Re: [ihc] Underhood Welders - Another Option

[John Hofstetter <hofs@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Saturday, April 17, 2004, at 12:37 PM, Jim or Ginger Aos wrote:

> Did the Jim O. come frome what my A sounds like in some of the 
> Norwegian
> dialects?  That was fun.
Nah, that came from what my otherwise classy daughter calls a "brain 
fart".

OK, I bought a welder at Tulare. It's a spool gun that runs off of two 
or more 12 volt batteries wired in series. It's a MIG and can also run 
flux core. One of the Ismails (I think) was using one of these to 
install gussets that he was selling on Scouts whose owners had bought 
the gussets. Seemed to be doing a great job with the gun running off of 
two Optima Red Top batteries.

One of the vendors at the show was Kodak Industries who was selling 
Premier Welders as well as this spool gun. The spool gun is more 
versatile than it first appears as it functions very well by being 
attached to a home welding unit. DC required. So, I can quickly load 
the spool gun with Al. wire without having to change all the stuff on 
my home MIG unit.

The whole unit, not counting the mixed gas bottle stores in a 
reasonably sized plastic case.

My plan is to leave the flux core in the LIncoln and use the spool gun 
for gas welding.

Yawan, the owner of Kodiak Industries seemed very knowledgeable. I also 
bought a 1700 CCA Odssey battery from him. Steel case, 2 year shelf 
life without discharging, 400 discharge cycle life, reserve of 142 
minutes of 25 amps. 3 year factory warranty, plus Kodiak will pro-rate 
it for 10 years. Expected life is 10 to 12 years. Don't know, we'll 
see. Cost seemed prohibitive at first but then I decided it wasn't much 
more than a Blue Top, and much less than two Blue Tops, which I would 
have had to have in order to get this capacity. URL  
http://www.odysseyfactory.com/

Yawan gave me a couple of very good looking battery terminal ends. He 
also gave me a coil of solder that he melts with a BIC lighter, and 
this solder fastens virtually any metal to any other metal including 
Aluminum. Stronger than regular solder even with a very low melting 
point. Safe for home use in copper tubing and the like.

He has a lot of very good looking stuff. Hope it works as well as it 
looks.

John

John Hofstetter
www.goldrush.com/~hofs