First post, newbie welder, GO EASY...please :)

[Wade88]

Hi lads,

As already stated, totally new to welding in the sense i have been bodging things together for about a year but managed to get myself through reading and some homework and as much practise as i can fit in, to a reasonable level arc and mig welding. by reasonable level i mean i can weld things together fairly competantly, and they dont fall apart....i consider this to be all things considered a good start....right?

However, my interest now is not with Arc and Mig as im doing pretty good on that front, but my Tig welding is total and utter pants, just dont know where im going wrong. Read books, watched endless videos, practised through 2 argon canisters and still producing a weld that resembles the morning after a hot ruby.

The problem i appear to be having is when the arc strikes and im adding rod, im not able to push the pool along and subsequently just end up making a large heap of filler, or the majority of the weld appears to end up on the backside of the stainless (if your with me). Now ive only been practising on whatever scrap i can find laying around at work which generally just small pieces of 2-3mm sheet. Im setting ampage at around 75 and using thoriated 1.6mm tungsten with 1mm filler rod. Im sure most of you reading are probaly thinking "this bloke is a total lemon" and you wouldnt be far wrong, but i cant stress enough how new i am to Tig welding. So im standing up againt the wall here but dont shoot yet. Any basic tips on getting myself going would be much apprecaited.

Thanks fellas.

Oh one other thing, the arc itself is not as concentrated as i would like if that makes sense (excuse the lack of techincal terminology here), its quite a wide and course cone so im heating up a large area of the base metal when i dont really ewant to be and the rod is just melting away to nothing and not forming a pool. I feel 1mm rod is far too small and im probably not helping myself here with that.

Ben

 

[vpug]

Hi
I would sayTig is harder than arc and mig to get the hange of, its more like gas welding.
It may help if you could get someone to film you welding, check your angles and speed.
Your amps are litlle high at 75 if its 2mm ss o.k if you are on the move but not hanging around and is your electrode ground well.
Pics of your welds and electrode after grinding and after welding.
Thanks Vpug

 

[Country Joe]

Hi there, Wade88.
The tricky thing with tig always seems to be getting the tungsten dead close, but without touching down. The "wide and coarse" cone problem is usually caused by not keeping a close enough distance to the work-piece.
Have to admit I don't do all that much stainless on a regular basis, but it seems to weld quite well usually, but overall, keeping a nice tight arc seems to be the key to welding any material when it comes to tigging.
The arc has a cone shaped appearance anyway, but the closer you can be, the less chance it has to "spread out". I think the general rule is that it should be no further away than the width of the tungsten itself.
As you've said, you might find a slightly larger filler rod helps a bit, too. Especially if its vanishing as quickly as you say. If the filler is too small, you'll find yourself having to feed it in more quickly, and feeding the filler rod into the weld pool is just as tricky as keeping a tight arc. Having to feed it extremely quickly doesn't make things any easier. Obviously with a very tight arc, you'll not have the room directly under the arc, without touching the filler rod, so you should end up feeding it into the pool just ahead of the arc, sort of at the "front" of the pool, in the direction you're welding in, if that makes any sense.

Hope this helps,
All the Best,
CJ

There are quite a few proper "tig heads" on the forum, so stand by for more (and better) replies from the uber-tiggers!

Pictures are always good, and go a long way to helping someone to diagnose what's going on.

 

[Wade88]

Thanks lads,

Well in a spare half an hour, i shall go away and endevour to make a right old mess and shame myself with some photos...

 

[biffa]

Thicker rod and tungsten would make your life easyier, so 1.6 filler and 2.4 tungsten, start of just fuseing with out filler so you get the puddel going, then when you get better, start introducing rod. also keep your tungstens needle sharp

 

[Wade88]

Thanks biffa,

I think that thicker filler rod is definitely a good start and ive managed to just about burn away my tungsten already through a catalogue of cock ups so ill re-jig everything and see how i get on.

Hope you all had a good weekend, the joy of monday morning dawns