.

Just Sayin'

Hank

Laser welding is indeed a great way to weld pieces where putting too much heat into the workpiece is a problem, it would be great for body work.
That being said, it is still relatively new and thus good machines are very expensive, it will take some time (as in years) to have good reasonably priced equipment for the semi-professional on the market,
For the moment; you get what you pay for, $200 will NOT buy you a good laser welder, it WILL buy you a lot of first class frustration, if that is your thing, go ahead !

https://www.harborfreight.com/omnipro-2 ... 57812.html
I bought this machine and the spool gun,tig torch and etc,everything to do everything it was designed to do back in about 2021 I think?
I sold my Fender Strata-caster and Gibson Heritage guitars and bought the welding equipment.
I wanted to learn how to tig weld,and then things didn't work out for the fellow to come teach me. BUT anyhow,
I had a Lincoln 180 mig, and a old ac buzz box from sears. I used this machine about 15 minutes, just stopped, put all that other (##($ junk in the back of the truck and off to a friends house for him to sell on commission and I aint looked back.
This machine has yet to give me 1 peep of trouble and I have built at least 2 trailers with it, welded up all the stuff for my T speedster and it still works like new..
Laser welding will have to wait, cost to much for me!

My opinion
When I went to the Welding technology school around 50 years ago it was learning the basic manipulative skills with Oxy-acetelyne, brazing, stick arc, mig and tig. All of those types of welding types use heat.
Joining sheet metal without warpage takes a while to learn.
Heat is the enemy of thin metal if it’s too much and depositing the metal to slow.

Some learn fairly quickly to join sheet metal without warpage and others it takes longer. It goes back to a little skill in doing a good job and as long and which ever of the mentioned processes will work when it’s done correctly.