Tig welding tips, questions, equipment, applications, instructions, techniques, tig welding machines, troubleshooting tig welding process
William Payne
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Was at an open day today and there was a 1940’s era De Havilland Goblin Jet Engine there on a stand. Heliarc (TIG) was perfected in 1941 by Northrup. De Havilland were British.

You can see some welds that appear to be early Heliarc or Oxy Acetylene welds but what has me scratching my head are ones that look to be a series of horse shoe shapes. You can also see a lot of spot welds.

Oh and for anyone wondering the engine on the right is an Allison V12
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Miller Syncrowave 350LX
Esab Power Compact 205
BOC 185DC Tig
Poland308
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The pattern is a result of the weave of the tig welder.
I have more questions than answers

Josh
William Payne
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Poland308 wrote:The pattern is a result of the weave of the tig welder.
I tig weld all the time, I don’t believe it’s TIG welding.
Miller Syncrowave 350LX
Esab Power Compact 205
BOC 185DC Tig
kiwi2wheels
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cj737
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William Payne wrote:
Poland308 wrote:The pattern is a result of the weave of the tig welder.
I tig weld all the time, I don’t believe it’s TIG welding.
But were you TIG welding in 1941 when this engine was produced with the "then current" technology? ;)
Gligor
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The weld on the second picture doesn't really look like a tig weld. There are several reasons for that. You can clearly see the edges of the pipes, the weld is next to them. The welded area looks concave instead of convex (concave welds are sometimes allowed on inside corner joints for non structural applications, but I don't think that someone would take a gamble with concave weld in aviation.)
This looks to me like a resistance weld.
I'm taking about the second picture.
Popcorn
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It would have been Oxy acetylene and probably done by women, just like all the Spitfires where.
FWE
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Interesting pattern, thanks for sharing! Given other peoples suggestions, I'm going for resistance seam welding. Looks very similar to some other examples, you can see how one weld nugget overlaps the next, with some material spread over the preceding bead, giving the horseshoe shape.
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