Tig welding tips

jeeptj99 · Jan 29, 2015

The other day i got a wild hair and decided i wanted to learn to tig weld. My dad had a welder and all it needed was gas and it was good to go. Long story short, I can't get the concept of rolling or walking the cone. Does anyone have any tips that helped them with it? i have been practicing with a water bottle at my desk all day. (as crazy as it is i think i'm getting a little bit better ath the concept.) I know there are some talented people on this bored and would love to be able to pick up some tips and tricks to make my self a better welder if anyone could help me out.

85toyo · Jan 29, 2015

This guy has tons of info on every kind of welding. Check out his videos.

http://www.weldingtipsandtricks.com/

Rokcrler · Jan 29, 2015

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Checkout brown dogs YouTube...can't find it at the moment....but he does show thru the lens type things....one badass mofo.
Brown Dog Welding: Tips for Beginner TIG Welders: http://youtu.be/OpU38wqZLlQ

pholmann · Jan 29, 2015

Im glad you started this thread. Ive been dabbling a little myself. I have a dc tig. I have been doing okay with carbon steel and stainless, but my problem is aluminum. I know your not supposed to weld aluminum with a dc tig. But....... you are supposed to be able to do it with helium. I have played with it a little bit but I cannot seem to be able to get the two pieces to seam together. All I do is make a hot molten puddle of **** to have to grind away. Any help in this area woudl be great. Its frustrating as hell.

wont work · Jan 29, 2015

85toyo said:
This guy has tons of info on every kind of welding. Check out his videos.

http://www.weldingtipsandtricks.com/

Without someone to sit down with you this guy is good.

As walking the cup goes you dont have to do that and can make it look like dimes by dipping your rod or pulsing with the pedal. I would suggest just welding without filler rod for a bit just to get the hang of holding the tig torch at the proper angle then start dipping your rod.

Nuts · Jan 29, 2015

When I was learning I would just do the movements without even striking an arc. I was used to planting a hand somewhere and pivoting off it when mig welding and that taught me how to steadily slide both hands for tig. Then like said above I started making beads without filler.

Toddy · Jan 29, 2015

pholmann said:
Im glad you started this thread. Ive been dabbling a little myself. I have a dc tig. I have been doing okay with carbon steel and stainless, but my problem is aluminum. I know your not supposed to weld aluminum with a dc tig. But....... you are supposed to be able to do it with helium. I have played with it a little bit but I cannot seem to be able to get the two pieces to seam together. All I do is make a hot molten puddle of **** to have to grind away. Any help in this area woudl be great. Its frustrating as hell.

DC tig on anything less then 1/4" is gonna be a mess. 1/4" is pushing it but will work. DC is usually used on thicker stuff that you don't want to preheat. It digs better for for lack of a more technical term.

Get comfortable! If you can't do that you will have a very hard time with it. Not saying you will never weld out of position or be uncomfortable but you will learn that after you get the puddle figured out. Like said above get set up and run the joint you are wanting to weld with out an arc. When you start to feel uncomfortable or like you need to move STOP. Make that weld. When you start trying to weld 6" and are only comfortable the first 2" your gonna learn bad practices.

Walking the cup will be useless until you learn what a good puddle looks like. Watch on both sides of the joint and try to keep the puddle even on either side.

Not real sure where you are at in your skill but I'll leave it at that for now. Post up some picks and we might be able to help more.

ranger11 · Jan 29, 2015

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Im glad for this thread as well. I have learned not all aluminum weldable. I still can't get a decent looking weld on alum. Everyone says it has to be super clean to get those pretty welds.

wont work · Jan 29, 2015

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ranger11 said:
Im glad for this thread as well. I have learned not all aluminum weldable. I still can't get a decent looking weld on alum. Everyone says it has to be super clean to get those pretty welds.

It does. Are you using a stainless wire brush?
What machine are you usng? This will have an effect on what adjustments you have

Rokcrler · Jan 29, 2015

Re: Re: Tig welding tips

Practice on flat first...that's what I've been told.
This is the same dude.

stuftmunky2k · Jan 29, 2015

there are 3 main rules when it comes to tig welding aluminum. Clean, Clean, and Clean. the cleaner the material the better the weld. granted machine settings like frequency and balance do make a difference on penetration and cleaning action. The best pointer I can tell someone on welding aluminum is hot and fast. Need to have good peddle control and be able to read a puddle. Best advice for people starting out would be grab a piece of 1/2'' thick plate mild or stainless and sit down and weld bead after bead after bead until the plate is filled up. then after its filled up flip it over and do it again, by doing that it makes you aware of how the puddle reacts to different factors like torch angle heat input and such. I look at tig welding like I giant game of manipulation. need to understand what the puddle is going to do by what you are doing with the torch. Walking the cup is pointless in my eyes unless its a vertical T joint or a beveled pipe. The easiest way to learn how to walk the cup is on a piece of 6'' sch 40 pipe with a 70 degree included bevel so 35 degrees on both ends. That way the cup sits down in the pipe and is like a track for it to follow. this will allow you to get the motion down of the wrist and or of your arm. I weld stainless steel process piping and do 90 percent of stainless at work. On the process piping the tubing is .065 wall thickness, it is butted up with no gap, pipe is back purged with argon and then the joint is welded. When the weld is complete you look inside and have a nice weld inside and outside with just one pass. I will post some pictures of my welds at work just messing around. Once you get efficient enough at tig anything or any gap is possible. As for pulse my personal opinion I hate it, but it does help with heat input. I look at it like a person cheating because they cant flow a puddle so they dumb it down. but that's just me. Any way enough rambling I will post some pics later tonight so you guys can see that the machine has nothing to do with weld output, its the person using the welder. Not trying to show off but this is what I do for a living so always willing to help anyone and show them what to look at.

this is the machine all these welds were done with. old stick welder converted to tig. all these are on 304 stainless steel and lift arc

here is walking the cup on tubing first one is outside picture second is of inside with 100% penetration

some random ones.

patooyee · Jan 29, 2015

I'm still new but I can weld almost anything I need now good enough to be use-able and leak-free. If you're working on aluminum cleanliness is godliness. Not just the area you are going to be directly welding either. The heat will suck oxidation and pollutant in from the edges of the weld and even around a corner on the edge of a plate. You wonder WTF is going on, why can't I get a decent weld. Also not shielding the filler rod with the gas is a big newb mistake that I still make. Pulling the hot tip of the rod out too far will result in an oxidized ball and then when you go to dip again you introduce that oxidation into the puddle. This is frustrating as hell when you have a good clean bead going and then suddenly start getting pollutants. Watching the puddle is key and one of my biggest challenges is keeping it "wet" equally on both pieces. Another thing is that you need to aim the tip of the torch just slightly ahead of your puddle to kind of pre-heat where you are about to go before you get there.

The welding beads on beads on flat plate is a good practice exercise. I still go back to doing it when I am trying new materials just to get material-specific practice before I **** up the whole project.

I started backwards. I needed to do aluminum right away so I learned on aluminum. I'm still way better on aluminum than steel.

Toddy · Jan 29, 2015

In my opinion steel is easier to learn on. Alum will disappear on you and you have no clue why. After welding steel you get a feel for heat and how too much will burn thru. Steel will flow with no filler where as Alum is hard to get to do that.

I think if you have Alum down you should have no trouble on steel after alittle practice.

pholmann · Jan 30, 2015

I found some pretty helpful hints from weld.com and some youtube vids through a guy called mr tig. I need to check to see if I am trying to weld aluminum through dc positive or negative. I have never even checked the polarity of my machine since I bought it used. My understanding is that steel and stainless is DC negative and aluminum is DC positive.

jeeptj99 · Jan 30, 2015

According to my old man and a buddy of his that still welds for a living if you dip the rod when welding steel youre doing it wrong??? supposedly if you do it on a pressure test or something like that they will fail you automatically.

sledneck · Jan 30, 2015

I guess there using a "lay wire" technique but I have never heard of someone failing for dabbing the filler rod. Every place is different and has different standards so who's to say. Besides the cleanness of alum when you strike the arc watch for wetting action on both sides of your parts then start adding your filler. I also quickly clean the aluminum filler rod also. As for walking the cup, your putting the cart before the horse. Practice practice and practice. .

rstdwright · Jan 30, 2015

Get a styrofoam cup and a phone book and twist your wrist only and walk it down the page until you dont rinkle the page there are several diff ways to do it kinda just have to teach yourself

rstdwright · Jan 30, 2015

I like to lay my wire on the piece and use it as a guide you can watch people and they can show you the basics but to get good you just have to spend the time behind the hood