Getting started with TIG

[Nick Nakorn]

Moving from one welding technique is always difficult. I had 30 years of oxy-acetylene experience and was pretty good at it but no electric welding experience at all of any sort and bought a MIG welder 2 years ago. I am still not a very good MIG welder though it is getting rapidly better. My next stage is to get a TIG set-up for my SWP Invert-R 170 welder. But the useless instructions that came with it (now thrown away) did not say how to set up for TIG so I have no idea as to what sort of torch and fittings to buy. As it will be my first go at TIG, can anyone point me in the right direction for inexpensive-to-mid-range torches and whatever else one needs?

 

[Bill Edwards]

It's well worth having a read of the TIG tutorials on this forum, lots of great info available:
http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/tig-tutorial.htm

 

[Nick Nakorn]

Thanks Bill, I've read many of them and they are excellent. But I suppose I need to know things like: are the fittings standardised? Are there some makes of torch specially made for some makes of welder? That sort of thing. I'm very ignorant in terms of fixtures and fittings. Does anyone here have an SWP 170? I'll trawl the tutorial pages again and see if I can spot a 'what goes where' for fittings, leads, hoses and so-on :-)

 

[Wozzaaah]

@Nick Nakorn
I've moved your posts to a new thread as it's better to start your own than hijack someone else's.

 

[BrokenBiker]

go onto the weld equip store, get a scratch start tig kit, a bottle of argon and some consumables. All you need to know when buying the tig kit is what size connector you have, which should be stamped on there. Connect torch to negative, earth to positive, gas hose and regulator to an argon supply and start tigging. The kit works for scratch start or lift arc, I used mine for lift arc and apart from the bad gas coverage when snapping out of the weld it was brilliant