If you go on craigslist or similar classified advertising sites to find Mig welders for sale you will find several, and sometimes many for at different price points.
If you know what you are doing you might find a good deal on a welder in your area. The problem with buying used mig welders on classified sites locally is that you don’t know what you are going to get until you drive out to a strangers house and either take his word for it, or try it out on some scrap metal.
Find quality used mig welders here.
If you are looking for a Mig welder and you want to make sure it’s in good used condition here are a few tips.
Open it up and take a look at the wire feed mechanism.Be sure the area is clean and that it runs wire through the hose at different speeds while you adjust the tension. If then tension rollers are not adjusting properly you are going to have a jamming which is a huge pain the rear end. Sometimes you just need to change the roller because a lot of newbies forget to change the roller for the wire size and if the wire is too thick or thin for the roller you have constant problems with jams.
I’ve seen guys go buy what they thought was a lemon of a welder only to discover that the guy who was using it didn’t change the roller. What they ended up getting was a $900 welder for a couple hundred bucks.
Also, you want to be sure the gas flow is working properly and the regulator and hose has a good seal. If it doesn’t then the person selling probably ran out of gas a long time ago and all you need to do is put some teflon tape on the threads and give it a couple turns to seal it up.
Enter eBay. This is a great place to buy used welding equipment because you can see what sellers feedback ratings are for buying and selling.
However, there are a few pitfalls you should avoid:
Make sure they have a good long track record of actually selling items. And if they have a good track record of selling welding equipment or construction equipment and their listings look like they know what they are talking about then they might be a good seller. So you should ask the seller a welding related question and see how they respond.
If they sound like they don’t know much about welding perhaps you should move on because a lot of people buy used equipment or go to garage sales and don’t know what they are selling exactly and if they are selling a used welder that is not working well you might be getting a lemon.