Is Tig welding on the path to death?

[Mid Wales welder]

With the emergence of the ever imporoving pulsed mig process, is tig welding going to become obsolete in the near future?
With the ability to weld virtually any material and any thickness at an ever increasing speed with no clean up required, it seems to me that tig welding (in the workshop anyway) is becoming more and more of a dieing art.
Thought this would be an interesting subject for debate on hear, so would love to hear peoples opinions!!

Thanks

Dave.

 

[matt1978]

Pulse mig has been around for around 30 years, It's true Pulse mig has improved unbelievably over the last 10 years especially and some jobs that always used to be tigged can now be migged but there are still jobs and always will be jobs that require the Tig process.

Tig is the only process out of the 3 mainstream ones that an arc can be struck without adding filler material so stop/starts will always be much better in comparison.

However in saying that Tig units only account for around 7% of all industrial quality machines sold world wide

 

[langy]

Tig has quality a a mig can't give you, can't see it dying out any time soon

 

[Mid Wales welder]

7% is alot lower than i thought it would be!
I probably should have said production tig as i think it will definatly always have its place in custom work and one off things. But i have seen some pulse mig welds where you could barely tell the differance with some very nice distict ripple paterns.
When comparing stop starts what are the benifits to having no addition of filler metal? Is it to do with crack sensative materials?

 

[matt1978]

The benefit is that you can make sure that the last stop has sufficiently melted before you add wire. It's higher quality and looks much neater.

Mig is still very much a "bull in a China shop" in certain applications. Not refined or delicate enough

 

[Mid Wales welder]

The benefit is that you can make sure that the last stop has sufficiently melted before you add wire. It's higher quality and looks much neater.

Mig is still very much a "bull in a China shop" in certain applications. Not refined or delicate enough

I'm sure it wont be long before they figure out how to match tig stop starts lol
I'm not trying to argue that tig is dead, far from it. I just find pulse mig an iteresting subject as there is so much that can be done with it and its constantly being advanced, i see miller has a machine that runs short circuit mig with no spatter and very little distortion for thin metel. Also just thought this it would be an interesting thead.

 

[matt1978]

Yeah your right. I sell machines for a living and Pulse mig is by far our biggest seller.

It's not just Pulse mig, we now have modified Pulse which is a Pulse and Spray arc hybrid, called SpeedPulse, 2 "cold" processes, both modified short arcs one for thin sheets and the other for rooting/bridging gaps. Speedarc, A modified Spray arc for welding fast and with more penetration and finally a mix between SpeedPulse and SpeedArc for welding vertical T fillets.

Other manufacturers also have special processes and some even have AC mig

 

[Mid Wales welder]

Yeah your right. I sell machines for a living and Pulse mig is by far our biggest seller.

It's not just Pulse mig, we now have modified Pulse which is a Pulse and Spray arc hybrid, called SpeedPulse, 2 "cold" processes, both modified short arcs one for thin sheets and the other for rooting/bridging gaps. Speedarc, A modified Spray arc for welding fast and with more penetration and finally a mix between SpeedPulse and SpeedArc for welding vertical T fillets.

Other manufacturers also have special processes and some even have AC mig

Yes I think in production welding pulse mig and all its additions is definitely an expanding industry with vast possibilities.

I was reading about SpeedPulse and Speedarc the other day, both very interesting! I'm guessing that these processes are tailored more towards the auto and semi auto welding market?
AC mig is also interesting (not that i know much about it), i am i right in saying that they are still seen as inferior to advanced pulse mig? Also can these be used to weld other materials than alloys?

Can i ask how did you get into welding sales?

 

[matt1978]

AC mig is even more advanced than Pulse because it switches the polarity of the wire before the droplet lands in the weldpool. It's very good on thin sheet Aluminium.

I did a 4yr welding apprenticeship at Babcocks, after that I spent about 3-4 yrs "welding" for a living. Then I fancied a change so I got a job at a local welding distributor as a sales rep/demonstrator. Then progressed to working for a manufacturer.

 

[Mid Wales welder]

I'm guessing AC mig would need to be run with a water cooled tourch to curb the heat build up? How does AC mig help welding thin sheet, is it just that it has less heat input? Would it also help clean mildly oxidised material?
Like I said I don't really know anything about AC mig, I'll have to do some reading lol!

Did you not enjoy 'real life welding' then? What sort of things were you doing?
I wanted to do an apprenticeship but I live in mid wales so would have to have traveled. I ended up doing city & guilds & NVQ 3 welding & fabrication, then just been working as that ever since, bar a couple of years inbetween. I just do general fabrication & welding at the mo, use mostly mig but abit of stick & TIG. I wanted to get more into TIG welding, but lately I have wanted to get into your line of work as I find the new technology very interesting!

 

[matt1978]

Yes I did enjoy it but I wanted a change for a couple of reasons. Mainly because I was fed up with the all or nothing mentality of site work. The big contractors want you to work 7 x 12 shifts when the work is on but think nothing of putting you on short time when it's not. And secondly because most of the sales reps who came to factories/sites where I was working selling stuff knew absolutely F all about welding, so I figured you could do quite well at it if you knew about welding and how to actually weld! I wouldn't even dream of going back on the tools now

 

[matt1978]

Pulse mig in general is very demanding on the torch and welding anything more than about 5mm plate for any prolonged length of time would be best with water-cooling.

AC mig is can be lower heat input which is why it's better for very thin sheet Alu

 

[Mid Wales welder]

Yes I see what you mean, I'm forever seeing welding jobs advertised for short term contracts. That sort of thing is no good with bills to pay, need steady work where you don't need to look for a new job every few months!
Where you mainly doing stick welding then?
My job isn't to bad, steady hours & the money is ok (for where I live anyway) but it's just getting a bit boring. I always need new things to keep my brain working lol.
I keep toying with a few ideas, getting more into TIG work, going self employed or like I say maybe going into sales, but I just can't decide.

Yes we have an old kemppi 5000 at work that has primitive pulse on it, we sometimes make robot stands out of 25mm plate & use pulse while welding. The water cooler isn't working on it & you can defiantly tell the difference! I bet with the new pulse mig's it's even worse.

Can AC mig be used on slightly dirtier material?

 

[pressbrake1]

Pulse mig has been around for around 30 years, It's true Pulse mig has improved unbelievably over the last 10 years especially and some jobs that always used to be tigged can now be migged but there are still jobs and always will be jobs that require the Tig process.

Tig is the only process out of the 3 mainstream ones that an arc can be struck without adding filler material so stop/starts will always be much better in comparison.

However in saying that Tig units only account for around 7% of all industrial quality machines sold world wide

I agree and some jobs are just to thin or to small to need filler or too lower amps for mig to work.
The list is quite long of tig only, I think people just label tig for aluminium work ,where pulse mig has come on in leaps and bounds and has made tig to slow by comparison.