Left or Right

[Will_Davis]

Watching the TIG tutorial videos ( excellent resource btw. ) got me thinking

The video shows a left handed welder - so he holds the torch in the left hand.

Now I am right handed and so used to holding a mig torch or a stick in my right hand.

However when tig welding the hand that holds the filler rod does the most dextrous work ( in/out of the pool and also feeding forward through the fingers ) so I am thinking torch in Left, filler in Right.

Also when writing your head tends to look to the left side of the paper and so is a maybe more comfotable angle for the neck muscles.

Any right handers adopted this?

Will

 

[Hitch]

Do whichever is comfortable, I tend to use the torch in my right mostly, as a right hander. But over time you may well find the need to be able to do it either way around.

 

[rich r]

It's good to learn to be able to use either hand for any new task you're not familiar with. As Hitch says - there will be times when you have to hold the torch in your left hand because of restricted access or some other reason, so you might as well learn to be as good with either. Learn the technique of using a tig torch one way, then before you get too set in it, try it the other way.

I trapped my right index finger in a bike chain when I was 6 years old - which is about the time you're learning to write properly. So I was forced to learn to change over to writing with my left hand, and then when the bandages came off a month later, switch back to my right. So I can write with either hand, use a computer mouse in either hand, shuffle cards either handed and use a screwdriver/drill/angle grinder/arc welding electrode/spanner/pliers etc. in either hand. And so on.

I may choose to favour one hand or the other, but try to make the effort to keep the ability to swap over when I need to.