Hobart Handler 140 MIG Welder 115V (500559 ) - Durable, Portable Wire Feed Welder Machine - Flux Core Welding Machine with Dual-Gauge Regulator - MIG Welding Machine Welds Up To 1/4 in. Mild Steel

SUMMARYThis is an excellent welder for any home DIY person. I use mine for building and modifying my BBQ smokers and custom steel/wood furniture designs and have had it about 1.5 years. Once you have the ability to 'fuse' metal pieces together there are a wealth uses that seem to come up. From the moment you open the box, the welder is clearly well made and comes with all the necessary accessories to hook up a gas tank and use larger wire spools. You cannot go wrong with this welder assuming it has the power you need for the metal thicknesses you want. 1/4" max steel is fairly heavy duty and should be good for a majority of hobbyist type people and I imagine it is good enough for most commercial light duty. You aren’t going to be welding structural steel shapes, but that was never the intent of this model. The dual voltage on the next model up gets you more power range, but to use it, and any of the more powerful models, you’ll need a 'special' 220v outlet (similar to electric clothes dryers) where you intend to weld. Factor that in to your selection.ACCESSORIESGo ahead and order a large spool of non-flux core (important, see below) wire and weld helmet with auto-darkening. If you have an older style helmet, the auto-darkening is still worth every penny of the upgrade. You will also need a good set of gloves, but I highly recommend trying these on at your local weld supply house. You want the best fitting glove you can find, which you must try on to find. I recommend the thinner leather of pigskin gloves. This material can’t tolerate as much heat (don’t rest your gloved hand for very long on a just completed weld), but will offer much more control and tactile feedback. Finding the correct fit makes your control even better. It is worth your time and any extra expense to try these on and support your local store.You’ll also want a cart for your welder and tank. There are a bunch of these on amazon, available at local places (northern tool, etc), or you could build your own as a first welding project. It puts your welder up higher for easy adjustments and is important for safety with the gas tank.GAS TANKYou need to IMMEDIATELY go get a tank of weld gas for your setup. Actually, go ahead and do this while waiting for Amazon to speedily deliver your welder. I am pretty sure they cannot sell a tank to you online for various regulatory/shipping reasons, it definitely cannot be shipped full. This is actually a good thing, because 95% of gas supply places do not want to fill your tank, they prefer to swap them out with already filled ones. If you were to find a nice shiny new tank, you’re going to have a harder time finding place to fill it so that you can keep it and not be swapped for a used filled one. There are typically several welding/gas supply places in any city, and they’ll have other accessories to look at (gloves for example, see above). I got a 40 cubic foot tank, which isn't too bulky at about 20 inches tall, and it has a pretty good life span between fillings. If you plan on welding every weekend (or more) get a bigger one. There will be a larger initial cost the first time to 'buy' the tank, then each subsequent time will be a smaller filling/swap charge.WELDINGSo why do you need to immediately get a tank and a spool of regular wire? Well simply put flux core wire welding without gas is horrible. It is MUCH harder to do nice welds with and if you haven’t welded before I cannot imagine trying to learn on flux core. I learned to weld back in college on a Miller welder (the blue ones) with a gas setup and got pretty good at it. Fast forward a decade, I had enough potential projects to warrant my own welder and got this one. Being impatient, I initially tried to use the flux-core wire the welder came with and literally thought I completely forgot how to weld. Flux core wire spatters everywhere, makes it very hard not to blow through thinner metals, and is just generally a horrible experience. Flux core wire has to be fed faster because it isn’t all metal (obviously) and I think this leads to less control. This is apparently not a wire type/welder brand/model thing either. Once I got regular wire and a tank with weld gas, my welding skills ‘magically’ returned to normal. I was able to lay down well controlled, perfectly beaded lines. I could even ‘fill-in’ gaps or holes by building up filler metal with the improved control. The wire feed on the Hobart is smooth and consistent. There seems to be enough granularity in the power and feed settings for my needs. I haven’t tried welding aluminum, but will be trying stainless steel soon.BOTTOM LINEI am very happy with the Hobart welder and believe you would be to. It is a good value for what seems to be a quality product. If you have never welded and want to learn, this model is a good place to start and you will likely never need anything else. I strongly considered the Hobart dual voltage model, but ultimately the added cost wasn’t worth the upgrade to weld 3/8 inch thick material. I haven’t needed it yet, and may not ever. The next model down, the 130, doesn’t come with the gas regulator (its an added accessory) and I believe does not have the cast aluminum wire drive system that is in the 140. These are both significant upgrades. This model is the 'sweet spot' in the line up for a home user.

Welders are sometimes hard for hobyists to justify buying because of limited use. But if you have to weld to fix something, like any other project, you have to have the tool for the job or take it out to the welding shop and pay big bucks. That's when the Hobart 140 shines. This is the best most versatile welder I have ever used. It made my welds look professionally done in about 10 minutes of practice with the settings. You get 5 heat settings, and infinite wire feed. The wire feed and gas setup is a snap, the built in charts and data is handy. Just flip up the side and there it is. No hunting the manual. It even comes with a metal guage for setting the initial numbers. For years I used a 90 amp flux core welder from Harbor Freight. It welded, but we're talking ugly. Flux core spatters and spits. I shopped around, read all the reviews and decided to go with Hobart. It's made by Miller, and that is about as good as it gets in welding. After reading the reviews it came down to the Hobart 130 or the Hobart 140. As I looked into the upgrades from the 130 to the 140 it seemed to me that the extra hundred twenty bucks was going to be worth it on the long haul. You'll be glad you get the 140! The 140 has improved wire feed. That mechanism is everything in welding. A cheapo wire feeder will irk your soul while you're trying to get that weld bead right. It has a better ground clamp of steel vs flimsy copper, quality brass regulator for gas. The wire feed mechanism sets quickly, disengages easily to test the gas or gun. The gun on the 140 is really well built. Plus the Amazon version of the Hobart Handler 140 was $484 as upposed to the $550 or so other dealers were going. With free shipping and no tax it was a no brainer. Go Amazon! I set it up with C25 (argon co2 mix) gas and mounted it on a harbor freight 100# welding cart that holds all my stuff ready. The gas set up was easy, and really smothes out your bead. My C25 tank was $139 filled at Rural King Supply. The last thing to say is Hobarts hold their value really well. Take care of it, and you won't lose much when or if it comes to selling the unit.

I've been welding in ironworkers union for 22 years. I bought this welder for home/shop projects,iron fences etc. its perfect! I would recommend it anytime.