The Shed Saga

I've had a couple of friends spending a lot of their time over here helping me out with the shed build and clearing up a load of my junk, and there's a lot of junk. The shed is now fully insulated, and all joints have been taped. The doors have not been insulated with the foil coated bubble wrap and will be insulated with polystyrene to help add a bit more rigidity and thickness. This should enable me to fit more effective draft excluders instead of the stick on strip of foam type that eventually just degrade.
I'm waiting on their next visit to have them come to the store with me and load up the sheets of wood that we will be using to board out the majority of the shed. I'm thinking about using some more substantial sheet over the bench area to enable me to hang french cleats to utilize for more shelving, tool hangers etc.
I did have a message about the front axle assembly that was supposed to be here before Christmas, that it should be getting here at some point in Feburary, still no major rush as we aren't anywhere near finished with the tool shed.
Hope fully there will be more interesting updates coming in the not too distant future, but for the mean time, sheds, health, family commitments and the imminent arrival of chickens are taking president leaving me with little time.

Which Welder?!

As you may have gathered there is going to be some pretty serious fab work to be done on my build, and in order to do it I need a new welder. This puts me in the horrible position that has been faced by many before me, which welder should I buy, gas or gas-less, how many amps do I need, the list goes on...
Most automotive welding will only require a relatively cheap, low amperage, machine. Anything around 180 amps will be more than capable of tackling almost every job you need to do, unless you intend on shortening axles or similar heavy work.
Welders often (if not always) come with a cheat sheet, a settings guide, you just have to view it with a pinch of salt, and add some artistic license. Similarly a lot of manufacturers seem to over rate their welders, stating 1mm in excess of its true maximum settings capability is common place and needs to be taken into consideration.

Following a lot of research before and during the Christmas period I have decided which welder I will be buying for my occasional, hobby uses, more specifically, this build. It is the very same unit that I had been considering a little over ten years ago. It continues to get good write ups and recommendations, and is still on the market, I can only assume that it is capable of doing what it is supposed to and is of sufficient quality.

Machine Mart's Clarke MIG 196 No-Gas/Gas Mig Welder

This particular machine has won itself a place on my shopping list, for numerous reasons, the main ones being, there's no need to shell out on a hugely expensive setup for a single build, occasional or hobby use. It has received consistently decent write ups, and are said to be one of the better options in this and higher price brackets. It is possible to find this machine for little over £200 and seeing as it'll do all I want and a bit more the choice has almost been made for me.
These little 180 amp welders are supposed to do very well for the money, and should be man enough to weld up to around 5-6mm with a bit of prep work.
The ability to be able to use flux cored or regular wire is a huge plus point for me, having to do a lot of vital welds out in the open.

I previously owned an incredible machine, a Murex Tradesmig, but it took up an awful lot of space, it was never designed to run gas-less wire, which seeing as I do most of my welding outside was a huge downfall. It just didn't work properly with flux cored wire, it didn't have the correct roller profile and you couldn't reverse the polarity.
In the not too distant future I will be the, hopefully, proud owner of a nice new little welder, though it will be a while yet, I don't see the need to have money tied up in something I wont be using until I have amassed a satisfactory amount of parts.