My friend (who has been welding for a while, and uses a Clarke mig welder) told me that Clarke manufactures the Chicago Electric (the Harbor Freight stuff) line of welders. I googled it and didn't find anything about it. He told me he researched it after he got his Clarke, and to his surprise he found that tidbit.

Is there any validity to this? I'm looking to buy something, but want to do some more research.

Thanks.

 

Your friends full of ****!

Clarke is made in Italy for an English company.
Chigaco Electric is made in China for Harbor freight exclusively.

The two machines are as different as apples and fireworks.

I own a clarke and its a damn fine machine, Its had 40 10lbs rolls of wire thru it in the last year and no issues AT ALL! NONE. I dont think I have heard that from any manufacterer before!

Their customer service is amazing, and I dont see that happening with Chicago Electric

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Formula Racing &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Your friends full of ****!

Clarke is made in Italy for an English company.
Chigaco Electric is made in China for Harbor freight exclusively.

The two machines are as different as apples and fireworks.

I own a clarke and its a damn fine machine, Its had 40 10lbs rolls of wire thru it in the last year and no issues AT ALL! NONE. I dont think I have heard that from any manufacterer before!

Their customer service is amazing, and I dont see that happening with Chicago Electric</TD></TR></TABLE>

Well....somebody is full o' ****.

My Chicago Electric flux core wire feeder (now collecting dust in the corner of my garage) is made in italy, as are several others sold by harbor freight. Clarke sells a rebadged private label welder just like a bunch of other distributors, and they all shop around for the best prices. Its very possible that Clarke and HF welders come or have come out of the same plant.

 

I googled "made in italy chicago electric", and there are many instances of chicago electric welders being made in Italy. Maybe their (Chicago Electric) products are made in China, but their welders seem to lead towards Italy, atleast from my limited search. Let's not forget half of the products we use come from China, from both brand and off-brand companies.

So anyone else chime in on this subject?

Update: I just bought a Chicago Electric Tig/Arc Inverter (Don't know exactly what that all means yet) for 160$. There was a sale that reduced the price down to 200$ and on top of that I had a coupon for 20%. I'm excited about it.


Modified by scartail at 3:33 AM 4/30/2006

 

my HF welder is made in Italy, but idk if it's made by clarke or not -_-

 

I hear a lot of HF welders goes down the toilet shortly after being used for a little bit...I bought a refurbished clarke(used, for the record) and haven't had any problems.

 

I think the Chicago Electric ones take a crap b/c they have a low duty cycle and people push them too far. The one I bought only has a 30% duty cycle at 130 amps (I believe).

 

Man, I hammer my 130EN mig welder at full blast the whole time I'm welding and never had a problem.

 

Do you follow the recommended duty cycle? Or do you really beat on it?

 

lol....I weld consistently till I get tired, I finish my project, or the machine fails.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by supercreed2002 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">lol....I weld consistently till I get tired, I finish my project, or the machine fails.</TD></TR></TABLE>

WERD!

I welded my deck supports with it. Thats running all 180 AMP ( Ihave a 180 EN) for about 5 minutes sustained and never hit the limit of the duty cycles! I then changed wire rolls and it still went flawlessly till the job was done!

Show me a Chicago electric capable of that and Ill buy you a beer!