[NZCOBRA]

Hi Chuck, Most tig welders for site work and home are a DC inverter type , meaning they can stick weld and use low hydrogen rods etc which are high strength ,these rods are very hard to hold an arc on your (older home AC welder). There is normally a switch for hot start ,for stick welding . The DC inverter can also weld steel or stainless steel and some will have a switch for decreasing the power for the scratch start as its known .A helpful tip for getting your arc going is to rest the edge of your hand on the bench and bring your tungsten close to work ,and in a "small strike a match", action you should have an arc , if you get stuck wiggle tig torch side to side . Anyway you need to buy an AC-DC welder to be able to Tig weld both. The Aluminium needs High frequency to continuously excite the arc . I have at home a Lincon dc invertec V160-T pulse , I know that Lincon also make 250 amp ac-dc tig I think these will weld up to 5/16 aluminium and I am fairly sure the hand piece is not water cooled , Also when you get into Hi-fequency start it adds a switch to the hand piece making it it harder to control or be flexible , but you also get some different ways to start the arc 2 step and 4 step and decreasing power for finishing etc, go and look at some at a welding supplies shop, buy a known brand , there are a lot of cheapies for sale like at hardware stores .Stay away from them . Hope this helps Vaughn .

P.S Rob we have small Essab 160 at work and it has a switch for stick and tig.