Looking for a welder in Pleasanton, CA (selection help and battling being cheap too)
The "gas" is, read on.........You still need electric power.
"MIG" stands for Metal Inert Gas welder. The popular smaller, user machines come one or two ways.......
With "flux core" wire, which works exactly like "stick" welding rod---the chemical in the core of the wire vaporizes during welding and acts as the shielding gas.
But much cleaner, and with virtually NO slag, is to use inert gas. The common gas for most welding is an Argon/ CO2 mix, sold for that purpose. I myself have never used anything other than simple CO2, which is one heck of a lot cheaper, and still works for the great amount of my welding.
The welder has a hose fitting, so the bottle you get feeds through the regulator to drop to a very low pressure, and goes to a solenoid valve in the welder. When you pull the torch trigger, the welder starts to feed wire and turns on the gas solenoid. The low pressure gas then flows up to the torch head and is expelled around the outside of the wire, which forms a small "cloud" if you will to keep air out of the weld area.
Between "gas" which uses plain (smaller) welding wire, and "flux core" which is quite large, you need to change the innards of the welding cable/ torch, which is usually pretty easy. Any (new) machine that comes for both uses would come with the cable jacket for those two purposes.
I would ask if this welder comes this way or not.
I have to tell you I'm no longer a fan of Sears/ Craftsman largely BECAUSE of their parts dept. If for some reason they decide to no longer support that unit for replacement parts, you might very well be "screwed."
There's a good reason why most of us recommend such brands as Linclon, Miller, etc.
Some will tell you that Craftsman might be "made by" XXXXX but the fact is that ANY big box store, which includes Sears, Lowes, etc, often HAS THESE BUILT under a special cost cutting contract. This includes such things as John Deere lawn/ garden tractors, which typically, example, come with cheaper bearing assemblies in the mower decks, and other parts. I can assure you that the JD dealer does NOT want to talk with you. That's just one example.