Welding Tips and Tricks

I believe that I have a bad bottle of Argon.
I didnt notice at first when I got the botle, but the more I welded with it it seemed to get worse.
I went through every physycal part of the machine and all is in order.
change all consumables and no difference.
Ive never had this before in my short experiance, so I`m assuming its Bottle related. The welds on stainless is were I noticed the most. Its not giving me a clean weld no matter what. Its good enough not to damage the Tungsten when I hold post flow.
Looked through this forum but have not found a discussion on it yet. Help please.

Pics, settings, especially gas settings, any other details would be helpful.

There's been several discussions on bad gas, but they're deeply buried by now.

Here's the short form:

The guy who fills the bottle is supposed to pull a vacuum on it for a certain length of time to remove moisture, and purge his fill lines with the gas being filled. Shop economy and general laziness sometimes prevents these things from happening and you get moisture in your gas. The effect is usually minimal at first, but as bottle pressure drops, the problem grows. It creeps up on you so the gas is not the first suspect.

Your supplier should analyze your bottle for you at no cost, and replace it if he finds moisture.

Cheap insurance is to go to Harbor Freight and buy an in-line dessicant compressed air dryer and install it downstream from your flowmeter. You'll spend more on the fittings to hook it up than the HF dryer. They're rated for 150psi, and your flowmeter will make 70psi at most, less depending on the brand. This will catch moisture, and will change color as it absorbs as an indicator you have wet gas.

It's also possible, though less likely, they didn't vent the manifold of another gas before filling the bottle you have, so you have CO2 or some other component in your gas. You will usually notice this immediately, though.

Steve S

Like Farmwelding said...pics are worth a 1000 words.Bad gas is pretty uncommon....less so than a bad torch nut.

The most common contamination gas in argon is carbon dioxide. A simple test is lime water. A teaspoon of slaked lime in a quart of water, shaken well and allowed to settle. Pour off a cup of the clear water into a glass and bubble suspected argon through it. If it turns cloudy, you have carbon dioxide.

CaOH(aq solution) + CO2(gas) = CaCO3 (precip) + 1/2 H2

Keith_J wrote:The most common contamination gas in argon is carbon dioxide. A simple test is lime water. A teaspoon of slaked lime in a quart of water, shaken well and allowed to settle. Pour off a cup of the clear water into a glass and bubble suspected argon through it. If it turns cloudy, you have carbon dioxide.

CaOH(aq solution) + CO2(gas) = CaCO3 (precip) + 1/2 H2

Thats a "simple" test? Geez, my College Entrance exams were less complicated

cj737 wrote:

Keith_J wrote:The most common contamination gas in argon is carbon dioxide. A simple test is lime water. A teaspoon of slaked lime in a quart of water, shaken well and allowed to settle. Pour off a cup of the clear water into a glass and bubble suspected argon through it. If it turns cloudy, you have carbon dioxide.

CaOH(aq solution) + CO2(gas) = CaCO3 (precip) + 1/2 H2

Thats a "simple" test? Geez, my College Entrance exams were less complicated

Or you could capture the gas inside of a vaccum and inspect using multi million dollar equipment. But why do that when you spend millions of dollars on a shop.

Post a picture of the weld,

If its lack of argon it will give some sort of brown or burnt soot around the weld (at least what I experience when I forget to turn on my gas)

Otherwise what if you just call the lws and ask them? "Hey, I think my bottle is contaminated" maybe they will swap it for free or test it for free, and if they don't then you can start figuring it out on your own.

Thanks for the replys, guys, I hope the picture came through.
When the bottle way new I sartedto weld with it it seemed fine. as the gas was being used upit got harderand harder to weld clean. I thought it was me. {All Stainless steel) I was attempting to weldround pipe 3/4 round pipe onto thin 1/8 sheet. So I tried my settings first: Everlast 140st :29- 45 amps
Gas tried in steps 10-20 cfh
Lanthnated tungsten -Thoriated tungsten different angles a sticks.
Checked the gas line for leaks
Dissasembled inspected and cleaned the torch
Checked and cleaned the ground
pulled my hair out and searched the web.
I did call the supplier and they will test it, cant get there till Saturday.
Ill try that air sepparator from Harber Frieght. sound good. Also curious about the lime test.

Okay first of all amps is way to low for 1/8 inch, your gonna be camping out on the piece heat soaking and wind up burning the stainless up. Heat input is important on stainless you got to get in puddle and get moving. Other thing is let's just see how gas coverage is on a single puddle instead of running a bead. Clean metal have sharpened clean tungsten in torch. To do this test lets start off with 1 to 2 seconds preflow turn amps up to 125-135 amps Get in position remember to get your arc length correct. Which would be distance of metal to tungsten equal to 1 to 1.5 the diameter of tungsten. So if your using 3/32 tungsten you need 3/32 to 9/64 gap. If arc length is increased voltage increases to keep amps constant which increases heat input into base metal. Most common issue with anyone having issues with tig welding is arc length being to long. Now your gonna just puddle the material and then back off pedal without moving torch. Now look at where you puddled at. Is it shiny, gray, or brown. If it's gray turn up post flow also Look at tungsten is it discolored after this test, If so turn up post flow and redo test. Don't add filler don't move torch just want to see how gas coverage is over puddle. Once this is correct then we can correct other issues while running beads. Jody has in one of his video's testing gas coverage, he uses titanium test coin, which is more reactive than stainless but can use your piece of stainless just the same. Don't know what video it was in. Which is basically what I want you to do.

Are you using gas lens or regular collet body also, size of tungsten ?

These might help you diagnose your issue too
Welding stainless
https://youtu.be/XIPx5Qx90VU

Heat input
https://youtu.be/DmVCLi6cxok

Is that a pic of the side of the plate you welded or is that the back side. If it's the back side then that is what's called sugaring from not being purged on the back side.

Poland308 wrote:Is that a pic of the side of the plate you welded or is that the back side. If it's the back side then that is what's called sugaring from not being purged on the back side.

X2...that looks like the backside of the plate to me.

I really hope that's the backside of the plate....

The weld on the right is at 80 amps. To hot.
The weld on the left is at aprox 35 amps.
2% Lanthenated 1/16 Tungsten.
15 % argon. On 1/8 stainless sheet.
Weld on the left, only change between the two is the amps. If I keep welding, the weld gets dirtier.
Seems as the argon is used it stirs up contaminants. No air leaks in the line at all.
I first noticed this while welding 3/4 round,1/8 wall stainless tube onto 1/8 plate, for a purge canister for oil.

Aaaaah.

It's really difficult to see what you are doing. The stainless weld on the left looks gorgeous, those colours show that your weld temp was correct. The HAZ seems to be really wide though, I weld a lot of stainless and I never get that wide of a burnt area around the weld.

The one on the left, I don't even know what that is, looks like you just ran the torch on it hot for fun.

What do you mean, 15% argon?

When welding stainless, get a puddle and move, if you stay on the same spot cooking it, it will not have those nice colours. Even if you are welding it too hot, it will be a grayer colour. Judging from your colours, your Argon seems just fine.

Run a 6" bead on a plate like you normally would. Show us that.

Are you using Argon or mig gas? Something is way off here. Your entraining air or something into your welds and it looks like your not even cleaning/prepping you metal. You can't make a good weld over the oxide layer on stainless. Watch Jody's videos.

Sorry I didnt mention 15 CFH gas flow. The picture on the right is at recomended settings,80-120 I get this burnt mess and burn through. #5 cup. plain ceramic cup. 2% Lanth. tungs. 100% Argon (Im`m convinsed its bad gas)
The picture on the right is the amperage set at 35 amps aprox. It will weld okay for a few welds then gets all dirty.
I have tried cleaning and whiping with acetone, and new tips and checking everything.
the 2 welds in my second picture were done quickly to show that My welder seems to work better at, not the recomended settings. Ive heard different welders can be off on settings. I am using a foot pedal to watch and create a nice weld pool. only then am I dabbing. Letting the weld pool melt the filler rod.
The previous tank that I had before this one I could weld clean on stainless. Thats the olny thing that changed sinse is the tank.
The welder is maybe a year old.

Do the test with your torch and correct arc length like I explained earlier which is just like gas coverage test at 1:24 in this video. This will show us what your gas coverage and welder is doing with out variables being introduced by person running a bead.

https://youtu.be/9-mnZ2oyCxM

Just to make sure also, is your torch hooked up electrode negative .

Dirtmidget33 first off I made a mistake, it's 1/16 thick stainless sheet. Here is the picture of the test same as the video Jamie posted. All the same settings.

Well, if you are convinced its bad gas, why not just get it replaced and we will see?

Okay now that we got test results let's check couple of other things.
1. Your tungsten stick out, how much do you have. With a #5 standard you can not have much stickout I use CK worldwide recommendation that stick out be no more than 3 times diameter of tungsten. Also #5 is not gonna give you real good gas coverage as you move forward. The metal behind the weld pool will be exposed to the oxygen while still hot. Cup just not big enough to cover that area. To me this cup is waste of time on stainless to begin with.

2. What did your tungsten look like after test, was it blue or black instead of looking like it's normal color. If so increase post flow so gas keeps tungsten from oxidizing while hot.

3. Make sure to keep torch over area after you stop arc until post flow stops

4. Arc length keep tight arc length. Here is what I mean by tight length, arc length is same as tungsten 5. Correct any issues above and retest.

Took some sample pics to give you stick out reference and how weld pool looks with couple of different cups. Same tungsten and flow rates for all just different collets and cups. These are just puddling metal. Used same piece of metal wire brushed between cup changes. Can see old puddle from previous cup in couple of pics.

This is a number 5 cup 3/32 2% lanthanated tungsten 1/8 304 stainless flow is 15. Notice some blue coloring in puddle around core. Number 8 cup. Notice it gets used more than standard cup. Personally never use standard cups, figure I get better coverage with a lens why bother with regular collet bodies. Notice puddle is shiny, blue color is outside of weld puddle. I should have used a new lens, This lens is headed out to junk pile, has crap built up on screen. 1 1/8 inch cup. This cup I get better results if I turn up flow for this demonstration it is same setting though.

Thanks for the info. I just piced up a #8 cup to try. I will order a gas lens kit soon as my budget allows.
For now I will go through what you posted and will get back to you when I`m done.
My machine is all manual, so I am the pre flow and post flow control.
My Tungsten stays clean, I guess I either have the flow correct for that or am holding longer. I ussually count to five for pre and post. Thanks.

Your welcome hope you get it figured out.

Danylo66 wrote:Thanks for the info. I just piced up a #8 cup to try. I will order a gas lens kit soon as my budget allows.
For now I will go through what you posted and will get back to you when I`m done.
My machine is all manual, so I am the pre flow and post flow control.
My Tungsten stays clean, I guess I either have the flow correct for that or am holding longer. I ussually count to five for pre and post. Thanks.

You can start welding before you count to one for your preflow my friend. You're just wasting argon in 95% of the cases

Sent from my VS995 using Tapatalk

Hopefully I uploaded this properly. Thanks to everyone for your input. I took everyones advice and applied it to my welds. Turns out that the fitting on my regulator had a tiny leak in it, as well as the valve on the bottle.
It took me a long time to find this, as I was trying out all the different ideas that everyone posted.
It was frustrating but in the end with all your help I believe ive become a better welder.
Great learning experience.
From now on i will do a leak test more often. I need to pick up some more leak test solution, but its cheaper then running out of Argon to quickly. The Argon supplier changed out the bottle at no charge. Later when I found the leak at the regulator I offered to pay for the bottle, but he would not take the money. I offered to pay at least half and we settled at that, so that was good.

THANKS Danylo Iwanusiw