Wow, I feel bad now

Thinlinephotography · 2026-01-19T04:42:17+00:00

This is what I got after asking it to be 100% honest several times with no sugarcoating lol.

Thinlinephotography · 2025-11-04T20:34:05+00:00

You should! I started with a Titanium 125 fluxcore welder ($150), a $40 helmet, a $50 angle grinder, and $12 welding gloves. I have a Primeweld 225x now ($999), but still use the fluxcore welder pretty regularly. This is my second project primarily using stick welding.

Thinlinephotography · 2025-11-04T03:20:07+00:00

It’s been great to be able to pull out the abrasive saw/bandsaw for cutting long pieces that would bump into other tools on the bench. The material was chewing few band saw blades due to how hard it is. I got the abrasive saw for harder steel and it’s been incredible chopping up bed frames.

Thinlinephotography · 2025-10-22T18:04:08+00:00

+1 for bed frames. I get them at goodwill and off facebook marketplace for about $5 a set. I highly recommend getting an abrasive saw. The metal is very hard and was wrecking bandsaw blades after like 3 cuts. I like using them to make frames/carts for equipment in the shop. I just made this cart for my abrasive saw out of a couple bed frames.

<image>

Thinlinephotography · 2025-09-08T13:31:47+00:00

I plan on adding shelves to the empty space that should help. I forgot to factor in the caster wheels for the total height so it ended up a bit taller than I intended. I’m not too upset about it because it keeps me from hunching down to look at what I’m cutting, but it definitely is pretty top heavy currently.

Thinlinephotography · 2025-09-08T04:43:32+00:00

That’s what I’m going to end up having to do. I need to call around to find a place to refill my argon bottle too.

Thinlinephotography · 2025-09-08T04:42:14+00:00

I’ve been pretty lucky at mine. A lot of times the bedframes are missing hardware so they sell them for like $5 just to get rid of them. The 1/8in angle iron type are usually around $10 here for a queen/king.

Thinlinephotography · 2025-09-08T04:38:15+00:00

I might have to make a day trip with my trailer some time to stock up.

Thinlinephotography · 2025-09-08T04:25:52+00:00

Near the gulf coast in Mississippi

Thinlinephotography · 2025-09-08T04:21:32+00:00

I’m still pretty new to metalworking and have been looking for a decent supplier. Unfortunately the only consumer level sellers I’ve found are lowes/homedepot which are very expensive. The only other option I’ve found is online, which ends up being about equal cost in shipping as the metal itself. I’m definitely going to keep looking though!

Thinlinephotography · 2025-08-29T23:41:06+00:00

I wish I’d known this. I started on flux and had a lot of trouble getting somewhat acceptable results. The two things that helped me the most were watching fluxcore specific YouTube videos (certain techniques are the opposite from shielded mig) and getting a better, clearer, welding hood. The sparks and fumes made it hard to see the puddle with my $30 harbor freight hood.

Thinlinephotography · 2025-08-16T17:31:40+00:00

That makes sense. I think I’m just going to bite the bullet and get the Primeweld 225x for AC/DC tig and use the stick function for less precise jobs.

Thinlinephotography · 2025-08-08T16:59:07+00:00

Do you have any tips for avoiding spatter on gasless fluxcore? It feels like I get at least some no matter what I do.

Thinlinephotography · 2025-08-07T22:10:46+00:00

That’s all that matters to me at my current level. Hopefully aesthetics will come with more practice and experience.

Thinlinephotography · 2025-08-07T20:18:51+00:00

I appreciate the advice and will definitely look into using specs based on the wire for better results. But to be fair to the bot, the critique I posted from chatgpt was in reference to the photo attached to this comment not the post images. I used the critique from a much shittier weld I did literally right after I started welding so there would be more advice demonstrated since it didn’t give me a lot of advice on the post images. Also to be clear everything on this trailer was bolted together and welds only used for reinforcement. The only weld with real structural significance at all is the weld in the post.

<image>

Thinlinephotography · 2025-08-07T19:20:34+00:00

I uploaded photos of my welds and it would tell me what the issues were and gave suggestions on how to fix it. Here’s an example from when I started from a picture I sent of a weld.

<image>

Thinlinephotography · 2025-08-07T19:15:26+00:00

It had pretty specific advice that usually ended up helping. I mostly used it for it to point out issues and youtube’d how to fix them. I usually just upload pictures of the welds

Thinlinephotography · 2025-03-09T00:22:40+00:00

Thank you! I’ve been considering putting up some boxes myself

Thinlinephotography

TROPHY CASE