Hello All,

I very strongly favor purchasing a TIG welder. One of the best EAA 582 welders is Kendyl Peters who TIG welded his entire stretched Avid Flyer. Kendyl also submitted sample TIG coupons to Avid and after they examined/tested them, sent him a formal offer of employment. 

I am not a certified welder but for more than 25 years I did a lot of TIG welding while in the Engineering College at the Univ. of Toledo. Mostly mild steel like 1018, 1020 or 1025, but also a lot of .029 wall 4130 tubing for several very large projects. My favorite was the 460 volt P@S welder with it's water cooled torch. With that P@S I could TIG weld down almost to foil and up to 1" with excellent results. Air cooled torches tend to get so hot you can't hold them. My second favorite was the Miller TIG. I am not familiar with the entry level Eastwood and in that price range would favor the Hobart which is mostly a Miller clone. Please look at the duty cycle for whatever is purchased. Some of these low cost b beauties have a very brief duty cycle. I also favor a transformer type over the inverter types for their reliability even though they weigh a lot more and are not as versatile, or as popular today.The Miller and Hobart inverters seem to have excellent reliability.  

In my humble opinion, for thin wall 4130 or common alloy's in thin wall tubing, TIG is the best there is, equally comparable to well done gas welding. Also stainless steel welds like a dream with TIG. 

I will go $50.00 towards a good TIG welder. What would be really nice is if it has the option of attaching a water cooled torch with a separate pump and reservoir if desired.