I have watched a few videos on YouTube recently and had a conversation with another welder in my age range that made me think about this. I am 34 years old and have spent my working life around old timers. Up until recently I’ve always been the youngest guy in the shop.

I recently brought an older 3 phase Mig welder and I mentioned to another welder my age that I really want to setup for Aluminium Mig as not every job is suited for TIG. None of my migs are pulse and his response was “can you do that without pulse?, you need pulse for that?”

I was also telling the same guy about an old timer I know who built an aluminium fishing boat and stick welded the entire thing.

His response was semi jokingly “has it sunk yet?”

I didn’t think much of it but was watching a couple of videos on YouTube and they were “younger” guys who were encountering big old transformer machines and the look on their faces was like a deer in headlights.

They just didn’t know what to do with them. In one video the welder they were used to using had presets for everything.

I’m a big history and vintage buff but I’m starting to wonder are older welding machines going the way of the manual transmission?

The jobs people weld today 99% of the time are jobs that have been done for decades and were done by people with machines far more basic than what’s available today. Required Welding standards haven’t changed that much.

Technology is great but I have often felt that a welder should be able to get an acceptable weld out of whatever machine they are given to operate unless there was something fundamentally wrong.

Just surprised me that’s all. What do you all think?

This is an interesting topic of discussion.

One consideration with the inverter machines is that everything is all on one electronics board. When the board dies, the machine is usually garbage because the cost of a new board is more than a new machine. The old transformer machines last forever.

If you want a manual transmission, go to Europe. It seems to be a cultural thing. I was recently in the Philippines and they have some tallented metal fabricators over there. Methods are definitely old school

The thing I will say about old welding machines is they definitely initially aren’t grab and go. You need to figure them out so to speak and when first using it familiarise yourself with how it operates.

About to jump into aluminum, have a big ol' Linde, not sure if the high frequency works, I think I'm in the same boat, hope it floats!

It's a 250 HF, so I assume there is a high frequency in there somewhere. Would that be a lift arc machine? not sure, Have a job to weld up a bunch of frames out of 6061, and have the old linde welding handbook, so I think it will just be like Jody's u tubes, and hope that the machine is intact, and works, bought it for $400., figured that much in copper. as a stick welder it's great, the tig works well on stainless, scratch start, but I haven't done aluminum since high school. I'm watching, and will let you know.