New to TIG and just bought this

[F.J.]

Since leaving school all my welding work has been with mig and the occasional stick welding but over the last twelve months I have been asked more and more if I do TIG welding. Some jobs ive subbed out and made a very small margin but most jobs ive had to say no to so ive decided to invest in this little beauty and these consumables and Esab mask, Its a Lincoln Electric v205-t acdc and will hopefully get good enough to start taking on jobs and taking home the full amount rather than the odd tenner here and there. I have a lot of home work to do as I had a quick go of it today on a piece of scrap ally and couldn't even form a puddle! I was using a 2.4mm red band tungsten on 6mm ally plate. I wasnt sure on how far to stick the tungsten out so had it out about 3mm from the shroud. From a quick read of the manual I tried to set the machine up on the default settings with no joy. I'll be doing lots more reading and internet searching and will post back with my results. Ive never been fussed about TIG welding due to my work being more for mig and stick but now ive got the Lincoln I am excited for where it could possibly take my business as well as putting another string to my bow

Could a mod please rotate my pics

Thanks

 

[Wyn F]

Looks like you got a right result on that welder, glad it worked out ok

I have a lot of home work to do as I had a quick go of it today on a piece of scrap ally and couldn't even form a puddle! I was using a 2.4mm red band tungsten on 6mm ally plate.

Shouldn't you use a white tungsten rod with alloy ?

 

[F.J.]

Im not sure as im new to tig. I goggled it and the first three sites were forums with posts stating red, white, grey and even green! As the torch already had a red one in I thought I would have a go with that. I'll be calling into where I get my consumables next week so they will put me on the right path for what to use on what material

 

[wheresmejumper]

Lovely machine, jealous.
youd need near full power to pool on 6mm though

 

[Wyn F]

Same boat as me but at least you have tried yours
Am still reading up on threads on here and watching vids on utube
Once I have some gas will try me a puddle, if not cry me a puddle

 

[Paul.]

Pictures rotated
red tipped tungstens are thoriated and normally used on DC, for mild and stainless, white tipped are zirconiated and were the traditional choice for aluminium, just lately I have been using lanthated gold tipped which are multi strike suitable for AC and DC,
As you are a beginner to TIG I would say practice on DC with mild steel or stainless to start with, you need to develop torch technique and will be much easier without the problems of working with ally.
6mm is quite a thickness and (depending on the coupon size) will take a lot of heat before it melts.
follow this forums tutorial to get you started its all in there.

 

[ukracer]

As Paul says its white which is normally sued for ali. I dont have a clue why but I let a red on it after I had welded some mild steel and I tried ali afterwards. Not sure if it was the contamination or the fact it was red I was using. Out of interest what sort of things have you been mig welding have you been doing since school??

Regards Andy T

 

[F.J.]

As Paul says its white which is normally sued for ali. I dont have a clue why but I let a red on it after I had welded some mild steel and I tried ali afterwards. Not sure if it was the contamination or the fact it was red I was using. Out of interest what sort of things have you been mig welding have you been doing since school??

Regards Andy T

I started an apprenticeship at 15 at a commercial vehicle repair shop so did a fare amount of welding on thick and thin steels and ally replacing body panels to building horse boxes and gas bottle carriers for Air Liquide (Linde gas back then). I am 31 now and work for myself doing the same sort of work but also repair plant machinery and build bespoke Bicycles from scratch. Most of my work comes from plant machinery but just recently I have been trying to also focus on commercial vehicles. The tig work has started coming from a customer who service and maintain tanker trailers and they always need stainless flanges welding up as well as aluminium brackets but it will also come in handy for the bikes.

 

[F.J.]

I will be dedicating this weekend to reading this forum and other sources to help me with my new toy/investment. I admit that I jumped into it this afternoon as I was like a kid at Christmas and just wanted to have a go. Im sure with the right consumables and settings I will get it right. If I had someone with experience by my side to help press the right buttons on the machine that would help a hell if a lot, but as it takes a while for me to get my head around jargon filled instruction books its going to take a bit longer

 

[BrokenBiker]

i would say to just use the tutorials and advice on this site rather than the instruction manuals, much easier to understand on here

 

[hotrodder]

Thoriated tungsten doesn't melt 'cleanly', it tends to form multiple facets instead of just rounding off neatly which causes arc wander. It's also prone to splitting when overheated / from the thermal shock of polarity reversals (around 2/3 of the arcs total heat occurs at the +ve electrode) which can result in a weld full of tungsten inclusions and even more arc wander

You don't really want green with a modern squarewave machine, especially inverters either. Green is pure tungsten and it balls up a lot more than zirconiated does and is kinda the traditional choice with old sinewave beasts if you're American/were around before zirconiated existed

 

[BrokenBiker]

i use lanthinated in my inverter, work well buy never used one on ac

 

[lshigham]

Grey (ceriated) is a good all rounder for AC and DC on an inverter

 

[BrokenBiker]

Grey (ceriated) is a good all rounder for AC and DC on an inverter

thanks, will get some when i need to buy some more. Still have one whole tungsten left after cutting the last down to fit in a small cap