I can weld and braze with oxy acetylene and Mig weld to a decent standard, but don’t own any welding equipment at all other than a helmet. I would love to learn to tig weld really just for the fun of it and also would be usefull for the odd thing. might look at doing a bit of light weight occasional stainless and ali fabrication in the future. Have been looking at some of the basic sets. Obviously their are no moving parts as with Mig, which in my experience are the main failure parts on budget mig sets. I have used some big oil cooled mig sets in my time so I do appreciate how much easier it is to weld with a decent set.

What are the £250 – £300 tig sets like. It has to be single phase. Should I look for a second hand more industrial set, which is my normal approach to most things.

Any other advice greatly received.

Sorry, can’t help, but bookmarking this as I’m interested in this too. Got some MIG experience but would like to have a go at TIG for the smaller ali and stainless stuff.

I got one from here

http://www.r-techwelding.co.uk/ cost about 400 quid at the time ,only welds steel though.

But was later pointed to one of these.

http://www.waspsupplies.com/miller-sth-160-dc-hf-tig-welder-240-volt-059016013-4248-p.asp (wont weld aluminium)

at hobby level I was told there was little point spending more.

As above, I have an R-Tech DC TIG set, which is good for steel but not Aluminium you need AC for that. For £300 i’d be very suprised if you got an AC/DC set.

My plan is start with this set, see how i go and if need be later on upgrade.

In addition to the types of controls the more expensive TIG sets have, things to look out for is stuff like ability to control a torch with a foot pedal.

For a 13A plug i think you need to limit yourself to the 160A region, I have a 200A welder connected to a 16A plug back to a dedicated trip on the consumer unit.

We spent around £1000 on an AC/DC TIG set a few years ago from R-Tech, this one I think-

http://www.r-techwelding.co.uk/tig-welder-240v-ac-dc-160amp/

plus the cost of a bottle of gas. It was good, I think anyway, I could certainly get two pieces of ally to stick together using it.

Can’t be done for that price. You need an Ac/Dc welder with a high frequecy start (ie not scratch start) to do stainless and aluminium. Welding rods unless you can beg some are circa £75 a pack. Argon the sheilding gas normally has a yearly rental for the cylinder and obviously a charge for the contents although you can buy very small cylinders without rental now. Not sure if you are allowed now to have pressuried gas cylinders in a residential property. Asme 9 6g coded tig welder for longer than I care to think about.
Go to your local college or further education centre 😉

R-tech would get my vote for something new. I’ve never personally used their machines, but see them often recommended along with plenty good comments.
I’ve personally got a small DC only Cebora unit, which has served me well for steel/stainless work.

You can get big bottles of gas without rental. I’ve got a 30L bottle of argon which the deposit and first fill was much cheaper than a years rental and fill for a smaller bottle from BOC.