do these welds look ok

[justmental]

this is the first piece of stainless i have welded with my sealy scratch tig.

i am not sure if the welder is right or if its me if i put more than 30 amps through it it will just burn away the steel.
i have also found that i have to have the earth conected to the positive
and the torch connected to the negative or it melts the tungsten away.

 

[Hitch]

Not a brilliant picture, but from what i can tell, they look quite a bit too hot, 30Amps sound a bit low if anything though....maybe you are not moving round the pipe fast enough. They also look a bit oxidised, that could be due to the high heat input. Using pure Argon i take it, and a red or gold tip tungsten...?

You need to have torch- and earth + for using it on Tig.

Can we have a close up of the worst welds?

 

[justmental]

yes i am using pure argon running at 8ltr per min on the flow gauge here is a couple of new pics.
this is when i first got it on normal steal

and these two form the pipes one i think is ok the other well s***

 

[weldingscotty803]

how are you prepping the steel.
are you using the correct filler rod?
are you welding outside in a drafty place?
i thought you had to purge pipes (stainless) when welding them to prevent other gasses mixing in with the argon

 

[justmental]

using the correct rod for the correct steals.
As for draft i am in my brick shed welding these so i dont think that is the problem.
its all new steal and brushed over with a stainless brush after being rubbed down

 

[runnach]

Deffo too hot, looks like concavity on face side, knock back the amps, or pick up SOT..............

 

[justmental]

that was with only 30 amps

 

[runnach]

Short of having a bash myself and, as you state m/c kicking out 30 amps, points to your speed of travel to slow (SOT) or there is some other problem, HAZ zone appears to cover a fair area too!

 

[rodofgod]

Hi All!

the welds are too hot, this looks like it's a case of too slow a speed of welding, also you need to put more filler wire into the welds as you are making them, hence the sunken weld profile.

Regards

 

[hotrodder]

I think there's a couple of issues maybe/probably in addition to an amperage/travel speed problem. Assuming that the tubing is 1.5mm wall there's no way that 30A will result in welds that wide unless arc length is way too long...

The mild steel sheet example is much tidier so i'm thinking that you're 'losing' the torch angle as you move around the tubing resulting in an increased arc length and overheating of the stainless. What does the end of the filler wire look like when you've ended a run? You need to keep the end within the gas shield while welding or it'll oxidise. Discolouration of the filler wire is a give away and means you've likely been dunking burnt, oxidised filler into the puddle (contaminating it) while welding which'll make life harder and make it impossible to get a clean finished weld- it'll always look grey/black