1979 Miller MIG?

[WillieB]

In 1979 I was very young, I had a partner in a moonlight business. We bought a few "wreck kits". A salvage yard in Worchester Mass. put together wrecked cars and the pieces of donor cars needed to rebuild them. Most were cut and weld projects. There were a few dents to pound out, but most were clips. We reasoned that one manufacturer would be a good way to go. We chose BMW. We did a 2002 Tii, a 530i my mother drove another 19? years, a 320i my friend drove 12 years. It was fun! It didn't prove to be profitable as we never sold the cars. I fell in love, filled my spare time with a pretty girl who's now my beautiful wife, and couldn't spare the time. My partner and I got on each other's nerves and dissolved.

We rented a MIG. It was a Miller, I remember it as about the footprint of a modern Bobcat, but taller. It cost in 1979 about $4000 dollars equipped to work, and worked incredibly well.

I can't remember the model. What did Miller offer in the day?

[H80N]

In 1979 I was very young, I had a partner in a moonlight business. We bought a few "wreck kits". A salvage yard in Worchester Mass. put together wrecked cars and the pieces of donor cars needed to rebuild them. Most were cut and weld projects. There were a few dents to pound out, but most were clips. We reasoned that one manufacturer would be a good way to go. We chose BMW. We did a 2002 Tii, a 530i my mother drove another 19? years, a 320i my friend drove 12 years. It was fun! It didn't prove to be profitable as we never sold the cars. I fell in love, filled my spare time with a pretty girl who's now my beautiful wife, and couldn't spare the time. My partner and I got on each other's nerves and dissolved.

We rented a MIG. It was a Miller, I remember it as about the footprint of a modern Bobcat, but taller. It cost in 1979 about $4000 dollars equipped to work, and worked incredibly well.

I can't remember the model. What did Miller offer in the day?

Willie

For that time period the 2 most popular MIG machines were the MM35 & MM200

Millermatic 35

http://www.millerwelds.com/om/o1301b_mil.pdf

Millermatic 200

http://www.millerwelds.com/om/o1303_mil.pdf

Anything look familiar..??...

[WillieB]

Willie

For that time period the 2 most popular MIG machines were the MM35 & MM200

Millermatic 35

http://www.millerwelds.com/om/o1301b_mil.pdf

Millermatic 200

http://www.millerwelds.com/om/o1303_mil.pdf

Anything look familiar..??...

The sketches are so similar. They look so different up on a cart with tank(s).

[MinnesotaDave]

The pulstar 450 came out in 1979 and would have been expensive.
(or did you have a mig with a big silver crank on the front?)

[WillieB]

The pulstar 450 came out in 1979 and would have been expensive.
(or did you have a mig with a big silver crank on the front?)

Are you implying I'm old? No I don't think I had to crank it. I think it might have been it. Knowing me, I might have sales literature here someplace. I was in awe of its behavior. Until then, electric welding of very thin metals had been less than satisfactory.

[H80N]

Are you implying I'm old? .

.....I turned 27 in 1979...

and you feel old..??...

[WillieB]

My limited partner at the time was a big believer in lying big. He always had to arrange a meeting with the boss of everybody we wanted to do business with. He'd lay on the BS DEEP! The welder was the best Miller had to offer. I would marvel that if I could read the line of BS, why couldn't these business men? He'd tell people we were going to buy 10 cars a year from them, or we were definitely buying a top of the line MIG, we just hadn't chosen between Lincoln and Miller. That part really rubbed me the wrong way! Using the Miller did not.

[H80N]

Willie

if the welder was an "All in One" .... that is power supply and feeder combined in a single box .... rather than separate supply and feeder...

Then it was quite likely a MillerMatic-200... it was considered a big deal in it's day... (still a heck of a machine..)

Here is a link to some pics of an earlier "White Face" version...

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=87573

You probably bought yours at Merriam Graves....

[WillieB]

Rick Petty at Merriam Graves, Or it might have been earlier when it was still Grady Welding Supply. In the day I used to go often for O2 and acetylene. Did a lot of body work back then. I was tormented by the distortion of acetylene welding. The alternative was pop rivets. Those cars rusted out six months later. I'm amazed, there is a 73 Ford pickup I did cab corners, rockers, fenders, and door skins in maybe 77. It led a hard life, and the farmer took it off the road a couple years ago. I am a big fan of coating the inside with Texaco rustproofing grease. You probably don't approve, dealing with classic cars, but the stuff lasts 10 years longer than stone.

[H80N]

..... I'm amazed, there is a 73 Ford pickup I did cab corners, rockers, fenders, and door skins in maybe 77. It led a hard life, and the farmer took it off the road a couple years ago. I am a big fan of coating the inside with Texaco rustproofing grease. You probably don't approve, dealing with classic cars, but the stuff lasts 10 years longer than stone.

I sure have no problem using MIG and Rust-Proofing on work vehicles...
(I spent enough Vermont winters to marvel at how quickly a new vehicle could dissolve from the salt)

But I do prefer TIG for restorations or any automotive sheetmetal where you want an undetectable repair...

[WillieB]

No arguments there. Mig would have been less distortion than acetylene. TIG would have been like dying and going to heaven. I used MIG on only one job in those days. I didn't have an available $4000. $4000 was 1/5 the price of my home. It was more than my parents paid for their house. Most of my sheet metal was done with acetylene. I'd weld a tack, then hit it with compressed air to minimize the spread of HAZ. Straightening after all the dots were connected, meant grinding, then hammer and dolly. Only the BMWs and one Ford Tempo bought in a weak moment were wrecks. All others were rust buckets. What I thought you wouldn't approve was the grease.

[WillieB]

Come to think of it In the seventies I knew of a mysterious process called heliarc. I was led to believe it was done in a chamber like a sandblast cabinet using "plasma." To me at the time, plasma was "ball lightning", something very mysterious!

The only thing I had seen heliarc welded was an aluminum distributor from my 1960 Mercedes. It was smuggled into GE, welded, and returned to me polished, and the repair undetectable.

[Cgotto6]

Heliarc is tig with a helium mix, is it not? That's what I have been thinking every time I hear somebody say heliarc at least, haha.

[H80N]

TIG/GTAW/HELIARC welding

Heliarc is tig with a helium mix, is it not? That's what I have been thinking every time I hear somebody say heliarc at least, haha.

Here is a short article on the history of TIG/GTAW/HELIARC welding

http://www.netwelding.com/History_TIG_Welding.htm

[WillieB]

Heliarc I believe is synonymous with TIG. In the seventies we had no internet. VT didn't have a lot of educated weldors, Knowledge of this process was locally inside the walls of GE at its jet engine plant in Rutland. Things were secret military where that plant was concerned. I think in an earlier day of oil well drilling use of helium either pure or mixed with argon was more common.

I once had a TIG torch built in 1984 labeled "Genuine Heliarc" The identical torch was later built by Weldcraft.