1upmoto

I am trying to improve my tig welding, I have no formal training and I dont know anyone locally that tig welds so I have just been reading on the internet. What am I doing wrong? thanks

that-guy

torch specs? whats your amps and gas flow?

1upmoto

#10 gas lens, 55 amps 15 cfh.

hoochhenry

turn the gas up to 25cfh

HellaFab

Correct your torch angle and don't weave the torch.

Sharp tungsten, proper torch angle and heat will all make it easier to make a nice bead on tube/round flanges.

1upmoto

thanks for the tips!

1upmoto

How does this one look?

MVPPerformance

Still weaving, needs more filler.

v8killaz

color looks decent. needs to move faster and dap more filler

tig welding has no secrets only practice. I use to go through the big 60" argon tank a day.

a267mm

practice is what people tell me, tight joints, clean pipe with acetone and practice

Engloid

First is too hot or slow. Second is too cold and not enough filler. Keep your filler metal inside the argon cover when you pull away from the puddle, so keep it from contaminating.

ritzone42

I agree with the above advice. For no formal training, you're actually doing pretty well. Looks better than some of the welds I saw coming out of welding school. I got lucky in that I was born with a stinger in my hand practically (my Dad was a pipe welder/fitter/fabricator for like 20 years before I was born, started teaching me at about 5yrs old). Stainless is all about heat and cover gas. There is a very fine line between too much/little heat and correct travel speed. You can weave but definitely gotta know what you're doing. With stainless less weave is better because once it gets hot, it just flows and keeps getting hotter. And with too much heat, it just won't weld at all and in your head you go hmm, it's not flowing so it needs more heat... Nope lol The first pic you posted is definitely of the too much heat variety. You were getting close with the second pic, but as already stated by Engloid, it was a little cold and lacking in filler.

BTW, what type of rig are you running on? As in, do you have a pedal or no?

1upmoto

Thanks for the advice, I have an Everlast 200dx and yes I have a pedal.

ritzone42

Ok, pedal is good. Once you get a feel for what heat you need the pedal just makes it all gravy. It's all in learning to read the puddle. The way my dad tought me with stainless TIG is this: work the pedal slowly in until you see the "dancing man". Basically, if you watch the puddle form, you will start to see it kind of swirl... That's what he meant by the dancing man, and once you see that swirl form, you're ready to move on. And don't be afraid to move. So many people tend to "drag their feet", so to speak, which is killer when it comes to stainless. It just gets hotter and hotter, which leads to bad color and really bad undercut. You can sometimes catch it by backing off the pedal, but usually by that point you're already screwed. I've generally found with ss that less heat is more anyway. Yes, you want to get the color right, but that usually takes less than you expect, especially if you've done any carbon steel welding and are used to heat settings for that (typically a 20% reduction in amperage is a good starting point going from carbon to the same thickness/gauge of ss).

1upmoto

awesome advice, I will give that a try this weekend.

1upmoto

heres a bead from tonight

Untitled by 1upmoto, on Flickr

ritzone42

Wait, were you welding on carbon or stainless in your first two pics, because based off what I was seeing it looked like stainless, but your most recent pic looks like carbon steel. The last pic is definitely looking much more better though, that's for sure. The ONLY thing I see wrong with it is it looks like there is very very slight underfill at the first part of the weld on the top piece (the perpendicular upright). I mean, its very minor.

1upmoto

First 2 pics are stainless, last one I posted was mild steel. Sorry for the confusion.

that-guy

that mild weld looks really good