Hey guys, I just got a Tig set up off egay, and was wondering what you guys were using for electrodes, and Filler Rods! I have zero Experience in tig welding so go easy on me. I have Argon/co2 mix right now, but will be changing that out with 100% argon next week before the Unit gets here. I'll mostly be welding sheet, 1/8" and 1/4" Steel with this unit. I was hoping to get some names of brands that you guys prefer to use. I don't mind buying quality stuff if it really is worth the extra money. I know there are different sized Electrodes as well, and was hoping someone could give me some insight into what is for what! I have been looking at the miller, lincoln, and harris sites, but nothing is like REAL WORLD experience. Thanks for all the help. Will
i wish i could remember the details better, but i know we use like .030 filler rod for sheetmetal, and thicker for anything 1/8" or better (i wanna say something like .060, but dont quote me), as for tungsten i cant remember which, but its either pure or 2% thoriated depending upon weather or not its steel or aluminum (i just remember red end for steel and green end for aluminum), and as for the gas id recomend 100% argon. id say to sharpen your tungsten really sharp with a long long taper, sitck it outa the gas cup like maybe 1/4"-5/16" and take some time to practice, youll get the hang of it and get a feel for what works best for you with little time.
Hey,, You should get half price on your welding helmet!! You use half of one anyway right??? Be sure to get name brand tungstien,, the cheap stuff is just that cheap. 2% thoriated is what you are looking for. I use the same stuff to weld aluminum it does the job but tends to split after a bit. .032 mild steel filler rod will do most of what you are gonna be doing. I use 3/32 tungsten. Remember the thinner the steel the smaller the tungsten. You can cheat this a bit by undercuting the tungstien. Keep it sharp, take your time and practice.
Tig welding steel 16 ga 18 ga sheet metal along with thin steel, I like using 70S2 filler rod 1/16"diameter. For welding dissimilar metals I use the same tungsten and use 309L rod 1/16" diameter same for welding stainless. Thicker steel, I will go with the same filler rod but in a 3/32" diameter. For steel use 100% argon (already mentioned) with 2% thoriated tungsten. Practice sparking an arc then making a puddle. Then, on some (clean) scrap steel practice pulling the puddle toward you while sticking your filler in and start working the puddle toward you. With practice you will get the hang of it. The key to tig welding is being clean. You metal needs to be clean, your tip needs to be clean. Get some acetone and a lint free cloth to remove all the grease or oil from the metal. This will help ensure a good weld. good luck
keeping a wheel on your grinder to sharpen electrodes and nothing more is a good idea to save the electrode from getting contaminated with bits of steel. sharpen along its length for longer tip life, much in the same way you sharpen a centre punch so it doesnt squash down so fast.
HAHA TIN MAN, I wish I got one for half price. HEy I actually get my new eye monday. I hope the color is right, MY Eye Dr. is kick ass. I should be getting one that is flamed and one that Has a ford Blue oval in it as well. I'll be visiting the welding shops this week and picking up some goods so I can start playing, I mean Practicing hahaha I picked up some more scraps today, just have to clean them up and get the crap off them. I am pretty good about welding with really clean metal, unless I just absolutely have to weld on dirty shit. Thanks for the tips, and I know I will go through a crap load of filler rods, and tungsten before I really get the hang of it. Thanks for all the tips again guys. keep em coming. Oh yeah I was reading on the miller site, to never make the tungsten a sharp point, they say to make it a bit flat on the very end of it so that the ARC will not be sporadic. Is this really true? or does it vary for the work being done?
ive never noticed a stray arc with a sharp point but then i use tig a lot less than other people around here would.
I like ceriated tungsten for steel - the point seems to last a bit longer, and it isn't radioactive like thoriated is. Not that a tiny amount of radioactivity is your biggest concern when TIG welding, but it's something to consider. Also, I'd suggest a gas lens setup for the torch - it'll allow you to stick the tungsten out farther (1/4-5/16 might be a bit too much without a gas lens), so you can get better access to inside corners, etc. You'll use less gas, too, since you can turn the flow rate down. The gas lens collet bodies and cups aren't much more expensive than regular ones, and the collets are the same. Have fun! I wish I had my own TIG machine to play with... Andrew
A sharp point is fragile.Less of a problem with High Frequency Start. Definitely grind Tungsten lengthwise.
We always used pure Tungsten(Green) for Aluminum,and 2% Thorium(Red) for steel. Thorium has since been replaced with something that isn't radioactive.
Dont try aluminum till you master steel,and if you touch the tungston it contaminates it and youll have to regrind to get it to weld right dont just keep going,make sure to regrind. Hand amptrols are a very nice accesory to have for out of position welding so you dont have to block the pedal.weld aluminum with ac when you get there.
Also if you have the spare dough, i recomend getting a water cooled torch setup, it makes things soooo much nicer.
A bud of mine recommends silicone bronze filler rod for thin sheetmetal like patch panels, but I didn't know what to think, having never heard of it before, until Ron Covell said he uses it for non-structural sheetmetal. Anyone tried it? Ron also said that other times he likes to shear his own mild steel filler rods from some scraps of the parent metal. In other words, the filler has the same thickness as what you are welding. After reading what you guys have said, I would think it's not that critical?
I tried Silicon Bronze filler rod on sheetmetal by mistake once, worked very well.Melts at a lower temperature,so you get less distortion. Shearing a strip of parent metal,to act as filler,is commonly done on Aluminum.That way the alloy matches.
I guess I'll share my 2 cents worth too. You'll probably not get two guys to agree on how to "properly" set up a tig welder, as everyone does it differently. Not that there is a right or wrong way, necessarily, it's just how you've been taught or how you learned by trial and error. I use a 3/32" 2% thoriated tungsten for sheetmetal and sheet aluminum. I prefer the tip to be ground to a very sharp point, much like that of a toothpick, with a nice taper to it. I like the tungsten to only protrude out of the cup about 1/8"-3/16" and hold the tungsten just above the weld puddle. For filler rod, I use .035 tig rods for sheetmetal. Of course for welding heavier material, larger filler rods and tungsten are needed. Most of what I weld is sheetmetal. Chamfering the butted edges will allow you to see the seam better and also allow for better penetration with less heat. I like to set my welder so I can go wide open on the foot pedal and not burn holes in the sheetmetal. A good rule for setup is 1 amp per thousands metal thickness and adjust from there. I normally use a thin copper backer as well. This helps to keep oxygen from the back side of the weld, yielding much better results. It's been a while since I wrote this, but I think this article covers some of this in more detail, with pictures. http://www.fergusoncoachbuilding.com/images/street_rod_builder/index.html The article is best viewed in PDF format
Thanks y'all I am keeping notes for sure, and when I go to pick up some tungsten, and filler material I will be getting a little bit of each kind. I have plenty of .030 and .035 mig wire as well. I still need to find a good place to get sheet metal from here that is CLEAN, I can get some from one of the metal supply places here, but it usually isn't that clean. I can also go to a couple of body shops and pick up some take off sheet metal if needed to practice on (I have a couple of friends who own and manage body shops.) Keep the hints coming, but this is what I really am looking for, people who use the material, I have read all the stuff on the miller, lincoln, hypertherm and a multitude of other sites I found by goggling and searching here on the HAMB. but A lot of them lack details like which rods were uses, or settings or what machine it was etc. Thanks again
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For 1/8 and especially 1/4 sheet steel you will need some bigger equipment for longer weld times. The suggestion above for a water cooled unit is a good one. I love my Weldcraft CS310, good for 250 amps but uses WP20 gear. I also like gas lenses versus collet for a better purged weld field. 3/16 thoriated tungsten is a good all around electrode for sheet up to ~1/8 steel. I would switch to 1/8 thoriated electrode for thicker steel. I use a lot of 1/16 ER70S6 fill rob and like it. It is a little big for sheet and you will have to grind more when used. For 1/8 or thicker sheet, think about using 3/32 fill material. Last, for practice, choose the thinnest material you have to weld. It will drive you crazy in the beginning, but once mastered, the thick stuff is a piece of cake. Have fun
Run some wire out of your MIG gun (or just use the last few feet off a spool). Cut it into 12-18" sections. Clamp one end of a section into your bench vise. Clamp the other end into a pair of safety wire pliers. Spin the pliers a few rounds. Un-clamp both ends of the wire and it will be straight and stay that way unless you bend it on purpose. Don't have safety wire pliers? Chuck the "free" end into your variable-speed electric drill motor. Slowly give it about 4-6 rounds and you get the same result. This works muy awesome for butt-welding real thin sheet metal... 'specially if its been sandblasted or previously pitted so the thickness is inconsistent. And what everyone was saying about getting it clean is so true. Even more important on Aluminum than Steel. Randy F. mentioned setting amperage to be able to run full-throttle on the pedal. I know lotsa guys do that, but I personally like to have it set to where I run my bead around 70-80% throttle at the pedal. Main reason is that in many situations I like to "goose" it just a bit when I first start the arc. This gets a puddle a lot faster, and it can get the heat in there and back out pretty quick to minimize warpage. You might find you like one method or the other... the only thing I don't recommend is leaving your welder always set to max amps no matter what you're welding. I know some do this, but you give up a lot of control when welding thinner stuff.
There's a welding book by a guy named Larry Jeffus that they gave us in the welding class I just finished. It's a really well written book and has all of this information in it, I'd recommend getting one off ebay or amazon. Not cheap but it's really good. I'd weld, read the book and try what he said and damned if I didn't weld better. I found that the most important thing was to get the metal really clean, which means buffing off the mill scale with wire brush attached to an angle grinder. The other things that everyone else said was to get a grinder just for your tungsten and to not turn it on the wheel as you sharpen it but lift it, turn and and then hit the wheel. If you touch the tip to the metal while you are welding, it's contaminated and won't weld right until you clean (resharpen) it. Keeping the tip inside the cup as far as you could helped too and try to have as little gap as you can when butt welding so air doesn't come through the crack and mess up the weld. I was taking an intro to "multi process" welding class and found Tig and gas to be my favorites for making nice welds. Mig is quick but the welds are not as nice. I didn't get to try out a water cooled torch but it get's pretty hot. You find yourself running a good bead and not wanting to quit because your hand is burning so you get to tolerate hot gloves.
WOW you guys are kickass I just found that book Fiat128, and asked the wifey for it for christmas. I hope she comes through. Well I checked my tracking # and it has been picked up and is on its way. I feel like a big assed kid waiting for santa clause. I will post some pics when it arrives. It's a Unit by a company called Plasmadyn. www.plasmadyne.com. It's the M50 model. Kind of a multifunction unit, and for the Price I couldn't beat it. I did a lot of checking around, and it seemed to be the best for the money. I found some pics of the inside of one, and it uses mosfets for power instead of Transformers. I hope it wasn't a mistake, but I emailed a few people who had them, and they absolutely loved them. Anyhow, I truly appreciate the help. The HAMB ROCKs FOR SURE!!!!
I used some silicone bronze last night on some steel that was not that clean, the stuff flows like torch brazing. A body man told me to try it. I dont know if I would trust it on a structural weld, but for cosmetic stuff--pretty cool It's about $14.00 a pound, so it's worth giving a try for the right application.
The Jalopy Journal
