• Registered: 2019-02-27
  • Posts: 4

Topic: Tools of the Lemon Trade?

At some point I have to build and race a Lemons car.  I just can't not, it's an existential type of thing I guess.  I daily drive a $600 1996 Geo Metro, so there's at least a 18% chance that it will eventually become a real-life racecar.  I'd like to be able to do all the work myself, including building the roll cage.  I have a few years experience as a MIG welder both on a production line as well as in a small shop doing high end custom doors and windows, so I am confident in my welding abilities.  However, I do not own any metal fab tools.  What would be the cheapest welder that you would trust to build a roll cage and various other stuff such as engine/trans mounts, suspension mounting points, etc...  Part of me wants to buy a TIG welder despite never having done TIG welding before, but I do want to learn to TIG and be able to make custom aluminum bits and pieces both for personal use or to sell on the side.  I also have a dream of owning my own business making and selling semi-industrial style furniture and home accessories, and I worry that a TIG welder will make production of these items slower than necessary or will run into times where there's not enough juice to get the job done in a timely manner.

ANYWAYS, looking for a recommendation for a welder and tube bender for low cost high quality clean and pretty welds.  Full time salary-slave and full-time student and have three small kids, so time and money are all short at the moment, even considering Harbor Freight stuff at this point.

  • From: Newport News, VA
  • Registered: 2015-12-23
  • Posts: 620

Re: Tools of the Lemon Trade?

TLDR; you'll be into about $2000 worth of tools, give or take. I probably did the math wrong and picked the wrong tools.

Bender:
Harbor freight almost certainly won't cut it for a bender (I have read where people claim to have made them work, but I have one and am skeptical).

Lots of people like the JD squared manual bender for the price, but it has to be bolted down, takes up a lot of real estate when in use (horizontal bender), and looks like it requires more strength than I want to expend. It looks cheap, but doesn't include stand or dies. Once you add those in (or upgrade to hydraulic) it's essentially the same price as the one I bought.

RogueFab M600 weld-together kit with air over hydraulic. If you are going to be welding a roll cage, you should be able to weld the thing together and not have it explode when you bend tube. The price has gone up a little bit from when I bought mine some years ago, but I'd buy it again. It bends up, and up to 180 degrees without redoing the clamp (this clamp is the main drawback, as if it slips it messes up the bend).

Welder:
If you did production MIG, probably anything that fits in your budget and palate will work. 220V is obviously nice, but lesser welders with a low duty cycle (read cheaper) will work. When building a cage I generally have plenty of time to deal with a 25% duty cycle because I'm moving around, changing position, etc. Roll cages are mostly a planning and order of operations problem to make sure you can 360 a tube.

Software:
I highly recommend Bend-tech software for designing the cage. I've done it with free calculators and such, but the roll cage module spits out bending instructions and paper templates for notching most pieces. It doesn't come with a strictly Lemons legal template, but it's got some decent starting points. If you don't want the templates, it's cheaper. The free stuff works, but if you get the calculations wrong you are just making useless tube bits (wrong bend, wrong offset, etc.).

Notcher:
A tube notcher that works is probably too much money unless you are starting a production shop. From experience, the Harbor Freight notcher is either terrible or impossible to set up right (which also sounds like terrible). Paper templates (or the metal stick thing from your favorite online racing store), marker, cutoff wheel and flap disc. Don't die. A vise is useful, but a helper is more useful. Don't kill your helper.

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  • Registered: 2015-11-03
  • Posts: 21

Re: Tools of the Lemon Trade?

I'm not the guy to talk about benders and notchers. I sub that out since the capital and storage costs are WAY too high for me for a hobby.

I have a Lincoln MIG ('cause I got at discount) I run with with C25 and occasionally with flux core. My TIG is a PrimeWeld TIG225X ('cause I can't justify a Miller Syncrowave). The relatively cheapo TIG machine does fine for me and has AC capability for aluminum. I'm pretty sure I'm the limiting factor for both AC and DC. I paid under $800 a few years ago, and it comes with a Superflex torch (soooo nice).

I've been welding MIG much longer than TIG, but prefer TIG by a large margin. I don't worry about production rates, though. While it hasn't been an issue for me, keep in mind the limitations of a spool gun for aluminum MIG work in tight spaces. (Yeah, for TIG work I have to have access for the torch and the rod, so whatever.)

TL:DR
Consider a PrimeWeld TIG225X as an "affordable" AC/DC TIG machine.

4 Reply by Lemon_Newton-Metre (edited by Lemon_Newton-Metre 2022-04-06 07:32 PM)

  • From: Elverson, PA
  • Registered: 2017-08-15
  • Posts: 1,130

Re: Tools of the Lemon Trade?

TIG225X +1, just bought it, here's why:

https://youtu.be/-YkWY3nVAlY

Also, post where you are, there may be help nearby.

I stopped by their warehouse, and they refunded me what would be their shipping _value_ (shipping is "free" when you purchase).

Also, I'm an internet "expert" because I watch all his videos ;-)

Actually, he presents material really well, in a teaching mode.

  • Registered: 2019-02-27
  • Posts: 4

Re: Tools of the Lemon Trade?

DirtyDuc wrote:

TLDR; you'll be into about $2000 worth of tools, give or take. I probably did the math wrong and picked the wrong tools...

...Don't die. A vise is useful, but a helper is more useful. Don't kill your helper.

All good points, for sure!  I'm currently blowing all my money on books and tuition, but that will slow down in a few months as I drop to part-time school instead of full-time.  I need to upgrade my breaker box to add a separate circuit for a welder, so that'll be an extra cost but will be nice to have anyways for other stuff.  Maybe this coming holiday season I'll be able to snag some decent used equipment as people sell off their stuff in exchange for quick holiday cash.  Great suggestion about the software, I'll definitely look into it.  I've got a small bit of prior experience with SolidWorks, but it's been several years and was just for a couple years in school, so any helpful software like the Bend-Tech stuff looks like it would be well worth the money.

  • Registered: 2019-02-27
  • Posts: 4

Re: Tools of the Lemon Trade?

Lemon_Newton-Metre wrote:

TIG225X +1, just bought it, here's why:

https://youtu.be/-YkWY3nVAlY

Also, post where you are, there may be help nearby.

I stopped by their warehouse, and they refunded me what would be their shipping _value_ (shipping is "free" when you purchase).

Also, I'm an internet "expert" because I watch all his videos ;-)

Actually, he presents material really well, in a teaching mode.

Definitely considering it- I've watched that guy and subscribed to his Instagram for years, really enjoy his content.  Dude is living the dream for sure!

  • From: Elverson, PA
  • Registered: 2017-08-15
  • Posts: 1,130

Re: Tools of the Lemon Trade?

He has a more recent review of a machine he also likes, around the same price point. I didn't note which, because I had just purchased mine.

  • From: Camarillo, CA
  • Registered: 2021-03-26
  • Posts: 385

Re: Tools of the Lemon Trade?

I have an Everlast 256 Si and love it... been a great machine. I also pair it with a Century FC 90 wire welder that I leave in our trailer or use for portable/odd jobs. Between the two that leaves me with stick, AC/DC TIG, plasma, and a flux core "MIG-wanna-be".

For a tube bender, I have a harbor freight "pipe kinker"... I tried a bunch of different ways to make it work, polishing/lubing parts, packing with sand, sacrificing lambs, and nothing seemed to work. One day I had a silly idea to tac weld the tube to the die in the area where it was lifting up and kinking and it solved all of my kinking issues. I now get very nice looking bends, but it's not very accurate and relatively very very slow. I would never consider building a cage with it, but it's great for odd jobs or adding a member onto our current cage.

For MIG vs TIG on a cage, I've never MIG welded a cage but I've TIG welded a steel spaceframe on a jig table and added several members onto our current cage. I haven't yet built a cage inside a car, but from the times I've added members onto our cage it really made me wish I had a real MIG welder. TIG is pretty picky, and trying to balance a foot pedal, keep a tight arc at a good angle with one hand, feed filler with the other, and balance your body weight somewhere on your butt or the one foot that isn't running the pedal, while being uncomfortably wedged inside the car is a pretty rough combo. TIG is fantastic on a bench, or in areas where you have a lot of room... basically anywhere you can be comfortable. I'm not speaking from cage-building experience, just general welding experience though, so I could be missing something. I think there's a reason most cages are MIG welded.

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  • From: NH
  • Registered: 2010-01-20
  • Posts: 3,299

Re: Tools of the Lemon Trade?

I cannot imagine 100% TIG welding a cage. That is not to say it cannot be done, there are skilled people proving it's possible every day. But I personally cannot imagine doing it. Laying down with my head in the footwell barely able to see trying to get the last of the weld done on my plinth boxes would not be possible for me personally with a TIG. That said, I own both a MIG and TIG welder, and I try to pick the one that makes the most sense for the application.


These days I'd wager that almost any MIG welder can do a good cage. The cheap stuff is getting really good for the price point. I welded two cages with a Hobart 210MVP, both on 110V input, worked great on .120 wall DOM. I now own an everlast power-i-mig 200e, which is their cheaper 110/220 MIG, and it's a fantastic welder for the price, zero regrets buying that for half the price of the hobart. (I got mine lightly used, so it was cheap). Basically as long as you trust your own welding abilities, and know the welder you're using, it should be ok.

FWIW, my TIG is an AHP AlphaTIG 200x and I love the damn thing. It's the definition of a cheap welder built to a price point, but it welds so nice. Zero regrets buying it for the amount of welding I do.



You can notch a whole cage with a harbor freight tube notcher. You'll probably throw it away when you're done, but hard to argue with the price. I did two cages with one. I used a JDsquared bender for my work as well, don't own it, just used someone else's. I watched the series from the same youtube guy on putting a cage into an Evo, and it helped a ton. Mostly I watch his methods for measuring and figuring out bends over and over until I had it all digested.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-U9bvv … FtXMIrpjuz

I know a lot of people like software for cages. I bought the bend-tech stuff when I did my first cage, and abandoned it really fast. If you bend up a couple 90° elbows to use as measure guides it's really easy to do all manually.

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  • Registered: 2011-10-14
  • Posts: 4,167

Re: Tools of the Lemon Trade?

TDFbound wrote:

ANYWAYS, looking for a recommendation for a welder and tube bender for low cost high quality clean and pretty welds.  Full time salary-slave and full-time student and have three small kids, so time and money are all short at the moment, even considering Harbor Freight stuff at this point.

I am the new evangilist for Primeweld welders and plasma cutters.  I accidentally have two of their MIG180's, which I strongly suggest, an one MIG160 which I suggest less but would be more than adequate to do cage work and about anything up to 3/16".  I suggest it less as its MIG gun is just too short and it can only run 2# spools.  The MIG180 is almost exactly the same spec's and price as Eastwood's but the customer service is second to none with basically the owner or testing and QA guy answering the phone.

Bender...any JD2 clone but do consider the air-over-hydraulic cylinder conversion (we have never bothered) as then the bender just has to support itself an the tube without tipping over verses very securely mounted for manual bending.  Notcher is more important but the one we got is since discontinued.

Last pro tip get 3-4 of the cheap Harbor Freight 4.5" grinders so you are not switching wheels...one for the flap wheel, on the wire brush, one for the cut-off wheel and one for the grinding wheel.