Welding Tips and Tricks

I'm using 3/32" LaYZr tungsten to weld 0.035" wall stainless steel tubing. I'm either welding this tubing to itself or welding it to solid 3/8" SS rod.

Welding the 0.035" wall tubing to itself is a delicate operation for me. I either use 1/16" or 0.040" ER304L rod. Tubing to tubing is usually the latter. Tubing to rod, the former.

I'm wondering if sharpness of my tungsten might regulate my success with this material.

I generally sharpen my tungsten much like a pencil with a fairly elongated slope down to the point.

But would a more "blunt" sharpening make a difference? Meaning, the tungsten still ends in a point but the slope down to it would be much shorter.

I could experiment (and probably will) but does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

Seems to me that angle of sharpening affects width of heat zone created by the arc. Honestly, I'm paying more attention to my puddle than the size of the arc.

i think what your doing is just fine. nice long sharp point.

i often use a blunt point for aluminum, which is the opposite of what you do for stainless.
the tricky part of thick to thin is where to focus the arc onto. you focus on the thicker part then wash over to the thin side and melt into that. exactly where on the thick side is up to you.

tweake, Perfect! Glad you concur.

I learned to direct my heat to the thick side the hard way. And after a bunch of ruined tubing it dawned on me to do exactly what you're describing.

Tricky stuff.

I didn't realize how important tungsten sharpening was until I watched Jodi's video. I was never taught any of this at the vocational school where I learned to TIG 20+ years ago, where we'd just use a bench grinder.

I'm pretty disappointed with the offerings for TIG sharpeners. The cheaper ones seem to use a die grinder with a guide. I bought a cheaper one and it tends to walk more than I like and I already went through one diamond blade very quickly. The nice thing is, they have fixed degrees on the guides and so you can quickly change the angle to what you want.

The more expensive $340 one we got at work from McMaster-Carr requires that you tweak the head angle manually with tools every time you want to change the angle.

all i think they need is decent diamond discs. i have one here to play with one day. but my main sharpener is a cheap knife blade sharpener.