HughF
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You should persevere with it, they're absolutely awesome to use.
- Thread starter Badger1bear
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You should persevere with it, they're absolutely awesome to use.
Paul.
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Same here, although a green wheel is unnecessary and a waste of money, ordinary grey aluminium oxide wheels are fine for tig electrodes, green stones are for tungsten lathe tooling and tipped drills etc.
langy
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Yeah I know but I have one anyway, I often use the belt sander too
HughF
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I've always done mine with a bench grinder when I was at the sheet metal shop. When I'm out and about doing field work or i'm not near a grinder it's a godsend. I have it hanging on a hook on the welding bench.
Richard.
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I do exactly the same mate. Much easier to change a prep by eye rather than setting up angles.
Screwdriver
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I think you would be more amazed at how often a noob like me can blow his tips....
langy
langys rodshop
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I still do it ocassionaly so don't worry
I just can't see the value in shelling out for these tungsten grinders when it's such a simple thing to learn ???
Richard.
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Do em on a belt sander till you've mastered not dipping/dabbing the electrode. Decent stones wear down quick if your having to take lumps off the electrode.
Gavin Melville
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One thought that might help, shape the tungsten's across the wheel 
, much quicker to get the right shape, then finish up (or down) the wheel to make the little grooves face the right way. Stone (or diamond wheel) lasts much longer.
, much quicker to get the right shape, then finish up (or down) the wheel to make the little grooves face the right way. Stone (or diamond wheel) lasts much longer.
Screwdriver
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I still do it ocassionaly so don't worry
Oh I am more than happy to grind the tip on a wheel but I keep the grinder away from the welding area for obvious reasons. So I have to stop, get up, walk to the other side of the workshop, grind, sit, blow tip, repeat...
The little grinder accessory (nominally) just sits right at the bench and you shove the tip in and spin it. Done. But when the tip gets borked, it won't fit in the grinder. So you snap it off or cut it in the slot and then the end of the tip runs off the outer diameter of the grinding wheel. I just gave up with it tbh and I have to recycle my ancient Dremel back into general use because the brand new one I bought recently stopped working almost instantly.
S.
PS I bought another battery powered Dremel at the same time that is equally useless. The speed control actually knocks off power too! At low speed the Dremel has no torque. Trading on their good name and punting out rubbish now if you ask me.
HughF
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You must be doing something wrong, because I cut/snap loads of ends off and re-point them with the hudmut grinder, never experienced a single problem...
I also got a new 8200 cordless to run it from, not a spot of trouble with that either, at any speed.
zx9
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I am a TIG novice too, I tend to keep a few tungstens sharp so I can just swap them over when I touch down or more likely these days dab the tungsten with the rod. I use a pin vise to hold the tungsten when grinding especially useful when getting to the last few inches of tungsten helps to keep my fingers away from the grindstone.
The best tool I ever bought was my hudmut grinder. When I first started TIG welding I was kanckering a tungsten every few minutes from touch downs!! The hudmut was a god send as I nipped the end off and re ground in seconds and was running again. Now it only gets used once a day unless I have a lapse of concentration but I would not be without it!!
Richard.
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I also keep a tube of pre prepped as you saw in the photo. But I do this as the preps vary slightly depending on where I want the arc focus. Rarely do I mess them up with dabbing/dipping but even the best tungstens in good hands do need a touch up from time to time as the points go dull. Also even with with good post flow protection the oxides do get to them from time to time. My AC tungstens need less dressing than my DC ones as once the ball forms and stabilises it pretty much remains and stays clean and shiny. The balled up one in the pic is my go to AC fillet tungsten and it's been going on that prep now for ages. If I keep it below 120 amps that will stay like that (unless I make a bad judgement call with the filler) over 120-130 amps and the ball will start to increase making it less usefull for fillets, unless I take the ep% down. I have a 1.6 that is the same prep that I keep below 70 amps and ones with bigger balls that I can take higher. It's always good fun and practice to try various preps and see just how much they really change the arc. IMHO tungsten prep has more effect on arc width than AC freq and pulsing.
zx9
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The big question for me would be 'What type of tungsten was it I ground the colour band off when I sharpened both ends yesterday / last week / last month?'
