1 2 NV

for once in my life i actually saved money for something. its a thing of beauty. i should be purchasing my first welder this friday. im buying a miller syncrowave 200 and speedglas helmet.
ive never tig'd before but i figure i could get the hang of it with my great skills. wish me luck everyone.
i know it was a bit OT but im pretty excited.

RC000E

Most of us on here probably taught ourselves....you can too man.

Mess around, get a feel, then post good pics and we will guide you in the right direction.

I am going to tell you RIGHT OFF THE BAT...buy a gas lense if you don't already have one! The little standard pink "cup" sucks *****.

1 2 NV

thanks for the advice man, whats the difference?

RC000E

The gas lense basically distributes the argon shield FAR better than just using a standard collet body. If you weld some stainless you may see a slight black tinge to the weld, the gas lense does away with this. In addition the gas lense allows you to pull out the tungsten in order to get in tight areas and still maintain gas coverage.

A HUGE difference is all I can say. If you search for threads started by my name, you see when I first got mine. It shows in the thread where I ordered it, and the parts I ordered. HUGE improvement.

1 2 NV

great, ill keep that in mind for my first purchase besides what i already plan on purchasing.

9bells

Congrats, just bought that machine in June.
You will love it. The auto helmets are such a blessing too.

1 2 NV

well i picked up the SOB and i built a stand for it, its all hooked up now. just need to buy the wire to run to the outlet box. ill probably go pick that up today. i had forgotten what size wire to buy but at least i have the breaker just need a little more supplies.
i havent bought the lens' yet cause i didnt know what torch size mine was. once i find out ill start to order more ****.
ive been looking online and printed out some quick reference guides to help set up the unit itself since im a newbie. ill post up pics when i start laying some beads.

RC000E

1 2 NV

what a pain in the ***. after several hours i have power to the damn thing. im an electrician but some houses were just not made to add new wiring too, mine being one of them. oh well so i busted my *** to get power to this thing, changed some parameters and now i have no metal to weld on
ill go to the shop tomorrow and swipe some steel to mess around on.

F20Cteg

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by RC000E &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Most of us on here probably taught ourselves....you can too man.

Mess around, get a feel, then post good pics and we will guide you in the right direction.

I am going to tell you RIGHT OFF THE BAT...buy a gas lense if you don't already have one! The little standard pink "cup" sucks *****.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Good advice. A gas lense is the best item I have bought for the tig. I have a #5 and an #8 cup.

With the #8 cup I can have the tungsten 2 inches out of the cup and still have adequate sheilding. You just need about 30cuft of flow and a little more pre-flow.


If you get a chance go to a local welding supply shop and try blowing through a gas lense and a regular setup. You'll notice what the difference is right away.

1 2 NV

so far so good, i keep balling the end of my tungsten but i seem to have gotten decent work done on some butt joints. im having alot of trouble with T joints so far. ive even tried working on a round piece which was moderately successful. i need to buy some more tungsten of various sizes just to keep practicing.

.RTErnie

I run a #10 cup.

Look into CK worldwide...they sell pyrex clear cups with their "gas saver" lense. Its basically the ****.

Get a 300+ cube bottle..you'll thank me when you run out of gas saturday night or sunday morning with a tiny *** bottle.

3 Tips to ensure great tig welds

#1 your joint needs to be PERFECT. not semi-perfect....not alright...but perfect.

#2 your material needs to be CLEAN!!! remember what you're grinding on it with...does it leave a dust? does it embed it self into the material?

#3 CLEAN and SHARP properly SIZED tungsten. Get a grinding wheel that is used ONLY for your tungsten. arc stability FTW.

If you always abide by the three rules... you'll be good to go. You could take the best welders....hand them two pieces of steel that dont joint together properly, piece is contaminated, and their tungsten is the wrong size, contaminated, and not sharp....I PROMISE their weld will look shitty. So...take these steps to give yourself the BEST chance at making a top notch weld.

oh and practice...practice...practice. I was self taught I turned out alright. :D

1 2 NV

ive seen your work eric, looks great.

i have a bottle its about 4 1/2' tall but i dont know what size it is. dad bought it for me last x mas when i said i was going to get a welder and i traded it in friday cause it was a mixed bottle, i now have straight argon.

man i was looking over my receipt i got hose bagged on my tungsten. i paid like 3.94 PER 7" stick. so $31 and some change later i got hosed. ill buy my **** online from now on.

what sized tungsten would you guys recommend for cromoly cages, IM and exhaust systems? its probably just as easy to search but you guys have been more than helpful at this point. i have pure tungsten at this point 3/32.

ill look into getting more cups ASAP, thanks eric and rc000e

.RTErnie

for 16 gauge steel...basically headers, exhausts, etc.

I use a 1/16 thoriated tungsten (red)
and I use .035 wire. (you may be thinking...where do I get wire that small? Smallest ive ever seen at the welding store is 1/16" rod?!??!?!) Just
Walk over to the Mig welding section....find .035 Stainless MIG wire. tada!

For schedule piping...I use 3/32 tungsten.

For ALL aluminum on my syncrowave 200 I use 3/32...havent tried anything else...so i cant comment.

READ your syncrowave manual front to back at least once. They have a LOT of good information in there!!!! Plus play with all the features on your machine....ALL of them. You'll like whats hidden behind the somewhat simple control panel of the machine

1 2 NV

read the manual once so far, still learning. changed a few settings and at least looked over others. manual is sitting on the machine as i write. im writing down a list of stuff i need to buy to keep everything straight in my head. i got quite the list, half of it i probably will never need or use.

.RTErnie

I cant tell you how giddy I get when I get new tig parts in to try. the best part...is you can pimp your tig welder for like 300 bucks lol. I wish cars were that cheap!

Speedz

very cool dustin, i'll have to stop by and check it out

RCautoworks

congrats

dmotoguy

good luck man

Im in the same boat as you.. learning to tig next weekend..
When are you going to start your first project?

1 2 NV

when i get proficient enought to tackle it on. i have stuff lined up already.
i want to backhalf at least the part behind the seats in my race car. looking to make a solid rear axle. i need to brace the front part of my car and finish my traction bars. i currently have most all the stuff sitting here just need to do it.

i found a tig torch kit at tigdepot.com yesterday that comes with 3 gas lenses, nozzles, collets, tungsten etc etc. looked like not too bad of a find to me, it was still around $70 but comes with everything. since im new at this and kinda dumb about all the parts i thought it would save me the headache of piecing everything together. although if i ordered the exact same stuff as RC000E did id probably be fine too. my torch is a #17 also.

http://www.tigdepot.com/produc...t.htm

1 2 NV

no other comments on my idea. i was hoping to get some input.

1 2 NV

just when i thought i was getting the hang of it all things went wrong.
first off i forgot to turn on my bottle so my attempts at welding went terrible. next i think i jacked up my tungsten even though i ground it back down. i couldnt lay a bead down if my life depended on it. i know im brand new to this thing but damn one of my first welds on sunday looked great. i couldnt repeat that at all today.

CoreyR

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 1 2 NV &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">ive seen your work eric, looks great.

i have a bottle its about 4 1/2' tall but i dont know what size it is. dad bought it for me last x mas when i said i was going to get a welder and i traded it in friday cause it was a mixed bottle, i now have straight argon.

man i was looking over my receipt i got hose bagged on my tungsten. i paid like 3.94 PER 7" stick. so $31 and some change later i got hosed. ill buy my **** online from now on.

what sized tungsten would you guys recommend for cromoly cages, IM and exhaust systems? its probably just as easy to search but you guys have been more than helpful at this point. i have pure tungsten at this point 3/32.

ill look into getting more cups ASAP, thanks eric and rc000e</TD></TR></TABLE>


$4 a piece isnt expensive....and one should last you a long time.

like eric said try red tungsten. 3/32 is what i use.

RC000E

Lets see some pics dude....let's get the first ones on record...hahaha.

1 2 NV

at the time i wrote that i was looking on websites that sell tungsten and saw the low price for 10 of them. little did i realize at the time i was looking at 1/16th price of tungsten instead.
******* newbies.