[mpete53]

Dose anyone know where I can find photos of different contaminated tungstens telling what caused it.

[LtBadd]

Dose anyone know where I can find photos of different contaminated tungstens telling what caused it.

Are you just curious or do you have a issue you're trying to resolve? If the latter then post a pic if you can and provide some details

[exnailpounder]

Tungsten gets contaminated by dipping. You can also crap it up by welding dirty steel or trying to weld galvanized.

[LtBadd]

Tungsten gets contaminated by dipping. You can also crap it up by welding dirty steel or trying to weld galvanized.

and lack of shielding, whether its by wind, low flow, wrong gas or bad gas

[mpete53]

I have been getting a fuzzy deposit on the tungsten tip. sometimes its soft and seems to wipe off and sometimes hard.
1/2 stainless steel 304 with 3/32 308L rod
#8 gas lens
20 CFH
140 amps
3/32 2% lanthanated

While I don't know, it seems like some types of welding problems might cause different conditions to appear in the tungsten. I know what a well dipped tungsten looks like I have had many.

There seems to be a lot of information on sharpening a tungsten but very little else about tungsten care.

does discoloration above the ground point matter?
Are there any signs of to little argon flow?
what are the signs of an over heated (to high an amperage) tungsten?
Do different surface contaminations cause tungsten conditions?

[exnailpounder]

I have been getting a fuzzy deposit on the tungsten tip. sometimes its soft and seems to wipe off and sometimes hard.
1/2 stainless steel 304 with 3/32 308L rod
#8 gas lens
20 CFH
140 amps
3/32 2% lanthanated

While I don't know, it seems like some types of welding problems might cause different conditions to appear in the tungsten. I know what a well dipped tungsten looks like I have had many.

There seems to be a lot of information on sharpening a tungsten but very little else about tungsten care.

does discoloration above the ground point matter?
Are there any signs of to little argon flow?
what are the signs of an over heated (to high an amperage) tungsten?
Do different surface contaminations cause tungsten conditions?

Your tungsten should stay shiny bright all the time. If you are getting colored tungsten your post flow of argon may be to short.If you are not using enough argon, your tungsten will survive but you will have problems with your weld.Argon shields your tungsten from air when it is super heated so you could damage your tungsten with too little flow but you said you were using 20cfh so that is plenty to shield your tungsten. Try lighting up with no argon and you will turn your tungsten into a firecracker fuse. If you are using too small of an electrode for the amperage setting, your tungsten will start to melt or split and deform the tip. Surface contamination will cause your tungsten to degrade. Try welding some mild steel that has not had any prep on it and you will see mill scale jump onto your tungsten like a magnet and build up and cause a wildly wandering arc. If you don't remove the oxide layer on stainless, your puddle will be sluggish and hard to control. Tungsten degrades with normal use in the best of conditions albeit much slower than if it gets all crapped up. Thicker tungsten will always hold up better than thin and different compositions of tungsten will hold up better than others. Per Jodys advice, I use 2% Lanthanated and I think it does a great job. IMO Thoriated holds up just as good. Others will have different opinions.

[entity-unknown]

One thing I've been noticing is your tungsten can turn blue, purple, black, or somewhere in between. If it is and you didn't dip, it seems to be because you're running too hot. I get the same little nodules or salt crystal like structures at the end of my tungsten from time to time and it's almost always because I dipped and kept going. I notice it happens sometimes without dipping but it's possible I didn't grind everything off.
I notice sometimes when I grind and think I got a good grind until I look at it closer and I can see I didn't quite grind the tip all the way down, just made the walls nice and pointy but there's a lil tiny ball at the end. Considering this is where I find those little structures, I presume it is because I didn't do as good of a grinding job as I thought I did.

Always make sure you get a perfect, smooth grind all the way around. If you pause on your twisting motion and don't let the tungsten off your grinder, you will have a flat spot. If you skip your tungsten off the grinder even just a bit, you will have a flat spot. I had one wicked flat spot when I first started and figured "Eh F' it" The arc never once hit the part completely, instead it arc'd into the cup almost the entire time and created what I call radiation burns all over my parts. It's similar to having no argon but almost worse and there isn't much you can do to fix your part when you screw it up like this unless you have a decent layer you can grind off or don't care about appearance/smoothness.

I noticed you said "wipe it off". Are you using your glove? You will get leather grains on the tip especially if it's sharp. Also just using your fingers will get any human oil and what ever other contaminates you have on your fingers on the end. I've seen this create those mysterious black halos on my aluminum which immediately disappear after about 2-3 seconds. I attribute that mystery to my fingers. No matter how clean your hands are, they will always have a layer of oil because that's what living tissue does. Yes even those calloused, gritty, hands do it

Here's two pix that will hopefully help you make some considerations to improve your tungsten problems. So far I've been able to screw up almost everything and get away with it in some way EXCEPT when I screw up my tungsten grind. That seems to be the least forgiving minus life risking welds such as a tree stand but I don't build those.

[mpete53]

Thanks for your help.

I the tungsten is discolored above the ground point, do I need to cut it off?

can I use scotch brite or wet dry paper to polish it?

[exnailpounder]

Thanks for your help.

I the tungsten is discolored above the ground point, do I need to cut it off?

can I use scotch brite or wet dry paper to polish it?

Don't cut it off if it is only discolored. You only need to cut it if you dip it. You can scotch brite it if you want but that little bit of color won't hurt anything. As you progress with tig welding, you will find out that keeping your tungsten clean is important, but you will learn to deal with contamination and just weld on and only clean and re-sharpen when you can't hold a stable arc anymore. Sometimes you can even dip in mild steel or stainless and just keep on going. Dip in aluminum and you're cutting and re-grinding. You might be overthinking this. Tig loves clean and if you are savvy at cleaning your base metal really good, your tungsten shouldn't get crapped up at all unless you dip.

[mpete53]

I don't know what this means. I don't think I dipped the tungsten. I was making several passes as practice over other welds. Metal started clean I filed it to bright steel and wire brushed it bright between passes since I am having problems getting my welds to shine.
Did I dip?
Is the metal not clean enough?
hot rolled steel
130 amp
#8 cup
20 CFH
3/32 2% lanthenated

[entity-unknown]

That kind of reminds me of when I stab my tungsten with my filler and/or didn't get everything off the tungsten when I was grinding.
I think when you dip (touch your part) the nodules tend to be at the tip, when you stab (touch filler to tungsten) it tends to be higher since you don't usually stab the tip, it's usually the sides/taper.

Since you're in practice mode it might be a learning experience to purposely dip a few times, purposely stab a few times, purposely run way too hot, and purposely run way too cold. I'd go for about 20A under for cold and about 30A over for hot. That should let you see for yourself what your results are and you KNOW what you did to cause it. I purposely made a lot of mistakes so I'd know myself and I assure you I'm glad I did because it was all practice pieces (plural), not an important part and so far I haven't really screwed up my important pieces much and when I do I know what I did wrong and immediately what I should do to fix it.

As the nailer said to me, POST PIX When things are going real bad it might not even hurt to post a pic of the front of your machine so we can see your settings. We might have saw the 4T unless it's one of those menu driven setups...

[exnailpounder]

That looks like mill scale. If I read your post correctly, it said you "filed" it to bright shiny metal...hopefully you have a grinder or you're really taking the hard road uphill. Bright shiny metal and bright shiny millscale is 2 different things. Without pics it's hard to tell.

[LtBadd]

That looks like mill scale. If I read your post correctly, it said you "filed" it to bright shiny metal...hopefully you have a grinder or you're really taking the hard road uphill. Bright shiny metal and bright shiny millscale is 2 different things. Without pics it's hard to tell.

I haven't done a lot of carbon steel but I do remember this effect on the tungsten. Even clean it's not always a pleasure TIG welding

[Poland308]

Or the oily film that comes on all cold rolled stock. It seams to get into the pours of the metal.

[MinnesotaDave]

If I recall correctly, that's referred to as a "growing a beard" and one of the causes can be argon with too much moisture.

A dryer on your argon line would clear that up.

Not sure what other issues could cause it.