Hello all and few questions if I may?

[doubleboost]

You are only 20 miles from me
I have the same machine
You are welcome to come and try mine with your torch ect
I have a brand new R Tech reg you can borrow

 

[Paul.]

You don't have to spend a fortune though, I bought a couple of Wika branded single stage regs from Boc, they have performed flawlessly on both the mig and the tig, at just over twenty quid apiece.

 

[Richard.]

Regulator wise you can't go wrong with the likes of ESAB. They do a regulator for most price ranges right up to your fancy gas saving ones.
I've had Parweld regulators and they aren't too bad.
I now have an Elga, which is just awesome but a lot of £££ for a reg. I think they make Esab's higher end regulators.

Esab have a big chunk of these quality regs now under there umbrella. Both victor and gasarc are an esab brand and as you say the top line Swedish Elga regs can be bought as esab.

 

[Richard.]

You don't have to spend a fortune though, I bought a couple of Wika branded single stage regs from Boc, they have performed flawlessly on both the mig and the tig, at just over twenty quid apiece.

Wika make the gages.
They make good gages too. All Elga regs are built with wika gages.

 

[Richard.]

@Maddog go and see @doubleboost and put this all to bed mate. It will cost you nothing to try it out on another reg. take your bottle too so you can eliminate it right down to one thing.

 

[maddog7]

Hey all,
The level of advice and support here is amazing. I'm really grateful to you all for your help. I shall have a good look at the options in the morning (long day ) and report back tomorrow! If I could eliminate the stuff that is not technique related then perhaps I can concentrate on improving my technique!!!

 

[maddog7]

@Maddog go and see @doubleboost and put this all to bed mate. It will cost you nothing to try it out on another reg. take your bottle too so you can eliminate it right down to one thing.

I was hoping to do just that. I'm a fan of the DB youtube channel and after hopefully putting the welding business to bed I could pick up some tips for cutting threads into root vegetables!!!

 

[maddog7]

You are only 20 miles from me
I have the same machine
You are welcome to come and try mine with your torch ect
I have a brand new R Tech reg you can borrow

That might be just the ticket John, many thanks for the offer of help.
Will give ya a shout the morra.
Cheers
D

 

[maddog7]

I'm sure it's entirely obvious to everyone but me but does the forum have a PM facility?
It is the "Start a conversation" thing?
Cheers
D

 

[Paul.]

I'm sure it's entirely obvious to everyone but me but does the forum have a PM facility?
It is the "Start a conversation" thing?
Cheers
D

Yes, just click on the name of the person you want to pm then click on "start conversation",

 

[maddog7]

Hey all,
I made a trip to the weld supply shop today for a new lid so for a few dollars more I picked up a new reg, flow meter and gas line too. Using the same bottle of Argon I did the test described previously and the results seem much better on stainless though somewhat bizarrely about the same on aluminium. Looking at my rubbish attempts at running a simple bead on stainless, there's nowhere near the amount of flakey oxide and the spot tests look the way I'd imagine they probably should, with a shiney, slightly golden centre. The tungsten is also remaining soot free. I really don't know enough about it but I wonder if the beads I'm trying to run are getting too hot? They are grey in colour as opposed to presumably preferably being straw/gold coloured? I did try throttling back on the pedal but the puddle just formed up on top of the base material. Oddly some of my attempts have what I think might be good colouring at one end?
I'll post some piccies for your dissection if that's ok?
All advice gratefully received
Cheers
D

 

[Brad93]

There could will be contamination there looking at that spot test but that could be down to technique.

 

[Richard.]

Hey all,
I made a trip to the weld supply shop today for a new lid so for a few dollars more I picked up a new reg, flow meter and gas line too. Using the same bottle of Argon I did the test described previously and the results seem much better on stainless though somewhat bizarrely about the same on aluminium. Looking at my rubbish attempts at running a simple bead on stainless, there's nowhere near the amount of flakey oxide and the spot tests look the way I'd imagine they probably should, with a shiney, slightly golden centre. The tungsten is also remaining soot free. I really don't know enough about it but I wonder if the beads I'm trying to run are getting too hot? They are grey in colour as opposed to presumably preferably being straw/gold coloured? I did try throttling back on the pedal but the puddle just formed up on top of the base material. Oddly some of my attempts have what I think might be good colouring at one end?
I'll post some piccies for your dissection if that's ok?
All advice gratefully received
Cheers
D

View attachment 107871 View attachment 107872 View attachment 107875

Don't back off the current that's not a good thing because then your compromising pen. To reduce the dullness you can simply travel faster. Controlled Heat input and quality shielding are key to nice results on stainless. You are very close to that with those results.
I'd increase your current and pick up the travel rate.

 

[maddog7]

There could will be contamination there looking at that spot test but that could be down to technique.

Hey Brad93,
Is 93 the year you or your offspring were born or are you a fan of Marc Marquez???
The spot test... I positioned my tungsten (2.4mm thoriated) at 90 degrees to the material and approx 2mm from the tip to the surface, went full pedal instantly or as quickly as my aged snowboard injured foot would arc (approx 45a on 1.6mm 304L stainless sheet) until a 5-6mm puddle formed, then chopped the power. I left the torch in position until the gas timed out (approx 10s) Preflow at 2s.
Cheers
D

 

[maddog7]

Don't back off the current that's not a good thing because then your compromising pen. To reduce the dullness you can simply travel faster. Controlled Heat input and quality shielding are key to nice results on stainless. You are very close to that with those results.
I'd increase your current and pick up the travel rate.

That's encouraging Richard, thank you.
I'll try it at a quicker travel speed and see how that turns out!
Cheers
D

 

[the black box]

I would rarely use a 2.4 tungsten below 100 amps. Running at 45amps I'd drop to a 1.6mm tungsten and as said up the current a bit.

 

[Brad93]

Hey Brad93,
Is 93 the year you or your offspring were born or are you a fan of Marc Marquez???
The spot test... I positioned my tungsten (2.4mm thoriated) at 90 degrees to the material and approx 2mm from the tip to the surface, went full pedal instantly or as quickly as my aged snowboard injured foot would arc (approx 45a on 1.6mm 304L stainless sheet) until a 5-6mm puddle formed, then chopped the power. I left the torch in position until the gas timed out (approx 10s) Preflow at 2s.
Cheers
D

Hi mate,
Year I was born

Try a tighter arc and as Hugh says step down to a 1.6. You will find the arc should be more stable and you'll get better arc starts.

Stainless is all about heat input. It's a three way system, each variable affecting your overall heat input differently.
Travel speed
Amperage
Arc Gap

Obviously, the arc gap is the simplest to address. Hold a nice tight arc and your voltage drops and therefore heat input decreases (cc so amperage stays the same).

Travel speed is proportionate to amperage. So a higher amperage can help you increase your travel speed and actually reduce your overall heat input.

There is also the chilling effect of the filler wire being added to the pool.

When your overall heat input is reduced you get all those pretty colours. It's not just a case of throwing loads of gas over it. You've got to bear in mind that whilst some of these guys use these massive lenses on stainless and dip really slow at a low amperage, they are actually doing the metal harm.

I'll try to explain it, I'm still learning this stuff so some terms may be wrong:

If you go looking in any book on metallurgy in stainless steels you'll find something called carbide precipitation. This is the grey dull welds or sugaring on the back side of a stainless weld that hasn't been protected from the atmosphere with inert or backing gas. You're chromium and carbon has been drawn out of the stainless by the heat and reacted to the oxygen in the air. Result: much decreased corrosion resistance, reduced mechanical strength, chance of stress corrosion cracking.

There is also what you call intergranular corrosion.
Generally what happens is you get your chromium form a different compound at the grain boundaries in the metal when heated for too long, reducing corrosion resistance and mechanical properties of the material again. This usually occurs in the HAZ or at the toes of the weld.

 

[maddog7]

More great info in your replies folks.
I was a bit pushed but I did get a little more time on it tonight. I dropped the tungsten to 1.6mm, experimented with arc gap and travel speed and also tungsten stick out, did some more spot tests at various gaps and stick outs and even set up a pulse to see how that went. I was just a little too pushed to take any piccies but some of the above produced some interesting results. The spot tests with small stickouts and small arc length produced shiny dots that looked the same colour as the base metal, longer arcs and stickouts would give more colourful results.
I'm am struggling a bit with arc length, I'm having a bit trouble seeing the tip of the tungsten and the worry of dipping it in the puddle or more likely the filler rod raising the puddle into the tip. I try to lift it slightly as I add rod but can't see it very well. Seems the same with my cheapy lid and my new Lincoln one. I presume I want to be about 1-1.5mm from the puddle and running 3-4mm of stickout?

I'm probably going to go to work tomorrow to change the fork oil on my 900ss so I'll try and have a bit more experiment and report back with my findings!
Thank you all once again!
D

 

[Brad93]

More great info in your replies folks.
I was a bit pushed but I did get a little more time on it tonight. I dropped the tungsten to 1.6mm, experimented with arc gap and travel speed and also tungsten stick out, did some more spot tests at various gaps and stick outs and even set up a pulse to see how that went. I was just a little too pushed to take any piccies but some of the above produced some interesting results. The spot tests with small stickouts and small arc length produced shiny dots that looked the same colour as the base metal, longer arcs and stickouts would give more colourful results.
I'm am struggling a bit with arc length, I'm having a bit trouble seeing the tip of the tungsten and the worry of dipping it in the puddle or more likely the filler rod raising the puddle into the tip. I try to lift it slightly as I add rod but can't see it very well. Seems the same with my cheapy lid and my new Lincoln one. I presume I want to be about 1-1.5mm from the puddle and running 3-4mm of stickout?

I'm probably going to go to work tomorrow to change the fork oil on my 900ss so I'll try and have a bit more experiment and report back with my findings!
Thank you all once again!
D

Better to have a bit more stick out and a tighter arc gap. 6-8mm will be fine. Your arc gap should be less than 1.5mm.