[exnailpounder]

I don't even worry about the feeding, If your welding more than an inch to 3 inches at a time, your gonna warp the shit out of whatever your doing.

Get into aluminum and its even worse, I can make 2 plate butt welds look like a flying bird just by welding it.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no - on larger, longer pieces (steel and aluminum) it's not unusual for me to use the whole rod on one pass.

When I teach welding, I make them practice feeding rod from day 1 - doesn't take them long to get the hang of it.

Most of us hit the duty cycle on our machines or overheat the torch llloooonnnggg before we run out of rod but feeding rod for aluminum is useful as it eats up filler more than anything else. I can feed pretty decently nowadays but don't really do the kind of work that requires long welds.

[Olivero]

I never seen anything that requires looooong welds, maybe for pretty welds but as long as you can tie in and all that, I never run mine for too long. Like nail said, gets too darn hot

But hey, we all weld differently not a thing wrong with being able to feed rod. I just wouldn't worry about it when learning to TIG, as I go, sure why not practice it but I worry about so many other things when I weld, making sure its watertight, looking good and penetrating, rod just kind of finds its way.

Maybe I am just feeding it without noticing and I have learned it without thinking about it

Ill be darned. I will have to pay attention to that next time.

[Chips O'Toole]

I started practicing, with both hands, as instructed. If it's an unnecessary skill, it won't be the first one I've picked up.

[Farmwelding]

I started practicing, with both hands, as instructed. If it's an unnecessary skill, it won't be the first one I've picked up.

Not a useless skill...just depends on what you want to weld. If you are doing a bunch of smaller prices then not critical. If you are doing positioned work on larger diameter peices, then yes feeding rod is important. But you can get a lot out of your filler. Today I was running some horizontal stringers on aluminum about 7 inches long. Propped my filler hand and just dabbed along and never fed any through my hand. And besides you should learn to get good at starts and stops. I do it all the time on practice pads. Run out of filler and start to bake my hands-back off-add a little filler and stop-readjust and restart. Gives its own practice.

[MinnesotaDave]

Not a useless skill...just depends on what you want to weld. If you are doing a bunch of smaller prices then not critical. If you are doing positioned work on larger diameter peices, then yes feeding rod is important. But you can get a lot out of your filler. Today I was running some horizontal stringers on aluminum about 7 inches long. Propped my filler hand and just dabbed along and never fed any through my hand. And besides you should learn to get good at starts and stops. I do it all the time on practice pads. Run out of filler and start to bake my hands-back off-add a little filler and stop-readjust and restart. Gives its own practice.

When you start building things for money - do you really think you'll want to "practice starts and stops"?

Also, will every joint only require just the exact amount of filler that little dabs is all you'll need? Try that with 1/4" aluminum joints.

[dirtmidget33]

Feeding rod is an important thing to learn. Even when building up or fixing cracks on case repairs, made from aluminium and magnesium, where it's in small area I have to feed rod. It's not a long run, but small local area. Also different joint configurations on tubing have you have to push rod in puddle sometimes so you need to feed rod. Feeding rod is important thing to practice and learn.

[exnailpounder]

I started practicing, with both hands, as instructed. If it's an unnecessary skill, it won't be the first one I've picked up.

Feeding rod is a great skill to have and very necessary so if you can pick it up it's going to benefit you in the long run. Just as important is your torch hand. You have to learn how to keep it in a good position to do long runs. It helps to have a prop stand to slide your hand on or you have to do whatever you need to do, such as clamping a piece of angle onto your work and things like that to be able to stay in position. There is no shame in stopping and re-starting either. Our main goal is usually that beautiful stacked dimes look, and that is essential in alot of areas but just as important is a correct weld. Sometimes you can't make them all pretty. I look at welds on every day things and alot of them look like drunk monkeys did them so sometimes just hot gluing parts together is good enough for some applications. Look at the pictures Lt Badd posted of the welds on one of the space shuttle engines. Not impressive but obviously passed all the tests.

[LtBadd]

Look at the pictures Lt Badd posted of the welds on one of the space shuttle engines. Not impressive but obviously passed all the tests.

Just to be clear for those who might be new or missed that thread, those weren't welds I made, although I'd be proud of them, but pics I took while at Kennedy Space center, Steve (Otto) also posted the same pics.