Tig welding tips, questions, equipment, applications, instructions, techniques, tig welding machines, troubleshooting tig welding process
Post Reply
cj737
  • Posts:
  • Joined:
    Thu Sep 29, 2016 8:59 am

Responses in order-

Metal prep: NOT goo enough. Clean at least 1/2" to 2" of material fully, shiny bright away from your welding area. You will also see that material had a terribly grungy backside, which is no doubt pulling through to the front.

Tungsten: Taper looks fine, reduce your stick out. This will help prevent fouling the tungsten. Any time you foul your tungsten, stop welding. Clean it, taper it, and begin again. That "bauble" on the tip, is from dipping the tungsten and/or the grime in your metal jumping off the material and up to your tungsten. Hence, clean your material better, and more.

Backside photos: You see now that even at 50 amps, you had full penetration. The reason your front side welds looked bulky is due to torch movement, travel speed, and inconsistent filler dipping.

If you are holding the torch away from the metal (air welding) and trying to keep the distance of the tungsten from the material as you slide, you will get inconsistent results. Reduce the stick out until the tip is just barely exposed, lay the cup on the material, tilt forward until you have about 10-15* of laying it back, then weld. You position your eyes in front, and then move the cup along. This eliminates the arc length inconsistency. It also enables you to see how much filler to add as go.

You may also need to "weave" the torch angle side-to-side a bit as you slide forward. Having the cup in contact while doing this helps immensely. Welding tubing is a b!tch because getting at the backside to clean it is difficult. Practice with flat stock as you begin.
Poland308
  • Posts:
  • Joined:
    Thu Sep 10, 2015 8:45 pm
  • Location:
    Iowa

cj737 wrote:Responses in order-
.
Totally agree.
I have more questions than answers

Josh
cj737
  • Posts:
  • Joined:
    Thu Sep 29, 2016 8:59 am

Poland308 wrote:
cj737 wrote:Responses in order-
.
Totally agree.
Man, Josh, Im 2:2 with you lately! :D I must be learning quickly ;) 8-)
Poland308
  • Posts:
  • Joined:
    Thu Sep 10, 2015 8:45 pm
  • Location:
    Iowa

After seeing the cut out it became clear that it was indeed thin wall tube. I guess if you really needed to have a shiny weld you could internal purge even though it’s mild steel.
I have more questions than answers

Josh
BillE.Dee
  • Posts:
  • Joined:
    Mon Nov 27, 2017 8:53 pm
  • Location:
    Pennsylvania (Northeast corner)

I'm basically new to tig welding. I've watched Jody's videos and taken note that as soon as he lights up, the puddle forms and away we go. I light up, wait, wait and wait for the puddle. I do have the machine cranked up, but still have to wait, nothing like when Jody demonstrates. WHAT am I doing or not doing? This appears on both steel and aluminum.
User avatar
  • Posts:
  • Joined:
    Sun Nov 19, 2017 10:09 am

BillE.Dee wrote:I'm basically new to tig welding. I've watched Jody's videos and taken note that as soon as he lights up, the puddle forms and away we go. I light up, wait, wait and wait for the puddle. I do have the machine cranked up, but still have to wait, nothing like when Jody demonstrates. WHAT am I doing or not doing? This appears on both steel and aluminum.
Is your machine cranked all the way up? (thinking your machine is too small for the thickness of material) What kind is your welder? Your puddle should form in 3 seconds or less. What are your settings, and thickness of material? Are you using 220 or 110 volts?
Lincoln MP 210, Lincoln Square Wave 200,
Everlast 210 EXT
Thermal Dynamics 25 Plasma cutter

" Anything that carries your livelihood wants to be welded so that Thor can’t break it."
CJ737
ChrisM
  • Posts:
  • Joined:
    Sun Sep 17, 2017 8:57 am

Okay finally got a chance to try again following what you guys have suggested.

Settings:
50A
1.6mm Filler
90A tacks (too high, didn't realise until the second tack)

Starting with Prep, all four sides to be welded were ground with a flap disc. The metal is not great, has quite a bit of pitting that I couldn't get into, but for the most part it looks clean.
Prep.jpg
Prep.jpg (49.17 KiB) Viewed 742 times
Next is electrode prep and stickout:
ElectrodeBefore.jpg
ElectrodeBefore.jpg (31.35 KiB) Viewed 742 times
ElectrodeStickOut.jpg
ElectrodeStickOut.jpg (30.66 KiB) Viewed 742 times
Very little stickout which made it harder to see the weld puddle but made it easier to not touch the tungsten into the puddle.

One thing I did change this time around was to drop down to 1.6mm filler. I think this also helped quite a bit making it much easier to melt the filler.

Three practice welds in no particular order:
TubeA.jpg
TubeA.jpg (35.1 KiB) Viewed 742 times
WeldB.jpg
WeldB.jpg (41.4 KiB) Viewed 742 times
WeldC.jpg
WeldC.jpg (40.02 KiB) Viewed 742 times
Fourth weld I tried going back to 2.4mm filler for a small section but it didn't melt as nicely.
Weld_2.4mmFiller.jpg
Weld_2.4mmFiller.jpg (34.76 KiB) Viewed 742 times
Lastly is how the electrode held up. Looks good I think.
ElectrodeAfterWelding.jpg
ElectrodeAfterWelding.jpg (33.63 KiB) Viewed 742 times
Overall I'd say these welds are much cleaner looking in color. The filler is building up on the top side now.
There is a big difference in how the clean tube welded compared to the mill scale one. Smoother is one way to describe it.

The biggest problem I had was with the short stickout making it harder to slide the cup over the bead and seeing the puddle.

Yet to cut them up and check the cross section.

Thoughts?

Cheers,
Chris
Poland308
  • Posts:
  • Joined:
    Thu Sep 10, 2015 8:45 pm
  • Location:
    Iowa

As a general practice my stickout is 1/2 the diameter of the cup opening size I’m using. IE if the opening of the cup is 1/2 inch then my stickout would be a 1/4 inch. That’s usually a good starting point I then adjust in or out based on the needs of the particular job.
I have more questions than answers

Josh
cj737
  • Posts:
  • Joined:
    Thu Sep 29, 2016 8:59 am

You could run a little bit more stick out since your cup is so large. Is there a gas lens in there too? I like to run less angle on my tungsten. Yours is needle-like. That make the arc come off the tungsten further up than if it were a more “blunt” angle.

Welds look better. You can add less filler and achieve flatter welds. Or, you can weave the tungsten sideways across the joint slightly to help tie in the weld, and spread the heat away from the joint solely.
User avatar
  • Posts:
  • Joined:
    Sun Nov 19, 2017 10:09 am

cj737 wrote:You could run a little bit more stick out since your cup is so large. Is there a gas lens in there too? I like to run less angle on my tungsten. Yours is needle-like. That make the arc come off the tungsten further up than if it were a more “blunt” angle.

Welds look better. You can add less filler and achieve flatter welds. Or, you can weave the tungsten sideways across the joint slightly to help tie in the weld, and spread the heat away from the joint solely.
I wish someone would write a book, or just do a picture book showing the cause and effects of welding. Just as you point out with sharpening tungsten, I would like to see pictures what welds would look like with the different ground angles given to the tungsten. Or pictures of welds without gas and too much gas and etc. Pics of tungsten without post flow. Welds that look fine but are not, and so on.
Lincoln MP 210, Lincoln Square Wave 200,
Everlast 210 EXT
Thermal Dynamics 25 Plasma cutter

" Anything that carries your livelihood wants to be welded so that Thor can’t break it."
CJ737
Post Reply