Welding Tips and Tricks

Hello everyone

Lady TIG brazer (wannabe anyway …!!) here!

It’s a bit intimidating coming on here knowing y’all mostly guys - with a bunch of experience!

I’m a total beginner - never worked any kind of welding/brazing before, but I need to learn to TIG braze. And of course the finishing with grinding and polishing etc.

I’ll be brazing 304 stainless steel and/or spring steel to cast bronze - making hot glass tools, which I hope to sell eventually, if they don’t look too weird.

I bought a Lincoln Wave 200 kit, have silicone bronze filler rods, but still lots of questions despite watching hours of YouTube and Google searches!

Please be kind if I ask dumb questions! I’m still learning all the technical terms for everything - so you might get some odd descriptions of things when I ask questions!!

Thanks in advance!

Amanda

Anyone ...?

Hello Amanda and welcome aboard. If you can show some pictures, it will help. Only thing I can offer in TIG is be patient and practice.
bill

Welcome, lots of really great knowledgeable folks here.

Absolute musts for what you want to do is using a “gas lens”. This replaces the standard “collet body” (the brass thing under the pink cup on your torch).

A gas lens distributes the argon (you’ll need to use 100% argon for TIG) shielding gas more evenly around your welding area. It is very common to use a #8 pink cup (you’ll have to buy these to fit the gas lenses) or larger. Some use as large as a #12 or #16 depending upon the work. And you want to set the regulator on the tank to flow gas equal to 2x the size of your pink cup (#8 gets 15-20 CFH of gas, a #12 uses 25-30 CFH).

You can visit https://weldmongerstore.com/collections ... are-bundle and get yourself all set up.

The really tricky bits about welding stainless is the post flow shielding gas. The gas needs to run long enough while you remain over the weld to cool the weld and not let it discolor. On your SW200, that duration is preset, and I’m unsure you can alter it. I believe it is set to 1 second per 10 amps. So if you are welding at 80 amps, the gas runs for 8 seconds. That may not be long enough to insure good looking welds. So you can bump the pedal and initiate the gas again to get longer cycles.

Pick up some wooden handled brushes with stainless bristles. Use this to scrub the weld immediately after and you can pull color off the stainless, braze, etc. And wipe everything really well with Acetone prior to welding. TIG wants near surgical cleanliness.

Don’t be too initiated. It’s a tricky skill to learn, but EVERYONE starts as an absolute newbie. Nobody ever was born a welder, it’s a learned skill. Welcome, post up some pics as you go, we all love a journey!

Morning! Many thanks ... I'll post some pics later this morning. Have yet to turn on the TIG machine ...!!!
Have the Argon.
Looking for stainless bristle brush as can't get it here (Bermuda).
Will check what I have in the kit that came with the machine re gas lens etc, if anything.
I have to import literally everything so that takes about 2 weeks to arrive.
Excited to get started.

45% silver or higher brazing rod. Like for refrigeration work. I’ve used it lots. It is for steel to copper joints, but also will work with SS. I’ve tig brazed with it using 100% Argon and no flux, like you would use if you were oxy acetylene brazing.