Craftsman 115 V welder (5 dollar garage sale find)

Just joined the board last night after being referred here from the H.A.M.B.

Here is a welder I picked up the other day at a yard sale for 5 dollars, came with a hood and gloves, and some wasted rods. I am an active duty Army guy and suffered a divorce which decimated my garage, so as time and my limited funds allow I am restocking my garage with mostly rebuilt vintage tools.

I cant afford a MIG right now so I figured this low voltage rig here would be perfect for doing patch panel work without creating too much warpage like a 220 V stick welder would. The rods for this are pretty tiny.

Anyway, Mechanically it is in good working order but the cosmetics leave a lot to be desired, also the power supply cord insulation was cracking pretty bad from dry rot. So I figured I don't have a car to work on right now, might as well make my tools pretty.

So far I have taken it apart, de cobwebbed it, and begun sandblasting the parts one piece at a time at work in our tiny cabinet there. I have nothing to weld with it right now so I am not in any particular rush. The legs have suffer quite a bit of bending, more than likely from being set down too hard. You will notice in the pics one has been blasted, straightened, primed and repainted. The one that isn't redone is what the redone one looked like. other than the mangled legs and some minor dents in the lid and case sheet metal it is pretty straight. I am straightening out everything with a body hammer and an anvil prior to paint work to make it look nice and new again.

Color of choice is Krylon True Blue. The main reason for this being economics, Being in the military I came across a case of it they were giving away and jumped on it. All of my garage tools will be the same color, with orange pinstriping (again Economics, its one of the cheapest colors of one shot).

If anyone happens to know where a scan of the manual can be found online I would greatly appreciate the link.

I will be posting more pics as more steps are completed.

My next project is a late 40's early 50's atlas benchtop drillpress.

Here is the link to the album, feel free to comment or critique as you feel necessary.

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/album.php?albumid=1173

First off, thank you for your service, and sorry about the divorce. Secondly, nice work, and you ****! I can never find deals like that!

Welcome to the GJ and THANKS for your service. Sorry for what you're going through.
5 bucks at a garage sale , yup you ****!
Nothing wrong with making tools the resto and customizing projects.
We'll want to see the drill press too !

Craig

oooo ... I love the old tapped models like that.

Update

I have added a some more pics to the album located here.
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/album.php?albumid=1173

Just finished the sandblasting and sheetmetal repair on the right leg and lid for the welder.

There was a large dent in the right top corner of the lid which I spent about an hour on with a hammer and dolly to get it straight again. The right leg was also badly tweaked and had some studs in it that interfered with what I wanted to do with it so I cut them out with a dremel tool.

Both legs were badly tweaked and took quite a bit of "persuasion with a hammer and anvil to get them straight again.

The primary reason for the stud removal is that I am going to sandwich the leg between a pice of 1/8 thick strap steel to help reinforce it so the dont get tweaked again. I can only surmise that they got tweaked from setting this extremely heavy little welder down too hard, making the weight bend them up.

Almost forgot,

Also updating the hardware on the entire machine to grade 8 bolts and phillips head stainless steel screws. I know this is annoying to flat head screw purists, but its a hell of alot more convenient for me if I ever have to open it up again for any repairs.