Thread: Thinking about buying a welder

So I'm thinking about buying a welder my neighbor has for sale.

It is a Century 117-009 (Power Mate i think)
He bought it back in 1987 (Making it almost 24 Years old)

He is including a few 10lb spools (they look old and rust, not sure if they are still good?)

He is also including 2 tanks, a large tall one and a short one. These tanks have 75/25 argon/c02

I might try to get him to throw in the welding apron and coat and gloves.

He is asking $550, he has said 500 before but is old and prob doesn't remember it.

I have done some research and have found a supplier of parts for this welder (A&A Hydraulics)

Here is a list of parts i found on the lincoln website:
http://www.lincolnelectric.com/assets/ServiceNavigator/Century/Century/RPL117009.pdf

I was able to find the following parts through A&A Hydraulic's website:
4,5,6,10,11,12,15,16,17,22,26,28,30,32,33,34,35,37,42,46,47,48,49,50,51

It is currently in good working order.

What are your thoughts on this, does it seem like an old head ache waiting to show its age on me?

What parts commonly wear out, go bad or need to be replaced?

take your 500 and go to your local weld shop and see what they have to offer. or home depots lincoln mig is great home starter welder.

well i was thinking about getting a hobert handler 140, but id would like something that could handle thicker metal plus it already has the tanks

Depending on what you're going to use it for.....personally I'd save your money and pickup an AC/DC tig setup. I got this following one:
WeldAll 200PI | 200AMP AC/DC TIG/STICK ALUMINUM WELDER & 50AMP PLASMA CUTTER MULTIPROCESS WELDER WITH IGBT TECHNOLOGY

Stick/Tig/Plasma cutter. Works like a champ. Not sure how it'd hold up if you were using it all day every day, but given a regular work out for the past year I've had no issues.

Doing tig on steel is painfully slow compared to a mig, but having the ability to do aluminum when I need to is nice.