Took the first step towards building my shop

[Frank S]

Today another rare no wind day so I thought it might be prudent to secure the center of the truss before the winds start howling from the NE next week.
The quickest and easiest was to utilize a section of a remaining left over truss. Surprisingly it took longer to install it than it had to get the truss in place yesterday. I have another section which will be used to connect the center truss to the 4th truss just as the center is connected to truss #2 . However I will be setting up a rolling scaffold before I do that one since I detest working from a ladder over 20 feet in the air

[metric_taper]

I can't imagine the fun of going up the ladder with the stinger lead. I bet #2 or #4 copper lead would be a gravity fight.
I was up on a 12 foot ladder yesterday to clean out gutters, once my feet are over 6ft off the ground, it starts to become enough to instigate self protection protocol.
Scaffolding at that height would be too scary for me. The aspect ratio of foot print to height and bouncy planks with no guard rail, would exceed my sanity check.
Has to be a good feeling to be at this stage of the assembly.

[Frank S]

I can't imagine the fun of going up the ladder with the stinger lead. I bet #2 or #4 copper lead would be a gravity fight.
I was up on a 12 foot ladder yesterday to clean out gutters, once my feet are over 6ft off the ground, it starts to become enough to instigate self protection protocol.
Scaffolding at that height would be too scary for me. The aspect ratio of foot print to height and bouncy planks with no guard rail, would exceed my sanity check.
Has to be a good feeling to be at this stage of the assembly.

I'm not vertically challenged in the least but I am very vertically cautious. The stinger lead is #0

[jdurand]

How are the new mini MMA welders? I know not for production use but tiny, some come with shoulder straps. Using one of those on an extension cord seems a LOT easier than hauling #0 wire around.

example
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32888224338.html

[Frank S]

How are the new mini MMA welders? I know not for production use but tiny, some come with shoulder straps. Using one of those on an extension cord seems a LOT easier than hauling #0 wire around.

example
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32888224338.html

the main problem I've found with the mini welders is their limited duty cycle for the amps required to get the job done. I imagine they might be OK just doing the 10 or 15 minutes of welding to secure the trusses to the top beam if they could develop enough penetration but even the smallest of these by the time you had to haul a heavy duty extension cord up then come back down for the machine then come back down for your helmet and rods and find some way to secure the machine to the structure you might just as well toss the stinger lead over your shoulder put your hood on backwards with rods in your pocket climb up tie off the stinger leaving a few feet of whip and be confident you will have enough amps to do the job.
Back when I lived in Germany for 3 years I had a little welder that was about 16 inches by 4 inches by 12 inches tall that could run on 220 230 240 380 400 or 460 v just by where you tapped the connector at it weighed a hefty 40 lbs though and powerful enough to weld with 5/32 rods a few minutes at a time

[jdurand]

Thanks. I don't do a lot of stick welding now so I think I'll get one for the new house. I'm certainly not taking the huge old AC/DC welder with me (the one on wheels that sits under your bench). I've got decently long wire on it, hopefully I can sell it for a few $ here before moving.

I see some of the small ones are MMA/TIG, might get one of those and try my hand at TIG.

My MIG works on 50Hz, so it's going with me.

[Frank S]

Yes jdurand, a small welder with duel capability would be the cat's paws

[Crusty]

FWIW - I bought a Lotos TIG200 TIG/MMA welder for around $550 on Ebay and I'm happy with it once I reworked the foot pedal to operate the way that I like. They're sold by Home Depot online but you can save about $100 by buying on Ebay. TIG welding is a challenging skill yet to be learned but it's doing a nice job with stick and the next thing I'm going to do is add a switch to my stinger handle so that I can use HF start when stick welding because it's so much easier than contact starting. They also sell several other welders in different configurations (there's a combo welder/plasma cutter that's calling me) and you may find a model that fills your basic needs at an affordable price and I'd expect the quality to be similar.

[jdurand]

FWIW - I bought a Lotos TIG200 TIG/MMA welder for around $550 on Ebay and I'm happy with it once I reworked the foot pedal to operate the way that I like. They're sold by Home Depot online but you can save about $100 by buying on Ebay. TIG welding is a challenging skill yet to be learned but it's doing a nice job with stick and the next thing I'm going to do is add a switch to my stinger handle so that I can use HF start when stick welding because it's so much easier than contact starting. They also sell several other welders in different configurations (there's a combo welder/plasma cutter that's calling me) and you may find a model that fills your basic needs at an affordable price and I'd expect the quality to be similar.

Don't have Home Depot in Russia but there's Aliexpress. The welders I see there are around $30 to $50 USD delivered for a 200 amp stick welder and $100 for a combined stick & TIG. There's some offerings in local home store but of course they're limited and more expensive.

[KustomsbyKent]

on the portable welders that do Stick and TIG, review the specs closely, as many can only TIG steel, NOT aluminum. So just pay close attention to be sure you're getting what you really want.

Frank, nice progress on the building!