That cooler looks nice and compact. If I had that setup, I'd get a compact type ("20" series) water cooled TIG torch to go with it. Please keep us posted how the cooler performs.

As a matter of fact I am fabricating some intercooler end tanks right now! (Design is sheetmetal, but unlike any others I have seen... I will have to post up here about 'em in another thread. :) ) Just want to clarify what your goals are as a result of this modification... a cooler running engine, t...

Thanks for your observations and experience... always good to have additional data points. My new 4" diamond grinding wheel came today, thanks to ebay. After fabricating a washer to adapt its inner diameter to fit my bench grinder's shaft, I got it all mounted up. (And to mount the washer perma...

Yeah, might be sort of like blasting really large steel shot...

I doubt appearance was the reason for them doing that step however, because if you look at the next pictures in their sequence, they machined it flat:

I came across an aluminum welding project on the internet, which involved peening a "built up" aluminum TIG weld bead which was to repair a cast aluminum engine block. http://www.aftracingheads.com/PROJECT15-fontana/063.JPG There are also other pictures of the sequence before and after the...

Diamond Ground Products sells 2% lanthanated. For online purchasing, they do have an ebay account "tungsten direct"; here is their 2% lanthanated ebay store selection: http://stores.ebay.com/Tungsten-Direct_Lanthanted-2_W0QQ_fsubZ6QQ_sidZ15719611QQ_trksidZp4634Q2ec0Q2em322 They also give o...

I spoke to Eddie of Diamond Ground Products about my issues with tip contamination. His main recommendation for me was to go with a diamond grinding wheel instead of aluminum oxide grinding wheel for tip preparation. He said the aluminum oxide particles can get embedded in the tungsten tip, and even...

I have had a good experience with my Everlast MOSFET machine (a "super200P"). I have a feeling the "poor track record" you mention may not actually be a true representation of the product, and may just be relating to random internet posts, which are likely not truly representativ...

I tried 1/8" tungsten this time, rather than 3/32". (Still 1.5% lanthanated from same manufacturer.) You can see below how the 1/8" tungsten started off - nice and sharp, with a flat land on the end. In the other picture you can see how it ended up after just a few minutes of welding....

that appears to be a contamination issue ?...I have always used pure tungsten for any aluminum work...also notice that you are at a pretty long stickout....how much of it is showing pre-weld?...if you set it up slightly recessed you get a "flashlight arc" ....but, i am no expert... I'm no...

Thanks for the help brainstorming guys... Regarding collet body and cup selection and gas flow rate, I have a feeling its not the cause of my frosted and split tips, because I have tried a variety of cups and collet bodies and gas flows, with a standard collet body with #4-#10 cup, and a gas lens fr...

Does anyone have any ideas on what the heck is going in with my tungstens? I notice that after welding for a while, they get pretty badly "frosted" looking, and the ends tend to split, with little protrustions at the tip too. I am using (and have only ever used) 1.5% lanthanated (gold band...

I ended up hacksawing the bad flange section off, and chasing a contamination pocket with a die grinder. I then used the TIG to build the flange area back up with 4043 filler rod. It will need to subsequently be planed flat, re-drilled and tapped.

That is... about the sweetest TIG welding RIG I have ever seen. Everlast inverter, with a "go-kart kart".

Please keep us posted on how the water cooler turns out.

Thanks for posting these pics. I like how you recessed the plugs, to allow building up material on top of and around the perimeter of the plug, to get deeper weld penetration. For some reason I don't think I would have thought to do that. With TIG I am learning that you have such an amazing amount o...

What size cup are you using, tigmajig? And are you using a gas lens or standard collet body? I am putting a small flat on the end of my tungsten tips now, like maybe .010" wide. I tried totally sharp, and found a tiny molten ball forms on the end without much current at all. With a high % DCEN ...

More intake manifold progress pics (and explanation in captions) below Question: Would trying to melt/flow molten aluminum around an installed steel bolt (to reduce or simplify subsequent drilling/tapping steps) be possibly successful, or is it just guaranteed to make a big mess? My other option wou...

Update - I am making some good progress on the intake manifold project, and learning a lot about TIG welding aluminum as I go. Refer to pics and captions below for the story...

On a couple occasions now, I have forgotten to clamp my ground to *anything*. Surprisingly, there are times when I don't even notice and the weld proceeds normall. Other times the weld is going OK, when I notice "hey! What's that smell?" and something is burning or melting that's not suppo...

Thanks for your input on this, tigamajig! In my experiments with varying with cleaning (EP/EN) %, I recall finding there is a point where further increase of EP% will not help (but does make the tungsten much hotter where it can melt its sharp tip, and gets less heat/penetration at the work.) Howeve...

Although the large diameter gas lens setup was working for my tricky weld joint, its fatter base was limiting my range of motion (reaching into a tube welding the inside) compared to a standard collet body, so I tried a different approach. I ground another tig cup (this one a #5, standard collet bod...

I was welding a tricky joint that needed more tungsten stick-out than I had a cup to enable (the largest cup I had was a size 8, gas lens type.) The largest the local welding supply had for my torch (a type 17) was a 10, non-gas lens, which I bought but it didn't do the trick. I figured I needed abo...

I found some quite detailed info on gas cup and argon flow rate selection in CK Worldwide's TIG welding specification document (a sort of "how to" TIG weld guide): http://www.ckworldwide.com/technical_specs.pdf There is a chart (bottom of page 4) showing recommended Argon Flow and Cup Size...

I picked up some dental scrapers (dentists call them "scalers") from my last dental visit (would you believe that they just throw old ones out?), and have given them a try for cleaning aluminum for welding. Although it is a little laborious to scrape large surfaces with them, they work wel...

I experienced high rate of tip erosion on my multifunction plasma cutter (a "Super200P"... without pilot arc) until I made the following changes: 1. I installed an inexpensive (< $10) inline dessicant air dryer in the air supply, right at the unit's air inlet (see picture.) 2. I switched f...