My age is 43 and I would gladly take white hair or gray hair over the deserters any day. You can not color what is not there.
I use mostly mig on thin metal only because I have it. If I knew 10 years ago what I know now then I never would have bought the mig machine. (Or if somebody would be foolish enough to give me the $750 or so dollars that I have invested in it then I would glady send it down the road) Nothing wrong with the machine itself as it really is a fine machine, but in practicality it is just an expensive luxury that I could easily do without. It is a one trick pony that only excels on thin metal and helpful if you weld a lot of metal less than 1/16" thick. There are people and business for whom mig makes perfect sense - I simply am not one of them.
Give be an AC (or AC/DC) buzzbox stick anyday which I also have and use. I have actually zero interest in acquiring an inverter based stick welder.
a) Can weld metal 1/16 to whatever thickness reasonably easily and very cheaply with my buzzbox stick. (no extra costs that add up over time like mig either).
b) Add Twin Carbon arc torch and I have a nearly free source of intense heat for bending metal, loosening rusted nuts, brazing, silver soldering etc. (Inverter not suited for this task so they are out for me).
c) If you are lucky enough to have DC too, then you can easily add a tig torch to even alowly DC buzzbox in order to weld thin metal via scratch start tig (plus bottle and gas) for thinner stuff.
d) Can also use the arc welder to cut metal and pierce holes in metal - try doing that with a mig unit.
While a stick welder will not always be the ideal tool for every job - it can actually do many jobs where the mig can only really do 1 job (limited to lower cost migs that a homewoner might purchase).
