I just got a box of goodies from River-Weld, and I thought I would post a review for anyone on the fence about them, like I was. A few months ago I knocked over my tray of TIG parts and was never able to find them all, plus there were some things that I didn't have anyway. It was time to buy some cups, so I figured I would fill in the gaps and get what will probably last me my lifetime, if I don't lose them. ;)
The price was right and everyone has said they have good parts for plasma cutters. The best way for me was to buy a few assortments to get a little of everything. The parts here are all WP-9/20. I also got some WP-17/18/26 parts, but I left them at the shop. I will compare these to the equivalent Weld-Craft parts, most of which are around 20 years old, so they may not be what are sold today, but pretty close.
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First let me say they were packaged very well and were sent DHL and got here in about a week. The website had some issues with other shipping methods and I like DHL anyway. The fit and finish is good to very good. There are a few differences, so I will list them. Nothing major, but just so you know. The collet bodies are machined very nice, and are free from burrs and extreme tool marks. About equal the the WC. Dimensionally they are nominally the same except the gas holes are 3/32" on the WC and 2mm on the RW. I doubt this will be noticeable and is more an issue of standard sizing for metric tooling vs imperial. The difference is about .4mm, also the holes are indexed to the wrench flats on the WC but not on the RW. Again a non-issue and probably due to one being totally automatically machined vs manual loading. Neither index the threads, and both threads fits are about the same. The machining on the collets is not quite as good on the RW and they are slightly bigger at the base. Again this is more of going with a metric standard. The WC use a back cap bore of 3/16" with a collet of .177" or .010" clearance. The RW use a back cap bore of 5mm and a collet of 4.9mm or .1mm clearance. This means the RW collet is .193" and won't quite fit all the way into the WC back caps. As long as you use the matching parts you have no problem. It would be a very simple matter to adjust either the back cap or collet to make them fit, but if you expect them to interchange and plug and play, they will not. I have no idea if this is true of other brands, it may be that everyone has slightly different standards, as all I have ever used are Weld-Craft.
I just chucked the collets backwards in a drill and kissed them with a file to take off a few thousandths, until they fit.
The cups seem identical and only time will tell how well they hold up, but they fit nice and have good threads. The insulators are again virtually the same and interchange. The back caps have slightly different shapes, but fit well with either collets. The extra short one (what a coworker calls the "toothpaste" cap) is a little bigger and has an extra thread or two and a taller cap, so it's not quite as svelte as the WC model. However, I know even WC has changed that cap a few times over the years, too.
The gas lenses are the one place where the low cost shows. I got them on a whim and to see what they look like. I'll have to see if they perform. They fit well and it looks like more cosmetic issues than anything else. I looked at WC at my LWS, and they didn't look much better. I also got some 2% Lanthanated tungstens, since I see an inverter in my future.
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