A lot depends on length of exposure. I frequently fabricate and tack stuff up with no gloves, and short sleeves. Not ideal but I don't sunburn easily. I like the dexterity of having fingers available to operate tools and position parts. For extended welding I like John Tillman deerskin TIG gloves. They make a ton of different kinds of TIG gloves and have a pretty good size selection. Different leathers, cuff lengths, thumb designs, etc. It's the kind of thing that would be hard to select online, but since you have no options, you may just look at the pictures and see if anything stands out. Or buy a few pair and use the best for welding and make work gloves out of the rejects. When my TIG gloves start to get stiff, they get rotated down to more grunge work.
http://jtillman.com/products/gloves/tig/
For aluminum the light is so bright and reflective, that I wear sleeves or I will get a sunburn on the inside of my elbows. I also have a little leather flap on the bottom of my helmet partially to protect my neck, but mainly to keep the light from reflecting inside my helmet causing glare.
CK flexlock works great for some things, and not so good for others. A standard flex head is probably the most useful torch. But for walking the cup a rigid torch is best.
For sure get a gas saver or some type of gas lens setup. Depending on your torch you might want a stubby kit.
A gas cooled torch cable is a lot easier to handle and is way more flexible than a water cooled bundle. Also it is very easy to extend that for long distances. Some of that is going away with small inverter welders, since it's a lot easier to move the machine to the work than to drag long cables or move the gas bottle like used to be done with huge welding machines.
Filler rod is all about how much you weld. I would say ER70S2 in .040", 1/16" and 3/32". 309 is a doall stainless and 1/16" is all I keep around. Hard to guess quantities without knowing more, but the one to stock up on is ER70S2 in 1/16" get at least 5 pounds of that. maybe a pound each of the others and see what you use most of. How much MIG wire do you use regularly? That will give you an idea of how many pounds you will go through in a given time.
2% Thoriated or Lanthinated tungsten can be used for everything. A pack of 1/16" and 3/32" should last you a long time.
You can grind tungsten with different things. Tungsten is really hard so it grooves up most grinding wheels pretty fast. Diamond wheels are the way to go, and while the big ones are pricey, I just use a little cheapy from Harbor freight on a tiny 3" 10K rpm bench grinder as a low cost solution that has been working great. Having said that, for steel I will often touch up a tungsten on an angle grinder right where I am working. Not ideal and not good for stainless or aluminum, but for general steel fab it's fine.
http://www.harborfreight.com/large-d...-pc-69658.html
Gotta get a TIG finger or two. Sounds like you might need the XL version.
Argon pricing is all over the map. There is a thread on this forum somewhere about that. I think the record price was in Hawaii but you might beat that. 
Get quotes for all the different sizes, too. There might very well be transportation issues with too large a size and you will get a better deal with two smaller bottles than a single large one.
Chair can be a practice welding project. You can make the perfect height for your bench. WTAT has a video on making a little screw adjust stool you can use for inspiration.
Long arc, short arc, heliarc and in-the-dark!
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Originally Posted by RoatanBill
