Hello from Wisconsin.

And they explode when you feed them Alka Seltzer tablets....

 

Basic welding and later on I may buy a tinker toy metal lathe and tinker toy mill.

 

Good place to start in my opinion. Allows repairing or creating parts for various things when trying to fabricate or repair things.

We do have a professional welder or two around here and their opinion my differ, but an oxygen acetylene torch set up is a good starting point. You can cut, weld, braze and limited heat treat. Just heating up frozen nuts and bolts to break them free is wonderful all by itself. Some of the skills and experiences can transfer and help with other forms of welding. Torch control with gas helps a bunch should you get into TIG. Understanding metal expansion during gas welding applies to electric welding. And you don't need any special electric outets wired into your garage/shop to start with gas.

Get name brand gear like Victor or Harris. I bought my first Victor torch set nearly 38 years ago and it works as good today as when new and tips and parts are still readily available. Because these have been around for years, used one's are easy to find and cost no more than new Chinese junk.

BEWARE buying used tanks. Often the tanks are not actualy sold buy the gas supplier and only leased. That means the "owner" can't actually sell it and this may present a problem when trying to get a tank refilled. Furthermore, they require hydrostatic inspections every five years to insure they are safe. Insist on paperwork proving ownership if buying used tanks. Leased tanks often have the owning company stamped into the metal or in raised type around the neck just below the valve. The stamped marks lower will have manufacturer, pressure rating, last inspection, etc.

If you dont buy used tanks, shop around as the tank programs differ a lot. Some are lease programs with regular costs, some are just a simple deposit, some are buy into a pool of tanks and you "own" a pair of tanks but just swap them when needing a fill. Filling acetylene tanks takes a long time, generally 24 hours or more as the gas has to dissolve into liquid acetone inside to be stable, so swap programs can be less hassle than dropping a tank and coming back a couple days later to pick it up. Be sure you understand what happens if you were to move and cease a relationship with that gas supplier or they go out of business. You don't want to get stuck with tanks no other supplier will fill and you can't get a deposit back.

After you get going with gas, you might want a bit more welding capabiity. A modest size MIG (wire feed welder) is a good place to start with electricity. MIG is easy to get decent welds and welds can be built up with multiple passes for thicker materials. I have watched 140 ton capacity mine truck frames made from 3" thick plate steel welded together with dozens a passes to create 6" radius fillets in the weld joint. Again get name brand such as Miller, Lincoln, Hobart, Century as there are consumable parts such as torch tips that you want to be able to buy 10 years from now. etc. I am a fan of Miller and have several Miller and Lincoln welders and cutters.

There are small MIG welders that will run on 120 volts but I don't generally recommend those. They usually are designed to be cheap and are. Pay attention to duty cycle. This the percentage of time you can actually weld usually in a 10 minute period. I've seem some that were only 20% which means you could weld for just 2 minutes and then need to let the machine cool for 8! 50% while inadequate for making a living, gets you a reasonable amount of hobbyist welding. A lower end 240 volt MIG welder is a good starting point and if you ever outgrow it, you'll know, will have no trouble selling it, and you'll probably keep it as backup as you are probably making money welding if you out grew it. Also consider a unit that can accommodate a spool gun. This is a the torch handle device that holds a small spool of wire instead of pushing it through a 10-12 foot long hose from the welder to the hand held torch/control. This is needed if you ever decide to get into welding aluminum as the aluminum welding wire doesn't like to be pushed through the hose very far and will jam up in the feed rollers in the welder. Be sure you can use flux core wire so if shielding gas (argon or argon/CO2 mix) is not available SHTF you can still weld if your generator can power the welder (on lower settings.)

I've had a couple lathes and vertical mills. Don't skimp on mill size as tiny toy mills take forever to do much and often chatter due to column to table flex. The are some mill/drill rigs now that are nice, just be sure to look for a dovetail column and not a round column if you can find one. The reason is if we drill a hole then switch to a collet holding a mill bit, you'll like need to lower the heads and it is a pain to loose bit/work piece registration when changing head height. I have a 16" mill-drill I use all the time, love it. Tooling will cost a bunch so plan accordingly.

A small lathe is nice but get at least a 6 inch swing and 12-14" if you have room and bucks. 18 inch between centers is a min. There are smaller lathes great for model building, but if you want to make a part for your car or something, those will often not have enough capacity. Note the swing is the diameter of work piece that can fit over the bed but NOT over the carriage. Swing over the carriage (the device that moves on the bed with the cutting tool) can be half of less of the rated "swing." So, roughly a three inch diameter object is the maximum size item you can turn on a 6" swing machine.

I got my first drill press and metal lathe 40 years ago and first mill/drill 20 years ago. Knowing what I know now, I'd probably recommend getting a mill/drill first unless you know that the work you plan to do needs the lathe.

Don't forget basics like a robust work bench with at least a 5-6" jaw vise, drill bits, Drill Doctor bit sharpened, etc.

Anyway, a few misc. thoughts.
Have fun.
AT