Welding Tips and Tricks

Looking for opinions on this one.

If you were welding 3/8" OD, 0.035" wall SS tubing to another piece of tubing the same size and also welding it to 3/8" SS rod, would you use 3/32" tungsten or 1/16"?

Since I started TIG welding, I've believed that 3/32" tungsten is a one-size-fits-all but I'm just wondering if when I weld this tiny, thin material I should maybe be using 1/16". Would it make it easier?

Not a big deal. Just curious what your thoughts are.

for me 3/32 works just fine, i've done 0.030" with 3/32. imho the grind angle is more important.
there was a comment from someone that found 3/32 actually worked better. but i don't know the other details. you may find things like cup size and gas flow impacts it a bit as well.
also distance from work to tungsten makes a huge impact.

Okay. So let's talk about grind angle. I tend to grind to a pencil point, long and sharp. But I'm not so sure that this gives me a tight, concentrated arc. What's your preference?

being an amateur tig welder, i'm all over the show. typically fairly blunt because my tungsten grinding setup doesn't do long fine grinds very well.

The sharper nd longer the taper on your tungsten, the higher up the tungsten the arc plume initiates. Tungsten size matters little in terms of thickness of material welding; it’s really only a consideration for amperage tolerance.

I’ve seen guys weld 0.06 thick wall titanium with a 1/8” tungsten. It’s all about comfort and skill. I use a 30* taper for nearly everything.

Out of curiosity, how exactly do you sharpen?

And what do you think about putting tungsten in a screw gun and rotating it while holding it against a bench grinder. And then polishing it off by rotating it on 120-grit and then 220-grit sandpaper?

if you have a drill that is aligned well enough. many people do that.
i typically use a cheap diamond knife sharpener. it has a decent wheel i can use. also trying out the cheap ones that fit onto a rotary tool. that works well but the diamond discs that came with it are terrible. finding replacements in the right size is a problem.