[MosquitoMoto]

Interesting thread.

For what it's worth, I've been Tig welding almost 2 years now (steel, stainless, aluminium) and until recently I'd never used a gas lens that was anything but 'fine China'. My LWS doesn't even know what a gas lens is and with exchange rates and freight, the US/Europe brand name stuff is way too salty for a hobbyist like me.

(The Australian Peso is currently worth only about three quarters of a Freedom Dollar.)

Perhaps I've just been lucky, but I've never had a problem with what I've used thus far. I have various sized China gas lens setups for my #9 and #17 torches and it all works well. I recently purchased a Furick 14 cup and while it works a treat when I need mega coverage and long stickout, most of the time I use a China stubby rig on my #17 with a size 7 or 8 cup and it's sweet.

I must be due to run out of luck any time now, I guess.


K

[oki270]

Got it working, had to jam 2 green o-rings up near the insulator and then tighten gas lens with cup installed. Seems ok now.

I have the same one. Will definitely try it this way. How many CFS did you use with it?

[chillrich1]

Same as alumina cup ~15CFH

[MarkL]

Got it working, had to jam 2 green o-rings up near the insulator and then tighten gas lens with cup installed. Seems ok now.

I know it's convenient to have one gas lens that accepts threaded cups or orings, but threads aren't designed to seal an oring. It's good you got it working, but if you really want to use pyrex a lot, I'd try to find a set of lenses that are made with a an oring groove instead of threads, and just use this set for threaded alumina cups.