What am I doing wrong?

[Richard.]

No7 cup. All dragged up from my old photos

 

[Jaffman]

Good evening @Jaffman. 1. grinding the tungsten radially to longitudinally, I personally didn't notice any difference, that is not to say that there isn't. After doing my TIG ticket they said that longitudinally is the correct method so have done ever since. 2. the gas lense setup 'appears' to be correct, however the plastic spacer that the ceramic cup screws up against must have a taper on it's other side where it seals up to the white plastic, which is in the torch. Another possible problem is the back cap. These normally have an 'O' ring around where they screw into the torch. If this 'O' ring is gone there will be potentially a gas flow issue through to the job. Most importantly gas flow should be about what most of all the posters have said about 6-8l/m. Finally 'to gas lens or not to gas lens' this is the question. For many years, I didn't know that there was such a thing and welded quite OK. Only discovered the 'gas lens' doing my ticket, practiced with it to do the test and have never removed it since. Can it be done without a gas lens, absolutely YES, does the gas lens make a difference, well I suppose it does, how much, I can't tell, but I have it on all the time.

Maybe I’ll try the gas lenses again once I’ve bought some better quality ones. Who knows as long as I can build exhausts and tinker some stuff on the car then I’m fairly happy lol

A lot of YT tig videos are total poppycock. The yanks just kill it with the whole big clear cup and foot pedal slosh
I totally get that on the modified car/bike scene that the more pretty colours you can get across the weld the more of the idiot mob will be drawn to buying the part for there 1.1l slammed puntos but this is the thing........ you can achieve those pretty pearlescent welds as good as those plonkers with their cups by using a bog standard set up and applying some good ol British welding skill
Turn up the current, reduce the rod diameter and pick up the travel speed. You’ll have it shining like a Sh house door

I appreciate that. It would seem I’ve missed all the useful videos and jumped straight to the “ohhh shiny” thumbnails lol.

Personally I don’t care what colour my welds are as long as they hold together and don’t look like bird **** then consider me happy. I won’t say no if I can achieve some pretty colours though. Just makes the pictures I take look a little more Instagram worthy. Which in turn means I don’t get shot down for being a **** welder lol.

Aluminium next I have a fuel tank to build (maybe)

That will have to be pretty

 

[henry Kadzielski]

Turn up the current, reduce the rod diameter and pick up the travel speed. You’ll have it shining like a Sh house door

This I have found to be the big secret. I does take a bit of getting used to and to get your head around. Crank it up and move your a##e works for me

 

[Jaffman]

So what filler rod would you recommend?

I assume there’s a 304 rod that is ~1mm I can acquire?

 

[Richard.]

This I have found to be the big secret.

Absolutely Henry. It still is a big secret. There are still loads of people out there thinking that to weld stainless you need such low current and to flood it with gas. Christ I’d be skint if I was running at 15lpm every time I wanted to put a splat on 304

 

[Richard.]

So what filler rod would you recommend?

I assume there’s a 304 rod that is ~1mm I can acquire?

308 or 316 in 1mm

 

[Dr pipe]

So could I ask the reason the weld was so messy was because of the lack of argon shielding gas getting to the part ?

 

[Jaffman]

So could I ask the reason the weld was so messy was because of the lack of argon shielding gas getting to the part ?

It would seem so - coupled with some poor technique too no doubt

 

[Brad93]

Any cup over #8 is for specialty work or exotic metals. Until 10 years ago no such things even existed.

I’ve got a #12 and a #16 but they sit in my box all year until the odd occasion where someone needs titanium welded.
Even then they’re not ideal as often they’re too cumbersome.

I’ve two ceramic cups in my box that I use every day. #5 standard collet body cup and #8 gas lens cup.

I use 5-6lpm through the #5 and 6-7lpm through the number #8 lens.

I keep all my ceramics, lenses, collets and bodies CK so they all work together.

 

[Hood]

I use a 10 (I think) when welding thick Alu but for everything else I just use a 7 if I recall.

 

[Brad93]

Maybe I’ll try the gas lenses again once I’ve bought some better quality ones. Who knows as long as I can build exhausts and tinker some stuff on the car then I’m fairly happy lol



I appreciate that. It would seem I’ve missed all the useful videos and jumped straight to the “ohhh shiny” thumbnails lol.

Personally I don’t care what colour my welds are as long as they hold together and don’t look like bird Flip flop then consider me happy. I won’t say no if I can achieve some pretty colours though. Just makes the pictures I take look a little more Instagram worthy. Which in turn means I don’t get shot down for being a Flip flop welder lol.

Aluminium next I have a fuel tank to build (maybe)

That will have to be pretty

Grey welds like you posted before are highly oxidised. You’ve got excess carbide precipitation which means the chromium and Nickel has reacted with the oxygen in the atmosphere (or a bad bottle of gas) and formed carbides on the surface of the weld (front and back).

What this leaves you with is one an unsightly weld and two, a weld that is barely more corrosion resistant than mild steel.

In fact it’s probably worse because now you’ve got high and low concentrations of alloying elements so you could get galvanic corrosion.

 

[Dr pipe]

This is interesting to me as I haven't started Tig yet but find the basic functionality of equipment to be more often the result of the problems. Clearly in this case it was a cup that wasn't correctly made or fitment to existing torch issue.

So with that in mind if lets say the cup on the torch was loose and drawing in Air as the shielding gas passes thru that would be similar ?

I'm really getting a sense of Tig welding is going to be almost Surgical, clean and lots of prep with attention to all the details... And even then expect the unexpected.

Great to see an issue resolved tho.

 

[Hood]

........
So with that in mind if lets say the cup on the torch was loose and drawing in Air as the shielding gas passes thru that would be similar ?.....

Yes that is exactly what would happen in that situation.
Tig is very susceptible to contamination of any sort whether it be corrosion, poor gas coverage, bad gas etc.

I once had a similar thing with MIG and it took me weeks to find the problem. I was welding up a small Aluminium chain ferry and I was getting porosity, not a massive amount but more than normal, after a lot of hair pulling I eventually found a tiny pinhole in the gas hose, changed that and all was well.