I bought a Clarke about 3 years ago new from a fella on the mig welding forum, I'd never welded before, but i would call myself competent now from reading and practicing, and the whole thing about the bacon frying is so spot on its scary, the first time you hear that and you've got the action of little v's right then flip over the piece your practicing on and you'll see a lovely weld with good pentration. So basically after a little practice, good penetration is very satisfying.
And if you want to use proper gas without the annual rental that BOC insists that you have to pay (it's gone up a lot since I first got a contract bottle) you can try these guys http://www.adamsgas.co.uk/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=97 One off refundable deposit, plus your refill cost...
I think a yearly rental for a full size argoshield is £120 and a fill is around £90 , getting a mate to fill it these days is a nono as all the bottles are tagged, if you walk in with an untagged bottle that you got out the scrappy or from a mate and get a fill, expect a yearly rental bill through the post within the next fortnight ... they realy got themself sorted out a few years ago... but I hear that there closing a lot of the gas and gear centres in favour of local franchised collection points ..... Just had a look at the adams gas site, full size bottles 20% co2 argon is £91 plus vat I only use about 2 fills a year so it would save me around £120 a year, map shows nearest stockist in CANADA though dont know if I would get it in the overhead locker ....
Y size bottles are up at £110 for annual rental, and refills are around £80... I just got pee'd off with the constant pay pay pay... plus I have 2 bottles, one argoshield lite, and one pure argon... so I was dropping over £200 a year on rental... absolutely no need
plus the £10 handling charge ! Im similar with the argon and argon mix plus oxy acet... and folk wonder why when you tickle something with the welder you need a wee sweetner...
that's a stick welder (arc welder) you can weld bodywork with one, but that is a skill all in itself!!
now that is fine for gates.... My first welder about 35 years ago was a sip stic welder, I bought it for £25, I thought it was the buisness and welded everything that didnt get out the way quick enough, joining scrap with pidgeon Marmite blobs .. then it actually got pretty good with the slag lifting off of its own accord and a bright shiny stack of dimse underneath.. Then someone asked me to weld there rusty morris minor mot failure.. holy crap batman it was a festival of burnt flesh and big holes with something resembling spatter tentatively holding wee squares on tin to rust... it was torture... after that I patched stuff with thick steel they were like battleships when done LOL for get messin with jacking points, in them there days I smaked the remains off with a claw hammer, flattened the swarf and welder on a 3mm thick chunk of 2x2 box section where it touched... LOL ah the good old days...