One Welder to Rule Them All---HAPPY BLACK FRIDAY..

[Chris In Milwaukee]

No doubt My brother is a life-long electrician. You should see the discussions of Romex versus pipe benders!

[fairchild]

Mot sure what he is refering to about Tig "over" mig. Mig wire is commomnly ER70S6 and tig wire is usualy ER70s3--- only difference being the elements added to absorb
various contaminants. I have Tig welded plenty of thin ( paper thin) steel with the mig wire. welds fine and is supposed to flow a little better than the S3 version.
Is Swain referring to some chemical incompatibility ? OR -- is he talking about the HAZ situation that the fast Mig tack created and that the TIG bead going on over it doesnt
completely anneal the area ????

Brad---- do NOT dispair---- its easy---- once you learn where to put the machine adjustments.
Try about 13 CFM argon...... keep a short arc length (1/16) --- for steel ( like 3/32) adjust to about 50 amps--- go slow and wait on a puddle. Dont overheat-- be patient-
when the puddle get to be about the size of a BB- then make a dip. Keep the end of the rod about 1/2 inch forward of the puddle.(must keep the rod in the argon too so the
end doesnt oxidise) --- move forward with the arc about 3/32 and stop and wait for another puddle.... rinse and repeat...... Just weld in little tiny steps when you are beginning.
One droplet of rid in each puddle--- the droplets overlap about 1/3 with their neighbors. On steel go slow-- wait for the puddle- dont floor it (amps) -- Keep you arc length
short and dont touch the tungsten to the work or the rod.

Doing aluminum--- you WANT to floor it and move along. For stainless ---- you go even slower than with steel. might take 10 or 12 sec. to get a puddle without overheating.
(which is REALLY easy with SS)

Its really pretty easy - but having someone to show you really speeds learning up !

T

[Brad Ripp]

Fairchild - Thanks for the tips! I was going to make a joke in the post about "surely this machine is broken." I usually do pretty well at something I want to do, but all I made was holes in thin metal. The good news is....., it was broken! I had a pro come by today to show me how to do it and he scratched his head for 30 minutes trying different settings. Kept fowling the tungsten like I did. But his was a much prettier fowl than mine . Last resort, he swapped the leads plugging into the machine and Walla! I must be wrong, but I checked the maual and swore it said the positive was supposed to go to the welding lead. It didn't. I asked him to weld examples of the several situations I'd be in (tabs on tubing, tubing to tubing, and thin sheet stringer brackets to tubing) and I tried a few practice runs after he left. Very relieved now that I think I can get dangerous enough to do my own (non-structural) welding after a little more practice. I knew it couldn't be me!

[Bdflies]

Because TIG welders are also usable for SMAW (stick welding), depending on what you were reading, you might well have read correctly. SMAW, when using DC current, is done DCEP (Dierct Current Electrode Positive). DC TIG is DCEN (Direct Current Electrode Negative).
Way too many acronyms, don't you think?

Bill

[Brad Ripp]

3 practice sessions and I welded (TIG) on my plane. Sounds pretty reasonable, right? Probably taboo to open yourself up to welding pics, but if anyone is interested, you can see some of this evolution on my build log. http://www.mykitlog.com/BradR/

[fairchild]

Brad-
You will get better as you get more co-ordination and comfort doing it. Going around a tube will always be harder than just straight because your hand position for both hands
moves continuously. try to make all your motions and speeds very constant and machine-like. try to keep your arc-gap about 1 mm. (but dont touch :-) )

Yes- the torch should be in the Neg. terminal - but it may or may not be labeled like that on a Tig machine.
If you had it backwards on DC - all the heat would go into the tungsten instead of the work. On AC for aluminum--- the work heating happens on tungsten (electrode) negative-
and durring the reverse cycle when the tungsten is positive-- the current is sucking dirty gook off the surface of the work (cleaning it) and depositing said gook onto your tungsten.
(if you have it more than 50 or 60 % you can see the tungsten getting junked up fairly quickly- and it gets hotter too - to the profile of the tungsten may change)

On steel- watch the tip of your tungsten. If it gets blue- turn the gas up a little. If it gets worse - turn it to lower than the first setting. (I have found about 11 to 13 CFM) seems
to be a sweet spot.

Dont be afraid to grind the tungsten if it looks dirty or irregular--- or if the puddle starts fighting you. You can also clean the work with a steel tooth brush every few inches.

Also watch the end of the welding rod--- how it looks. If it gets out of the argon while the tip is hot- the end will oxidize...... then on the next dip it wont want to flow nicely
like you want it to. If you keep the work clean and a short arc gap it will all most just flow on effortlessly.

A fellow that was a very good welder that used to work for my dad..... we tried to employ convicts on work release to help them. He was telling me about trying to teach these
Gomers how to weld better. They would come and claim the welder was broken. (it was a stick welder) He would explain to them that the welder wasnt broken........
Then he would put a rod in the clamp---- bend the rod a little like a rocking chair bottom----- then he would lay the rod and holder down on top of a piece of flat sheet.
then he would walk over and turn on the machine. It would start welding and deposit the whole rod onto the sheet with no one even touching it. The he would hand them
the sheet with a perfect bead the welder made without a human even touching it. --- and say "the welder aint broke" ....
Similar to flying--- when you are shown that the airplane can fly ist self better than you can fly it (when you are starting and overcontroling it ----)

When you do a weld on your airframe--- you dont want a pit or a hole in the bead. Those can cause all kinds of problems. Usualy you want to grind the surface localy
and re-do the bead on those. Also another detail to avoid--- at the end of the bead the last dip can have a little tiny pit in its center. Dont want that as it can be a place for
cracks to start. When you get to the end of the bead.... cut the current down some and do some circular orbits around the spot where the pit forms- that will let the puddle
flow a little and wash in the pit and make that last bit nice and smooth. The inspector should gig you for any pits in your bead. The nice part is you can always grind however much
of the bead down and go over it again and re-flow it-- adding however much rod as needed.
T

[rv8bldr]

I don't know about the rest of you folks, but I have been REALLY enjoying this master class in the finer tips of TIG welding. I keep reading things like "make sure you don't do this or you will have that kind of issue" and sure enough, that's exactly what happened to me and I couldn't figure out why. I had put my little Miller DIversion 180 aside after too many frustrating hours of making crappy welds and just bought more acetylene. Now i'm kind of pumped to break it out again and work at getting decent welds with it with my (largish) pile of scrap steel.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge, fairchild (and all you other master welders). It is really helpful to us complete amateurs (especially us software nerds: we're hopeless :-)

[S Lathrop]

When I started welding, I taught myself to gas weld aluminum with Oxygen Acetylene equipment. Mostly an ego trip but I found that that skill carried over to TIG very well.

I did have special goggles and the proper flux. Because the goggles filter out red, you had to watch the metal as it changed with temperature and how the puddle was forming. Heat control and feeding the rod were critical to aluminum welding. When I then learned TIG, the transition was very easy.

When I was a kid, race car bodies were welded aluminum and that was what I was trying to copy.

[Brad Ripp]

Thanks Fairchild! I take it that little pit hole or two didn't get by you? The pictures make them look much worse than they are. O.K., I'll grind.

[fairchild]

Brad- I have found that when I am trying to run a good bead- and I can see that the puddle seems to be getting a little dirty (when it resists flowing nicely) then the puddle will resist
wetting one side of the work--- and you move on---- that leaves a pit kind of defect there. It seems to be associated with the puddle not being completely clean. what that probably means is that
a tiny bit of air got to it as you were moving along. Could be torch angle, too little argon, using a gas lens on inside corner and making a vortex which sucks air in, and maybe other reasons
we cant even see. But --- when you see the puddle getting where its stops wetting ---- just stop--- use your steel tooth brush to clean it off, grind your tungsten for good measure--
then start again where you left off. you will see its is instantly better.

Also many times when I was learning-- if I held too big of a arc gap- that tended to make the puddle dirty- also it often gave a melt-through. The shorter the arc length the better
it will work. Try to keep it to 2 mm if you can. A short arc length will also keep those lateral edge gaps from forming. For thin steel tubing- use a small current with a short arc length
and be patient and wait for the puddle. Dont get in a hurry.

Something to watch for when dipping the rod--- when you dip- it is good to see the filler just added to the puddle wet forward a little. That is a sign that the puddle is clean and behaving
nicely. If it is doing that it is probably doing it sideways too- which is good as it tends to indicate it will likely be wetting into the sideways parts. On the other hand-- if you dip and you
dont see that nice wetting--- you may see that last dip draw up into a ball and just surface tension its self---- so if you see it stop wetting--- just stop --- brush the work, grind the
electrode and clip off the end of the welding rod. If you mess up and get the end of the welding rod out of the argon during the dipping--- the rod will oxidize on the red hot tip-
then on the next dip you may get the lack of wetting and surface tension thing starting. If the dips dont want to wet each side and forward---- something like that happened.

Accidently getting the rod out of the argon is very easy to do----- because you are often putting 150% of your attention on the arc gap trying not to touch the work-- trying not to
touch the rod to the tungsten- . you can practice keeping the welding rod as close to the arc as you can without the heat melting a liquid ball on the end of the rod. just back the rod
out a little at a time until its not melting the tip of the rod. This is useful for another reason---- when you dip the rod into the puddle-- that cools the puddle just a little. That allows
you to reduce the temp of the puddle. (to NOT overheat) Then you just wait a fraction of a second for the puddle to get liquid again for the next dip.

This is ALL SO MUCH EASIER if someone can show you this in person. I took a semester class at our local county tech school. It wasnt perfect--- but it got me started
on the basics and you had someone to ask questions of (when he wasnt swamped with the other 60 students) After that class I kept practicing for another 2 years
to refine my skills. During that period I got extra practice welding all kinds of stuff for other people and for work. That got me more practice in a short time which helped too.
gradually learned to weld thinner and thinner aluminum sheet. I can usually do .040 ---- maybe .032 on a good day. There are special cheats you can do when you get that thin too.
(like a thermally conductive back-up plate behind the joint.) or using a 50 or 60 % electrode negative setting (thats 40 or 50% cleaning) That helps keep the work cooler and the
extra cleaning helps prevent accidental holes.

Tig'ing is pretty easy and wonderfull once you get all the machine adjustments right and get your hands and feet synchronized. I also use a magnifying lens in the helmet.
My theory is that you cant weld any better than you can see. It seems to really help when you are trying to hold a very short arc gap. (which I always try to)

Hope this is encouragement for anyone who has a machine but got discouraged. Watch all of Jodys' vids at welding tops and tricks. He is really the greatest at teaching.
I like his technique WAY better than swain. I think Jody welds each day -every day - all day. You cant top THAT !!!! :-)

If anything I know helps someone---- what more could I ask for !
Tim

PS--- Brad-- if you see a weld you dont like-- fear not ! Grind it down--- but keep in mind- you usually dont need to grind down
to the level of the tubing--- your new pass will be re-melting whatever is leftover and it will integrate into the puddle. Most times you can
just grind about 1/2 way down. Its usually nice and clean after you grind. remember this is NOT like stick welding.
Stick welding fails often involve hollow pits or pits with glassy flux inside them. With those-- you often have to grind all the way down
to get the slag gone. For Tig-- you have no flux or slag. That makes things way easier to remedy after a boo-boo.

[Chris In Milwaukee]

Great advice! Thanks for sharing your experience and expertise. I find myself watching Jody every day, sometimes several Vids a day. You’re right about his teaching style. He’s great to learn from. Always a little something different, and every type of welding imaginable on his site.

[fairchild]

Jody is great. Everything you need-- nothing you dont. Then there is the tig finger. Got to order one of those !
T

[Chris In Milwaukee]

I ordered mine recently along with a couple accessories. I hope I can get my shop going this holiday so I can get to using it!

[fairchild]

One last thought i should mention----
A safety note--an IMPORTANT ONE.
NEVER NEVER use brake cleaner to clean parts for welding. brake cleaner has chlorine containing solvents. When that becomes exposed to the intense arc radiation (UV)
--- that breaks apart the molecule and it rearranges the chlorine into a new molecule known as phosgene. In case you dont remember that one---- it was developed and used
as poision gas used on the WW1 battlefields. One good breath and it dissolves your lungs and you die. Its really THAT bad. i have read of a guy that did it and had some
hiding in a crevice. when he hit it --- it transformed and he spent about 1 month in critical condition but bare survived. he figured it could have been just miligrams hiding
in the joint where he couldnt see it.

This applies to electric welding. As far as I have read... alcohol and acetone are OK to prep with.
I figured we cant spread this info far and wide enough......
Tim

[LSA052]

Jody is great. Everything you need-- nothing you dont. Then there is the tig finger. Got to order one of those !
T

Joey Who? link please, thank you

[Chris In Milwaukee]

Http://www.weldingtipsandtricks.com/

Great content on all welding types.