I can't take credit for the radiator, I only machined up the brackets for the fan. Norm at Aussie Desert cooler built the rad for me and he's very good with a Tig.
I looked at doing the phase converter with my milling machine. It's a huge Cincinati Toolmaster turret mill about 7' tall. It had a 3HP 3 phase motor on it and I thought about getting 3 phase installed (too expensive) checked out the phase converters but getting one that could deliver enough grunt to drive the motor was pretty expensive too. In the end I bought a 3HP single phase motor and machined up an adaptor plate and new shaft to mount it and it works a treat. I have a 240V 35A main circuit I installed into my workshop and several seperate 15A feeds off that that'll run pretty much every thing I have.
My friends and I have found it much cheaper to buy ex industrial 3 phase equipment than smaller single phase stuff. The single phase stuff is mor popular with home users so fetches a higher price. I'm part of a group friends that have a heap of machinery between us. We can pretty much do most machining jobs between us. I've got more of the small/medium machinery but I've only got a 30'x30' shop. A friend up country has a 30'x90' shop and has some huge 3 phase machines but he's more into fixing tractors and heavy stuff. Great fun to see the size of some the huge cuts he does on the lathe. Stand back or that swarf will grab hold of you
My Tig is a smaller portable unit and it uses Mosfets rather than a transformer to deliver the current. It's fairly basic and doesn't have a high frequency generator in it or a power back off so I can't weld aluminium with it (touch start only). It's great for stainless, molly and mild steel though and that's what I'm using it for. I bought a gas lens for it a couple of weeks back and I'm very impressed with it. I've found I can extend the electrode further to get into tight corners.
I still think the Mig is the best all rounder for a home shop. I set mine up with a teflon liner and a roll of aluminium wire the other day but I think I'll need a fair bit more practice to do a decent aluminium weld. lose your arc and that wire is going to bunch up on the rollers quicker than you can release the trigger. I've got it working OK but it needs a lot more tuning. I've set it up with just a whisker of tension on the pinch roller so that you can stop the wire feeding with your hand and the roller slips. The welds don't look as good as steel yet but... practice practice practice.
I'm not a pro but I think my welding is pretty good. The Mig is my best friend but Tig is still a new skill for me. The Tig skills are steadily improving with practice.
Here's a few pics of my welding
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