I've not seen the video but I have a torpedo level like this one.
I buy my abrasives at the local big box, Menards. You can get them online at cyberweld.com, or probably lots of other places too.

For now my welding would be limited to small fab projects. Stuff like a guard for lawn mower or lawman mower repair possibly if necessary. So if I decided to do stronger work I should use R60? I used RG45 for years on farm type repairs- bush hog, fence panels, etc, before I got a tig welder. I've n...

Not sure if brand matters, but I invested in those sealed containers to store them. The first batch I bought got all rusty because my shop isn't always heated. R45 is for low strength steel, R60 for structural steel or castings, so it depends what you're doing.

I have the same welder, the only thing I bought right away were gas lenses and they allowed me to get much better results. For things that require longer stickout I can often use a long nose alumina cup, which is cheap. I like the torch that came with the machine, so I bought an extension cord inste...

The big improvement was to go from 2% Thoriated to WZ8 Zirconiated. Not only did the tip problem improve, so did the welds. My experience is zirconiated works good for AC on a transformer machine, but not very good on an inverter machine for either AC or DC. The ball on the tungsten should be more ...

I never knew there was a minimum temp for storing equipment. I assumed it was no different than any other electronic device. i related it to a car as an example, the stereos, car computer, etc, all have capacitors and all the other components on a circuit board, and they stay out in temps below zer...

If I got it correctly the foot pedal controls the intensity from the minimum to maximum current of the machine, but one cannot (with the modification), control from minimum current to a maximum user’s defined current (but I might be wrong). Yes, good point, I hadn't thought about that. My first tho...

Here's a thread from a different forum where the guy did a great job documenting how he added a foot pedal to his machine. I think this is the youtube video made by the same guy.

Wow, very nice. Did you form the petals individually by hand, or did you make some kind of fixture to shape them?

I'm going to go get tanks today. I'd prefer to use a highly recommended welding shop that is east side Austin-but I can also go a few miles west of me and go with Tractor Supply. I'm leaning towards tractor supply. Tractor supply by us only has small tanks, maybe by you it's different. I'd compare ...

The European Union passed laws about worker exposure to EMF from welding, and as part of that legislation developed software that can predict the EMF levels the worker will be exposed to. Assuming you know what levels are safe, you could use that program to determine the levels for arc, mig and tig ...

Welcome, my path was similar to yours, I never dreamed 40 years ago that tig welders would be cheap enough for me to own one. You might think about starting out tig welding by running a bead on steel without any filler, just to get the hang of controlling the puddle. Then get a filler like ER70S-2 a...

I'm considering restoring it. Looking for advice on the right way to do this. .... And then there are the regulators. One of the gauges lost the plastic cover. I'd like to get the regulators re-built as well and new gauges. I had my stuff rebuilt by this company , they did a good job and I thought ...

I take a short video with my phone. I take the front of the machine to get all the settings, and the work piece, while I narrate things like tungsten and gas flow. I started doing that when I took welding classes because I always had the phone with me so I could use it at home or school. It also hel...

I'm friends with the guy who runs the welding program at the local community college. He says the top 3 reasons kids they place in welding jobs lose those jobs are: using the cell phone too much at work, not showing up on time or at all, and not following safety rules. So I'd emphasize your commitme...

You could solder it, that's probably how the can is made if it's very old. If you tig on it you'll get it too hot and the can's joints may get hot enough to flow the solder. Soup cans used to work well as a patch for this kind of repair because they were made out of tin. I'm not sure what cans are m...

Another thing you might look at to help with your problem is whether the fan is blowing your shielding gas away. A few times I had my machine pointed the wrong way and the exhaust from the fan was blowing into my work. I didn't have any problem with the original regulator, but I switched to a dual f...

I have the same welder, the manual lists 14F as lowest operating temp (and storage temp). You didn't indicate how cold a temp you're talking about. The damage to the tungsten sounds like a shielding problem. Could the regulator on your tank be having a problem at low temps? I have welded in my unhea...

Do the orange pieces of foam press the headset against the side of your face? Are the foam pieces glued to the side of the helmet? I think this is a perfect application for bone conducting headsets, since you use them with hearing protection. Usually bone conducting headsets overload the cochlea bec...

If you have the skills to build a welder from scratch, why don't you repair the HF board in the welder you have?

Your referring to the 1/7th rule. This applies to everything you do with acetylene weather it be heating or cutting. This is one reason why acetylene regulators have a red line on the 15psi setting. This setting is never to be exceeded. The 15psi red line on the regulator addresses a different conc...

There's so many great deals on craigslist around here, if you're close to a big city you might check that out. There was a Lincoln SW200 last week for $1000 with full bottle and cart, there's almost always an AHP for sale. I've used the Precision tig 225 a lot at school and it's nice, but it's big, ...

The spec on that machine says it draws 22A at 220v, so you'd be OK with the 20A circuit on your air compressor. You might trip the breaker if you try to use the machine at full power, but the duty cycle is probably so low at 175A you wouldn't be able to run more than a minute or so anyway. I would g...

I used one of these in a class I took, it was run on 3 phase. I can't find a manual but I found a picture of the back plate on one, it says it's 22kW, so if you want to run it full power at 240v single phase, you would need almost 100A. Hard to imagine you'd need anything more than a 50A breaker for...

It's a driveshaft section. I was wondering if you were doing a driveshaft. There's a place by my house that builds driveshafts, they repaired the PTO shaft off my tractor. They showed me their shop, they straightened my shaft before they balanced it by putting it in a large lathe and heating it in ...