TIG welding help

[Piledriver]

60 grit zirconia flap wheel should bcome a good friend, keep it on a spare grinder.
(your favorite store sells both, and the generic flap disc works/lasts pretty good)

A good general-purpose setup has several 4 1/2" grinders at hand---set up for different jobs:
a wire wheel on one
flap disc on the second,
...and possibly an actual grinding wheel on the third.

[fusername]

Do I need a seperate wire wheel/special wheel for when I start doing stainless,o r is it not taht fussy? Sounds like I found a dedicated job for my 4 1/2 HF grinder, it works fine but who knows how long that will last, and pick up a real one for car work.

but to press on my original question. When welding fresh stock like that (I know one piece has a touch of rust on it, but I left it outside, pretend its brand new) do i need to wire brush that prior to the first go? A good scrub w/ an acetone rag is NOT enough.?

[Iguana]

Be VERY careful when using ANY kind of solvent to clean the metal before you weld. Some like brake cleaner create Cyanide gas and will KILL YOU or leave you dumber than a post hole digger.

To clean a part, all you need is a grinder with a wire wheel on it OR a hand held wire brush. Often times bulk steels like angle iron for example, will have an anti-corrosion oxide coating that can cause your welds to not come out as planned. A quick pass of the wire wheel, 3" sanding disc, or a wire brush will remove it and greatly improve the weld quality.

Nice thing about welding with a TIG is that if it looks like a bird took a crap on your project or if you didn't get enough penetration, simply go back over it with the torch and allow the puddle to sink (adding penetration) along with a little more filler rod and VIOLA!! Your welds look like a pro (or at least like the bird had diarrhea and it's stuck really well ).

TIG takes practice and welding is NOT like riding a bike. You loose it with time.

So your not going to clean off potential residue before tig welding it and then you are going to recommend that the guy just keeps running over the weld are untill he gets a look he is happy with ?

Interesting ....

[Iguana]

Do I need a seperate wire wheel/special wheel for when I start doing stainless,o r is it not taht fussy? Sounds like I found a dedicated job for my 4 1/2 HF grinder, it works fine but who knows how long that will last, and pick up a real one for car work.

but to press on my original question. When welding fresh stock like that (I know one piece has a touch of rust on it, but I left it outside, pretend its brand new) do i need to wire brush that prior to the first go? A good scrub w/ an acetone rag is NOT enough.?

In short ... Tig welding is very sensitive to the cleanliness of you material, fillers and tungsten. The cleaner it is the better it will be.
You never want to Tig on anything with residue, wax, rust, mil scale etc etc as it will come back to haunt you.

I try and keep stainless, alloy and steel separate with dedicated wire brushes and files etc. I have a dedicated grinding wheel for my tungsten’s. Don’t use anything which will potentially infect the material such as sand paper if possible.

All that being said it really comes back to what you are welding and the finish you are after and you are happy with.

I clean everything with acetone and let it dry before I weld it. Make sure you have a descent amount of post flow (about 1 sec per 10Amp setting) to limit oxidization and other issues between runs and allow proper cooling under shield.

And don't just keep running over a pass with the torch until you get the look you are after this is a great way to get cracks, impurities and defeat the purpose of welding in the first place. If you initial pass looks like poop it is because it is poop and you should grind it out and get more practice. Doing a root run as part of a process and then going over it with another or adding a fillet is a different thing all together.

[Piledriver]

Amen.

You will likely find you need multiple sizes of filler rod as well, if you haven't already figured that out...

At work, I pretty much only do SS or (very occasionally) aluminum.
(Thankfully I don't weld for a living, at my current skill level I would starve to death)

Easy to mark/keep track of 2 sets of cleaning wheels/brushes etc.

HoDepot etc... sells acetone by the gallon.

After wipe down, if in ANY doubt, hit it with at least the wire wheel.
You cannot clean too much.
Even SS gets a (thin) layer of oxide, eventually.
(aluminum gets one ~instantly, or there would be no need to use AC for cleaning)

The brake cleaner warning is valid if you don't let it dry--- Don't use it to search for vacuum leaks on an engine in an enclosed space, either, or it will remove your lungs. (it kills the engine if sucked in, will gladly do the same to you)

This is probably sacrilege, but I have started polishing up my tungsten tips on a dedicated 6"scotchbrite wheel as a final step... just takes another second or three. (I can't justify a proper tungsten grinder, may make one)
Tried it for giggles, seems to work significantly better than without, smoothing the transition to the tip.
Zero arc wandering in tight locations, had to work w/1" stickout tonight to get into an acute inside corner w/#8 cup.
(Gas Lenses and house argon are our friends)

[fusername]

I need to get some nice gas lenses. thanks for all the pointers, so a wire wheel is better than sand paper to keep it from embedding junk in the base metal. cool. I have a gallon of acetone just for this in the cabinet, I have a vague idea of what I am supposed to be doing. I'll post osme pics tonight cause I should be doing somemore welding, you can yell at my stack of english muffins (I'll get to dimes eventually) and all will be good. No foot control makes it quite hard to do the corners, but whatcha gonna do.

I am itching to play w/ some aluminum welding, but I have too much real work to do before I can futz araond. got plenty of junk heads tho that are in for a learning. got about 9 different sizes of alu filler, any way of telling if they are different alloys? nothint stamped on em like steel. I only have ahand full of steel filler rods, 1/16 3/32 and some absurdly thick stuff. On an impulse I bought a 10 pack of 1/16 thoriated tungsten, thinking hey its cheaper, youl use it eventually. Then the next day I was welding and realized just how quick you go thru tungsten when you suck... Also how fast you go thru it when you are using .040 and you think yo uare using 1/16 and have the machine set accordingly

[Piledriver]

The lanthanated(2% best, 1.5% OK) keeps a point very well, great for AC or DC, but I suspect you need pure tungsten balled for AC on a sine wave machine like yours.

...Of course it goes just as fast if you dip it.

The gas lenses aren't a magic trick or a crutch, you can save a lot of $ with them in reduced argon flow.
They can even help your technique a bit as you can run more stickout and have a better view of the puddle.

You can also ruin them if you get into someting nasty that spatters.

Of course the main machine I have been using (the 181i) lacks a TIG gas solenoid (although the control board and case internals have mounting provisions... grrr) so I get to waste gas, (or occasionally forget to turn ON the gas) manually.

At least I can switch from MIG to TIG in <30 seconds. (mostly unwrapping the torch cable off the hangers)
Man does not live by TIG alone, nice to have both type of hammers, so to speak.

AC and thoriated does not go well, you really have to try it once to really appreciate how well it really doesn't work, at least not long.
It grows... junk.

I tried getting consumables locally... eventually gave up, simply not stocked, everyone goes online, arc-zone and HTP America have decent stuff at sane prices.

Ebay can also be you fiend for initial consumables stock, cheap, Got a box in the mail direct from China in about 10 days, I'm set for awhile for the very common stuff, and the quality seems fine. (3-shop-river, bought other stuff from him as well, seems quite reliable)

[Dale M.]

Do I need a seperate wire wheel/special wheel for when I start doing stainless,o r is it not taht fussy? Sounds like I found a dedicated job for my 4 1/2 HF grinder, it works fine but who knows how long that will last, and pick up a real one for car work.

but to press on my original question. When welding fresh stock like that (I know one piece has a touch of rust on it, but I left it outside, pretend its brand new) do i need to wire brush that prior to the first go? A good scrub w/ an acetone rag is NOT enough.?

In short ... Tig welding is very sensitive to the cleanliness of you material, fillers and tungsten. The cleaner it is the better it will be.
You never want to Tig on anything with residue, wax, rust, mil scale etc etc as it will come back to haunt you.

I try and keep stainless, alloy and steel separate with dedicated wire brushes and files etc. I have a dedicated grinding wheel for my tungsten’s. Don’t use anything which will potentially infect the material such as sand paper if possible.

All that being said it really comes back to what you are welding and the finish you are after and you are happy with.

I clean everything with acetone and let it dry before I weld it. Make sure you have a descent amount of post flow (about 1 sec per 10Amp setting) to limit oxidization and other issues between runs and allow proper cooling under shield.

And don't just keep running over a pass with the torch until you get the look you are after this is a great way to get cracks, impurities and defeat the purpose of welding in the first place. If you initial pass looks like poop it is because it is poop and you should grind it out and get more practice. Doing a root run as part of a process and then going over it with another or adding a fillet is a different thing all together.

Pretty much nails it........ Clean, clean, clean..... And dedicated wire brushes for specific materials..... Avoid any contamination at all costs....

Dale

[fusername]

here's a queston for you, how could you tell that my material was not clean enough to work on? was it just that you couldn't see any grind marks or is there a giveaway in the weld? I cleaned it all up w/ acetone prior to welding since the cuts were fresh and the material new, but I am now scuffing it slightly before strarting.

[Piledriver]

You will know for sure as soon as you strike an arc.

The difference is quite noticeable.

Unless you are absolutely sure it's ~surgically clean already, clean it.

[Chris4747]

Amen.

You will likely find you need multiple sizes of filler rod as well, if you haven't already figured that out...

At work, I pretty much only do SS or (very occasionally) aluminum.
(Thankfully I don't weld for a living, at my current skill level I would starve to death)

Easy to mark/keep track of 2 sets of cleaning wheels/brushes etc.

HoDepot etc... sells acetone by the gallon.

After wipe down, if in ANY doubt, hit it with at least the wire wheel.
You cannot clean too much.
Even SS gets a (thin) layer of oxide, eventually.
(aluminum gets one ~instantly, or there would be no need to use AC for cleaning)try a #5 cup for fine stainless work it keeps the heat centrally located in a smaller area and you will find that you will have more puddle control especialy on thin material as in 1/16 ga or less

The brake cleaner warning is valid if you don't let it dry--- Don't use it to search for vacuum leaks on an engine in an enclosed space, either, or it will remove your lungs. (it kills the engine if sucked in, will gladly do the same to you)

This is probably sacrilege, but I have started polishing up my tungsten tips on a dedicated 6"scotchbrite wheel as a final step... just takes another second or three. (I can't justify a proper tungsten grinder, may make one)
Tried it for giggles, seems to work significantly better than without, smoothing the transition to the tip.
Zero arc wandering in tight locations, had to work w/1" stickout tonight to get into an acute inside corner w/#8 cup.
(Gas Lenses and house argon are our friends)

[Chris4747]

In tig welding your cup size is part of what determines the amount of area that you wish to heat .example i use a #5 cup for thin gage ss (1/8 in or less) .a #8 cup for 1/4 down to 1/8 and a #10 for any thing above 1/4 .now as in cup size you will need to change the size of tungsten as you go up in amprage so for #5 cup i use a 1/16 tungsten, #8 cup 3/32 tung ,#10 cup1/8 in tung
the longer and sharper the point the more ark controle
Now on aluminum thin gage 1/16 tungsten and #8 cup because you want to heat a larger area .also on aluminume you dont want to have a sharp point on your tungsten you want more of a ball on the end of the tungsten to create a larger puddle area (aluminun will transfer heat throughout the material very fast
if you use the same sanding pad on stainless as you do on steel it will cause the stainless to rust .just the sparks from grinding steel next to ss will cause ss to rust .most of the time you can get away with using one size of tig rod 1/16
308 and 309L rods are for welding stainless to steel
316 rods are for ss to ss
remember stainless warps very easy just like aluminum so invest in some good c-clams and vice grips
oh yea you probably want to use strait argon on the stainless
aluminum will weld with plain argon but you will need more heat for thicker material so you may want argon/helium ,or strait helium
normally if you set your flow metter at about 30 to 35 psi you shouldnt have any problems with gas .just make sure you dont have a fan blowing on you (your weld area)

[fusername]

oh, I had my argon set to 10cfm, I should step this up I guess. I have made some pretty swelds, but I have yet to have the time to sit down and weld some scrap and break it back apart to see how I am really doing. soon.

[Piledriver]

With no "breeze", laminar flow (gas lens) and the right size cup you may be able to work using ~10CFM flow, saving gas.
15 is more like the minimum with a medium (6-8) std cup working inside.

It's possible to have too much argon flow, and your wallet won't like it either.

Chris4747, thank you for the interesting explanation of proper cup size usage/effects...

... although it seems to me the amperage, material and welding speed would be the primary drivers of HAZ size, and the cup size would be a matter of what you need to cover and what physically works for the specific weld.

Gas lenses provide very uniform gas coverage by design, and while not available in all sizes... but they allow you to work with far more stickout than std cups, a MUCH better view of the puddle, while allowing access where a std setup might not. They are not unfortunately a magic trick to get perfect welds.

The only hard and fast rule I personally have found for good weld penetration is you are better off erring a little on the hot side than too cold. (MIG or TIG)

[Chris4747]

i agree with you on the amp ,material,and speed 100% this is just the way i start the new kids out at work it tends to be less confusing to give a little info and let them practice with it .then I add to it with more info later this gives a basic understanding of the equipment and how each part will affect the work in progress .its easy to become over whelmed with info .