Welding Tips and Tricks

I recently tried some electrodes from USA Weld and it may sound weird but the arc sounded more crisp on starting and did make a tighter puddle. I thought I was just crazy not welding all that long now. So I changed back to the ones that came with the blue machine....and it was sluggish to puddle and did not make that crisp pop on light up. It's like the HTP electrodes wanted to help me out.....really I was stunned. Am I just crazy or am I starting to get more of the TIG welding picture ? Could there be that much difference ?

There's always a bad batch here and there....

I'm sure there must be a difference because there's a whole range of prices out there for the same type of tungsten. I'll admit that I'm not to the point of being able to tell the difference yet.

I picked up some Wolfram 0.040 from Diamond Ground Products (pretty pricey stuff, but the cheapest size) to try and see the difference between "premium" and "cheap". But considering half my welds are still done with a big ball of steel stuck to the end of the tungsten, I have a ways to go before tungsten quality will be detectable. I'm curious at your results, though - based purely on price, I'd have expected the HTP tungsten to perform worse.

Cheers,
Richard

Are you sure they were the same type of tungsten? What color band on each?

Both grey band....2% Ceriated. Only kind I have / buy for steel right now. Have not tried the E3 or others as of yet....just noticed a difference and wondered what else can I get that will make a better job.

E3 sucks as far as I'm concerned. I have yet to try out the lanthanated my dad gave me, but ceriated is my personal favorite

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I think a weakness here, is there is no standard for color-banding of the new alloys.

Red and Green are pretty much set in the industry, but the other colors seem to be "maker's choice".

Grey as 2% Ceriated? I have 2% Ceriated with an Orange band.

I've seen at least eight colors, and I'm not aware of that many alloys.

Steve S

Otto Nobedder wrote:I think a weakness here, is there is no standard for color-banding of the new alloys.

Red and Green are pretty much set in the industry, but the other colors seem to be "maker's choice".

Grey as 2% Ceriated? I have 2% Ceriated with an Orange band.

I've seen at least eight colors, and I'm not aware of that many alloys.

Steve S

Grey is the international color for ceriated, orange is the AWS standard for ceriated. They are the same. And yes ceriated has the smoothest arc starts (IMO), if I had 5 pieces of tungsten with the bands all cut off I can pick up the ceriated no problem. The rest..not so much.

Hey

I have turquoise, marketed as "rare earth"

Mick

Gonna revive old thread. Does anyone use the Wolfram brand name tungsten. Would really love to hear feed back if it is worth it. Been using HTP 2%thoriated and 2% lanthanated .40 to 3/32 is what I keep on hand. I do not have any complaints about it but curiosity is killing me about this German made wonder rod

(Surprised this thread wasn't moved to TIG area originally, found it searching wolfram)

dirtmidget33 wrote:Gonna revive old thread. Does anyone use the Wolfram brand name tungsten. Would really love to hear feed back if it is worth it. Been using HTP 2%thoriated and 2% lanthanated .40 to 3/32 is what I keep on hand. I do not have any complaints about it but curiosity is killing me about this German made wonder rod

(Surprised this thread wasn't moved to TIG area originally, found it searching wolfram)

I believe the man "zank" uses it.....
He would know.

I have some of their Witstar tungsten, got some for free when I bought a welder.
Compared to CK's ceriated it doesnt start as good.
Part from that I cant say if they are better or worse than others.

Probably more fair to compare with other "secret compounds" and then I like the Arctime better

expierment,expierment

the welder,the machine,quaility of electrical supply,material be welded, torch set up,tungsten grind, etc,etc
the WELDERS Technique

find the one that suits

My dad has a bunch of this old tungsten. It's 5/32 pure lol

dirtmidget33 wrote:Gonna revive old thread. Does anyone use the Wolfram brand name tungsten. Would really love to hear feed back if it is worth it. Been using HTP 2%thoriated and 2% lanthanated .40 to 3/32 is what I keep on hand. I do not have any complaints about it but curiosity is killing me about this German made wonder rod

(Surprised this thread wasn't moved to TIG area originally, found it searching wolfram)

At 0.040 it's not too expensive to get some and try it. I picked some up and then decided I lacked the experience or consistency to do a proper evaluation, so it's waiting for the right time.

I have some wolfrum 1/16 2% lanthanated and 3/32 tri-mix. To be honest, I can't tell the difference between those and the "regular" diamond ground 2% lanthanated in 1/16 and 3/32. I'll be getting HTP 2% lanthanated from here on out.