Well done Rick. I like that purge fixture. I have seen too many people who just weld fittings like that and complete ignore the purging.

Do you use gas lens? Switched to bigger cup?

Excelent lesson!

And if pipe would have been aluminium what problems we may have then?

Good catch

316L with TIG orbital (teaser)

On thin stainless it's hard to get gold or etc. Of course you can put bigger lens and crank up argon flow, but what for? Getting that silver or gold color in every weld is just waste of argon. Your weld still won't have enough corrosion resistance compared to pickled. Every now and then people say t...

Thanks guys

Some pics from my job today. AISI 316L / En 1.4404.


Sweet little tack



Best machine ever, eheh



Money shot?

Low amps and perhaps walk the cup. What comes to root color. You want good purge plucks and hose. Make sure you wont have any leaks.

but I want one........

And Mike I won't buy your's Just lightly too expensive..

What??? No long sleeved shirts available anymore??

Those were my favorite!

Yup happened to me too once. It really sucks when it happens first time and you spend an hour figuring out the problem

This will go little deeper and perhaps little off topic. About those oxides.... On aluminium oxides is heavier than base metal and when aluminium is molten, oxides tend to sink down the weld pool due to gravity. (just like rock will sink to water). Oxide inside the aluminium weld is also well known ...

Welcome along!
Munich is beautiful city. I visited there at October fest in 2012

Only on pharma, food and beverage is autogenous preferred. Reason being that you can oxidize your filler rod easily and there is a risk that you will contaminate root when oxides are moved from rod to weld pool. However it's not illegal to use filler and sometimes it's actually needed. Also I would ...

Colour is normal on OD. Specially if you're using number 8# cup. However less color mean less lost of corrosion resistance.

Great to hear that you have improved your skills and interested to test new things :) Personally I don't like doing little circles on thing walled pipe. - It's slower - It easily create too much heat and you end up with concavity - It usually create rougher bead inside Do you have TIG-finger? It's v...

@Steve Thanks. :) It's more fun to actually know things than just assume. That's reason why I want to solve these kind of problems, even if it takes some time. @MinnesotaDave I'm not surprised that high school teacher didn't knew anything about it :lol: But saying that we shouldn't ever care.... Tel...

So been reading some articles again about hydrogen in aluminium and I found the reason why aluminium tends to trap hydrogen gas. Answer is in solubility. In high temperatures solubility rises, specially in aluminium and it sucks a lot more gas or hydrogen than steel for example. Link http://www.twi-...

Good pics :) Indeed mostly these welds are made without filler, but sometimes it's needed. Just make sure that your filler won't get oxidized during welding. On your first picture you have a darker area on 6 o'clock. Is it from tacking without purge? Try to avoid blue color on HAZ. Very light yellow...

Shannon wrote:Great! Your advice was successful and much appreciated. Good penetration and controlled heat with the pulse. I'm only using a #8 cup so I'm running shorter beads but plan to pick up a larger cup tomorrow. Thanks guys!

Great to hear it worked Add some pics, if possible

Yup you need to raise amps a bit and I would set lower amps to about half what high amps are. 50/25 Amps for example. There is many ways to adjust your amps and pulse time. Hertz sucks, because those are so damn hard to get right and adjust the way you want. It will take some to to get use to it. y5...

Forgot... Don't use any gap! You will let oxygen inside the pipe and root will get discolored. Narrow bead is OK, if there is enough penetration. In some grades or even between patches you are able to get more penetration with narrower bead. It all depends of the alloying elements and how those chan...

Hi - I would try welding with pulse. It will decrease your heat input and when set right you will get at least same penetration. In some cases even deeper. - Walking the cup also helps on color as your puddle will be longer in argon shield. - Check that you don't have any leaks in your gas lines etc...

This week was super busy at work. Thanks to holidays everything was a slight behind schedule. Here's couple of photos of high purity work. Those will be electropolished later, so ignore heat tint