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Farmwelding
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Hard rock or flap wheel at least 1/2"-1" from the weld area and the edge and for lap joints-both sides of the plate especially on that thin
A student now but really want to weld everyday. Want to learn everything about everything. Want to become a knower of all and master of none.
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Chips O'Toole wrote:
MinnesotaDave wrote:I'll be a dissenting vote, that's still pretty terrible
Are you sure they're pretty terrible? Maybe they're just somewhat terrible. Take a close look.

As for graininess, they are not shiny. I don't know what they should look like. I've never seen a good mild steel TIG weld in person. The metal was soaked in washing vinegar for a day, and then I used a wire brush on a drill press and followed up with acetone. I can't get cold-rolled around here unless I want to make two 20-minute trips (each way) to the metal dealer. One trip to order it, and one to pick it up.
Chips...why don't you get an angle grinder and some flap discs? You're doing it the hard way.
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Galvanizing or other coatings usually cause my welds to spontaneously pop and blow metal on my tungsten. If you dipped it your tungsten in aluminum previously and didn't get it all ground out it will cause issues as well.
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Vinegar? Hmmm I wonder if Evaporust would remove the scale?
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exnailpounder wrote:Chips...why don't you get an angle grinder and some flap discs? You're doing it the hard way.
I started using vinegar because the flap wheel just polished the scale. It was useless. A knot wheel didn't do much, either, which makes sense, because scale is harder than the steel in the wheel. I got some kind of wheel similar to Scotchbrite, but much harder, because someone on the web recommended them. It worked better than the flap wheel, but not very well.

The vinegar definitely took the scale off, but it left a dull finish I had to fix with the wire wheel. Whether I got all the pits out, I do not know.

I also tried CLR on some of the steel, and it was horrible. Big knots of something or other formed on the metal.

It's tough, living in a town full of hacks and doofuses who don't know how to do anything. There is no reason for anyone to stock cold-rolled here because no one here has enough brains to TIG weld.
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Farmwelding
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You must be using the flap disk wrong then. Wire wheels will polish mill scale but flapper wheels take it off-unless you just barely touched it or you have a shatty wheel
A student now but really want to weld everyday. Want to learn everything about everything. Want to become a knower of all and master of none.
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Chips O'Toole wrote:
MinnesotaDave wrote:I'll be a dissenting vote, that's still pretty terrible
Are you sure they're pretty terrible? Maybe they're just somewhat terrible. Take a close look.

As for graininess, they are not shiny. I don't know what they should look like. I've never seen a good mild steel TIG weld in person. The metal was soaked in washing vinegar for a day, and then I used a wire brush on a drill press and followed up with acetone. I can't get cold-rolled around here unless I want to make two 20-minute trips (each way) to the metal dealer. One trip to order it, and one to pick it up.
Hang on I put my glasses on, nope, that didn't help :D

Standard $2-$3 grinding wheel on your angle grinder is what you need if you can't clean it with a flap wheel - sometimes it's pretty thick. Don't worry about vinegar, drill press wire brush and such - only 20 seconds to grind it.

Also, cold rolled isn't needed either - this is a simple process - grind and weld, :)
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Using a flap wheel wrong? Well, I turned the grinder on and pushed the wheel into the steel. I figured that was how it worked, but I have not had lessons.

As for the wheel's crappiness, I don't know the answer. The only hardware store near me is Home Depot, so I bought what they had. It's a Diablo Steel Demon. Seemed to work briefly, and then the scale seemed to do a nice job of polishing it and taking all the nasty abrasiveness off of it.

The Scotchbritey thing is a Norton Rapid Strip. It did better than any other wheel I have, and it still sucked.

I can take scale off with a grinding wheel, but it's like using a Sharpie to paint a car, and it leaves me with chewed-up metal with big gouges cut out of it.

I don't think there's anything wrong with the welds. I don't see any porosity. The surface is dull, but it's not what I would call rough. Are they supposed to be shiny? I would think the scale that forms on them would kill the shine.

I'm planning to use muriatic acid next time, but for some reason, I had a jug of washing vinegar. I decided to try it.
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If you didn't get the right grit, then using a flap wheel is indeed useless. get a 24-36 grit. Or just a hard abrasive disc. Fiber discs work awesome especially 3M cubritron II.
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I am reading up, and I saw some things that looked relevant. One guy said you have to keep the tip of the filler inside the gas area. That was news to me. I was trying to move it away from the torch between dips, to keep the arc from melting it early. Someone else said too much heat causes grey welds.

I am running 163 amps by the display. The rule of thumb says 125, but that didn't seem to be enough. I'm wondering if something is obstructing the current.

The first half-inch of the tungsten always seems to be darkened, no matter what I do. Is that normal? I am posting a photo. The tungsten is balled up, but that didn't happen until I was nearly done. I was tired, and I said, "To hell with it. I am finishing this last inch, balled tungsten or not."
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05 28 17 TIG tungsten with discoloration.jpg
05 28 17 TIG tungsten with discoloration.jpg (9.7 KiB) Viewed 1506 times
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Chips O'Toole wrote: I don't think there's anything wrong with the welds. I don't see any porosity. The surface is dull, but it's not what I would call rough. Are they supposed to be shiny? I would think the scale that forms on them would kill the shine.
There is actually a lot wrong with the welds.

-The weld did not wet out at the toes.
-The weld contacts the metal at the toe at too steep of an angle creating a notch effect for a crack to propagate.
-Visually it was mostly put in too cold with too much fill creating an overly convex weld that created the problem above.
-Since the weld is cold, there is likely a lack of fusion at the root as well.
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The flap disk is 60 grit. Best I could do around here.
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Chips O'Toole wrote:The flap disk is 60 grit. Best I could do around here.
Hard wheel it. Much faster.

If you like it smoother, hard wheel, then flap disk, then get to welding :D
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MinnesotaDave wrote:There is actually a lot wrong with the welds.

-The weld did not wet out at the toes.
-The weld contacts the metal at the toe at too steep of an angle creating a notch effect for a crack to propagate.
-Visually it was mostly put in too cold with too much fill creating an overly convex weld that created the problem above.
-Since the weld is cold, there is likely a lack of fusion at the root as well.
I had to look a few things up after reading that.

Too cold...I'm trying to figure out how that happened. I was getting a big puddle, and I kept dipping the filler to keep the puddle from getting too big and melting way into the upper bar. I would have expected "too cold" to mean a small shallow puddle.

I thought I was too hot, because the metal was heating up a lot, and not just close to the weld.
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cj737
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Coolidge wrote:Vinegar? Hmmm I wonder if Evaporust would remove the scale?
Nope. It helps, but it requires more than EvapoRust can deliver.
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Chip - Minnesota is correct in all his observations. But that is not to say you are still not making progress.

The picture of your tungsten clearly shows a fouled up tungsten! Grind it to a clean taper. It won't ball up on steel, thats an aluminum trait...

A flap disk should strip the scale off and leave you with bright shiny metal. Use the grinder at an angle to the surface, some light pressure, and push it along. Takes a few seconds, but it will come clean. I use 60 grit wheels preferably. The 80s tend to clog up with scale after too short a time.

For steel welding, you don't need to keep the rod under the gas shield. That's very true for stainless and titanium, not so for Er70-

One thing that might be happening with respect your heat, if you welded that piece at 160 amps, but still got a cold weld, you could be using too thick a filler rod. The rod added to the puddle "cools" it. So you could be using too small a cup for the lap joint (using a #5 on 1/2" plate for instance) that the HAZ is not wide enough to wet in the toes. I didn't notice the specs of the metal, cup, tungsten and rod, so this is general "speculation".

The angle at which you are holding your cup too could be contributing to hot top, cold bottom. Try to insure you're pointing the tungsten directly at the seam on a 45* angle. You might need to socialite the tip up and down a little as you go, but should be needed if the rod is the correct the diameter for the job. Lay the cup against the plate, maintain your angle, and slide along.

Don't fret, some of us mortals still produce welds like that even after years of success (of course those won't ever show up here) ;) :D

Last bit of advice I might offer: If your machine has it, set the amps to a fixed number, ditch the foot pedal. Just dab and run. Focus on the mechanics of the torch/rod/weld until you get proficient. THEN introduce the pedal. This will allow you to limit your brain's activity list while learning.
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Hey Chips....damn the torpedos and keep welding. I'm glad you are pretty good natured about taking criticism. I try to build people up, not tear them down when they are seeking support. I wish we lived near each other so I could help you along. You WILL get to where you want to go and the most important aspect of that is that you are dug in and keep trying. You have my respect. It's always a head scratcher as to why people only put up their best welds for the world to see and you never see the warty ones. If you want to see an ugly weld, go see my thread on the cast iron repair I just did yesterday. I am capable of weld porn but it wasn't happening in this case. Repairs are usually different than nice shiny new metal sitting on a bench in perfect position. Don't use a grinding wheel unless you want gouges and a shitty finish on your metal. Flap discs are WAY better for not trashing your finish. You can't be shy about using one, put some ass behind it and get that scale off. Grinding takes some practice so you don't destroy your metal but it's easy. Hang in there.
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Are you on DC-? Sorry for the obvious question, but three things make me wonder. First is the balling of the tungsten. Second is the required 160 amps. And third is how there is a sootie looking deposit in a band away from the weld. It almost looks like there is some cleaning action and then some soot. Or my phone isn't let me see the picture in enough detail.
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I think I know what's happening with the current. I read that some welders have to reset when you move from trigger to pedal. I had the welder on the trigger setting last week, at lower current, and then I made a mistake and used the machine with the pedal. Some guy on a forum said he had the same problem, and the solution was to unplug the pedal and then plug it back in.

The balled tungsten is from me jamming the filler into it very close to the end of the bead. The black crap behind the ball is something I always seem to have.

I'll be back at it in a few days.
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As far as cleaning goes, even with mill scale your welds shouldn't look like that.

As an example (and I've said before that I need to go to tig hell for doing it) here's some no grinding prep tig over mill scale to "preserve the old metal look"

These are just hooks for the wall and were used to hang a cross at both hand and feet positions.
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image.jpeg (23.77 KiB) Viewed 879 times
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image.jpeg (23.57 KiB) Viewed 879 times
Dave J.

Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance. ~George Bernard Shaw~

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...and that's a perfect example of where you should have cooked the weld to get that gray finnish Dave :mrgreen:

Nice work though 8-)
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AndersK wrote:...and that's a perfect example of where you should have cooked the weld to get that gray finnish Dave :mrgreen:

Nice work though 8-)
Haha!! Didn't think of that :D
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Chips O'Toole wrote:
MinnesotaDave wrote:There is actually a lot wrong with the welds.

-The weld did not wet out at the toes.
-The weld contacts the metal at the toe at too steep of an angle creating a notch effect for a crack to propagate.
-Visually it was mostly put in too cold with too much fill creating an overly convex weld that created the problem above.
-Since the weld is cold, there is likely a lack of fusion at the root as well.
I had to look a few things up after reading that.

Too cold...I'm trying to figure out how that happened. I was getting a big puddle, and I kept dipping the filler to keep the puddle from getting too big and melting way into the upper bar. I would have expected "too cold" to mean a small shallow puddle.

I thought I was too hot, because the metal was heating up a lot, and not just close to the weld.
Remember, heat is not just about "setting the amps at the machine". Amperage is one thing, and voltage is the other variable. Not in the sense that you yourself set the voltage via knob/setting, but voltage manifests itself in the form of extra heat from too much torch angle and/or too much arc length. Both (too much arc length and/or torch angle) increase the size of the arc cone, by way of the machine increasing the voltage for you in order to maintain the electric arc lit. This dumps extra heat into the piece, but not like a water hose with a nice perfect cylindrical flow. It flares out a lot at the base metal, so the actual energy delivery (energy density) is less dense (watts/mm²) than if you have the optimum arc length/angle, because it's so spread out. So not all of your 160A are going where you want them go to/think they are going.
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Not to mention travel speed.
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zank wrote:Are you on DC-? Sorry for the obvious question, but three things make me wonder. First is the balling of the tungsten. Second is the required 160 amps. And third is how there is a sootie looking deposit in a band away from the weld. It almost looks like there is some cleaning action and then some soot. Or my phone isn't let me see the picture in enough detail.
Good question. Another obvious question: Are you using pure Argon?
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