Draper 16057 Gas/Gasless Mig Welder (100A) - Multicoloured

I gave this to my brother who welds occasionally (I dont). he reckons it works well, is pretty easy to use and appears good value for a "brand". I cant add anything else!

Absolutely uselessTook out of box on Monday, set it up ready to weld and the feed roller decided not to workWill cost me a fortune to send it back because it is heavy so now dont know what to do with itDefo would not recommend buying this productDraper product support is shocking no answer call no reply to messagesHopefully the lack of support is down to Covid 19

Two things about this review. Firstly, this unit was dead on arrival and secondly because I already have an almost identical MiG unit - with a different name on the side - I can give a few words about it - if it worked.The first thing you will notice is that this is a damned heavy bit of kit. Really. I'm a regular gym user and despite the grey hair I can lift a bit of weight and I noticed this when I carried it to my garage for sure. Now, whilst this is no bad thing because it indicates at least something inside is heavy duty, it raises the question as to the actual construction standards.In one picture you will notice the lid is hinged up - which is to allow access to fit the MiG wire - and the hinge is literally a pop rivet with a couple of self tappers to act as a backstop. And this lid is where the handle is located for carrying this which, in my opinion is ridiculous. If you have this unit as a transportable thing then sooner or later that lid is going to come off, leaving you with a broken welder and very possibly very sore feet. I appreciate that this is a DIY welder and as such costs are sharper than a mother-in-laws tongue but, there is a limit.The other thing is that whilst this is a gas/no-gas unit the reel of MiG wire is for gas use. This means that to get up and ruinning you will need a regulator, gas supply and a hose. The fitting is 8.5mm. Or go buy some gasless MiG wire. Either way, without some more purchases you are not going welding with this out of the box.Supplied with this is the usual pathetic welding mask. This is the hand held variety which probably cost about 10p to make. Draper should have not supplied this and instead spent the saving on a decent hinge point for the lid.So, assuming that you buy gas, a regulator and hose - plus jubilee clips of course - you can weld. And going on the experience of my other MiG welder its not bad. You have a feed adjustment from dead slow to manic - pick your own, but I find I prefer to weld with Mig fairly fast and that will come with practice. There are four power settings which gives you enough range to do a decent range of welding between 1mm and 10mm. The welding head is quite nice to use compared to some I've found (on my other almost identical MIG welder) being fairly short meaning good tip control. The lever/button is nice a tactile too.Duty cycle means that you can't weld continuously but for most home use this will not be a problem unless you are a hobby 1:1 shipbuilder.Now, back to the bad. The welder I got was dead. Not completely because it would power up and the fan would go, but unfortunately the feed roller did not turn. Nothing at all. I would imagine that sometime during transit this was banged and something has broken or come loose. When I get time I'll strip this machine down and have a look. Needless to say that if I was needing this I'd be very disapointed.So, overall a very average Mig welder. If it worked that is.

This is a solidly made mig welder. It's made of good materials and is therefore quite heavy but doesn't take up too much space. You can use gas and that does help, but using it without gas gets good results too, and you can easily control how much power is going through it depending on what sort of metal you're working. Mostly I use it for making sculptures. It does a good job for that.

I’m no proBut as a start up welder it’s perfect, well made apart from issue with the hindges for the kid, a little weak idea and you could possibly end up with sore feet. I wear steel toe caps so fairly safe and I’d recommend the same. But for set up and straight to welding just buy another role of fluxed cored wire and mask and away you go. Draper is a trusted brand and although you can buy cheaper ones that look the same they won’t last long just check out on you tube about the Chinese ones etc

Draper is a well known name for quality and the welder lives up to that reputation as it is really very well made. In the box with the welder is a hand held mask, spool of solid iron and a clear and comprehensive hand book. One side of the welder features clearly labelled switches and dials. At the other side there is a connection for gas. Gas however is not essential unless you wish to use it. My husband is thrilled with this as although he has had welders on and off for many years he has never had one of this quality. He tells me it is so easy to set up and use . He is on cloud nine

This review has been written by my husband ...I already owned and used a Flux core [gasless] 100amp mig welder and found it frustratingly hard to do anything but produce untidy spot welds effectively.But when I received this Draper 16057 mig gas/gasless 100amp welder, I invested in a small bottle of gas and the required accoutrements [regulator and a length of pipe] and was hopeful of good results.Once set up, it became apparent how much smoother and cleaner the welding process was.Set the welder to Min power for thinner gauge metal and Max power for thicker gauge metal. Play around with the wire speed on practice pieces of metal, until you get the required penetration and controlled arc on your work.Experience is everything with welding but with practice and reading the literature that comes with the machine, I was getting the sort of results I was looking for. On thin gauge metal, you are only ever going to be able to stitch weld. But once speed was set right, it welded cleanly without much splatter and good penetration. On thicker gauge metal, you could butt weld perfectly. Again Max setting on power and wire speed adjustment gave good durable results.Changing the polarity of the machine and replacing the wire for Flux core wire is quick and easy. Once set, the same application of power and speed, depending on thickness of metal was utilised. The splatter and noise was predictably different and the result produced was not as nice as the gas weld variant. But still very serviceable with reasonable penetration.All in all a very good addition to my workshop. I’m confident that any welding job I need to do will be well served with this excellent unit.