I have been welding about 5 hours total on a Syncrowave 200

1/8th Mild steel
3/32 tungson and rod
20chf gas
100 amps
some of the welds where done with pulse set at 2

Please let me know what I may be doing wrong/right... Thanks!

 

good for a first try. try to join 2 separate pieces together instead of laying beads on a single piece. i think you could clean the metal alitttle more also.

 

You need to clean the coating of the steel and a few more amps to get more penetration and you'll do alot better, all that contamination in your welds will be gone once you clean that coating of the steel.

 

I'd actually like to thank you for sending an honest picture of first time welding not all these people that have perfect welds and ask for us to rate them those weld your doin are great compared to the first time i stated welding wich was stick welding but hey keep practicing and it all comes with time and i second the idea of welding two pieces together its bett for experience you can judge penitration and heat consistoncy and yes clean teh ever living crap outta everything

 

Thanks a lot guys! All I know about welding has come from this forum only and the very 1st time I tried TIG I didn't clean the metal at all (thinking can't be that big of a deal) and my arc was very unstable, holes in welds, and my tungsten looked horrible after only one pass. I then decided to really clean the **** up, and pretty much had a chrome finish on it and boy did it make a difference, the reason there is some not so great spots on the above pics, is because the back of the plates wasn't cleaned so when I went all the way through the weld became contaminated.

I am going to try 2 separate pieces together next.

 

Are you using filler rod in those? if not those are too cold, make sure the tungsten is at a point with the very tip ground off, stick it out only a 1/8 inch out of the cup, make sure u are using the red strip tungsten(2% thoriated) and the arc needs to be really close to the puddle like almost touching it. It needs to be on DC, because you said the arc was jumping around makes me think it was on AC. The kind of filler rod for that would be ER70S-2, good for dirty carbon steel. Hope that helps

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by makelove2hondas &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Are you using filler rod in those? if not those are too cold, make sure the tungsten is at a point with the very tip ground off, stick it out only a 1/8 inch out of the cup, make sure u are using the red strip tungsten(2% thoriated) and the arc needs to be really close to the puddle like almost touching it. It needs to be on DC, because you said the arc was jumping around makes me think it was on AC. The kind of filler rod for that would be ER70S-2, good for dirty carbon steel. Hope that helps</TD></TR></TABLE>

Good stuff! Thanks.

 

I agree, welds are cold. Wondering arc could be caused by the reverse polarity mode also. Check the polarity either way, make sure it's in DCSP (streight polarity).

Don't bother using the pulse at this stage. Practice welding without it and try to make good beads without pulsing. Also, when you're not filling the puddle, don't pull your filler rod too far back. You can contaminate the filler which in turn contaminates the weld. Some of your beads look like that. You can also minimize the craters (caused by lifting the torch to quick), by backing off the pedal and adding filler at the same time, without lifting the torch.

Keep practicing bud!

 

correction on mine, you use DC negative for steel, i just said DC

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by makelove2hondas &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Are you using filler rod in those? if not those are too cold, make sure the tungsten is at a point with the very tip ground off, stick it out only a 1/8 inch out of the cup, make sure u are using the red strip tungsten(2% thoriated) and the arc needs to be really close to the puddle like almost touching it. It needs to be on DC, because you said the arc was jumping around makes me think it was on AC. The kind of filler rod for that would be ER70S-2, good for dirty carbon steel. Hope that helps</TD></TR></TABLE>

Not to be a smartass, but could you get a bead above the surface of any metal without adding any filler...?

 

Yea im pretty sure, haven't tried it in awhile. It would be because its too cold

 

Ok, here are some welds of 2 pieces together. pipe and flat.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by HybridKOOP &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Not to be a smartass, but could you get a bead above the surface of any metal without adding any filler...?</TD></TR></TABLE>

not to be a smart *** either but no you can't.

well actually i've done it on super thin thin copper just playing around and it was by accident but in this situation it's a no.

To the OP it looks like you are going SUPER slow and still getting a lot of contamination. Try upping the heat and moving A LOT faster.

 

Your starts are very cold.

 

good job

 

Taking everything you guys have said and putting it to use, here are the latest welds:

 

muuuuch better.