Welding Tips and Tricks

Make friends with some one with a lathe
High school shop class project, or community college
any machine shop
Material Delrin(TM) Alum etc

MSC, it only centers the wheel on shaft, the clamping is the belled washers

http://www.mscdirect.com/product/detail ... m=00390856

DSM8 wrote:Can you provide your source and a picture of what the adapter your using looks like?

That reducing bushing was not easy to find. Details here: http://forum.weldingtipsandtricks.com/v ... 207#p23453
But I will shortly be turning my own from stainless; didn't have the means to at the time.

Cheers,
Richard

Someone commented about welding with unsharpened tungsten...I've actually done that in a pinch but I only do it with 1/16" tungsten....Otherwise even with plenty of amps it still tends to wander with 3/32 or 1/8. Yeah I wonder how much them wheels are? Diamond Ground Products has a bunch of diamond wheels and bench grinder wheels for cutting and grinding tungsten on their website. That'd be worth checking out.

This is ours from work. It's a good thing, when maintenance rember to keep servicing it. Lol.

Mick

Poor mans sharpener: Took some cheap small diamond wheels in my dremmel style grinder. Ground down 2,4 mm tungsten in about 20 secs.
Good finnish, but I need a better camera...

And I've finished boiler-code welds with a tungsten I'd dipped or touched with the filler, with a big ol' teardrop of crap on it.

Unless you're welding beer cans for a living, the super-duper-ideal-angle sharpeners do more to drain your pocket than improve your performance.

Two cents...

Steve S

@Otto Nobedder If you're getting them for. 02, let me know where

GreinTime wrote:@Otto Nobedder If you're getting them for. 02, let me know where

LOL!

Maybe I was a bit over the top, but every now and then we need a reality check. How much benefit do you get from a $300 precision tungsten grinder?

If you're dipping often enough that the machine saves you time, you have bigger problems than your grind...

If you can't finish the weld to code with a bit of crap on your tungsten, that, too is a problem you should work on.

Improvise, adapt, and overcome... Or spend 10% of your day at the grinder...

Steve S

I try and sharpen all 10 sticks I get in a pack when I get one so I can just swap out I'll normally keep a few and break them in half or thirds if I have to use a shorter back cap, all sharpened of course. That is definitely one of the things I like about the inverter welders. You can just flip the switch to change between AC and DC, and not have to prep the tungsten!

I have to offer a point of difference here. I don't tig alum, so I'm not talking about that. On steel at least, the electrode is the prime point of crappiness. If you have a shitty looking end on it, how do you expect to get a 3mm fillet with no undercut. Whether I'm missing the point and we are talking about sharpening vs sharpening with a high end specified machine, I xant say. But as I've been taught, if your electrode is shit, then everything else is going to suffer.

I probably do 90% of my welding with a scratch start Tig and if I stopped to sharpen my tungsten every time it had some crud on it I might as well just stand at the grinder and grind stick after stick down to dust. Every weld I do is welded with a small amount of contamination on the tip, it's the nature of the beast. Every weld in this plant was welded with a similar set up and there are literlly thousands of welds here and seldom do we have a weld fail. We have piping in service here from -424* F to well north of 1800* F and the only things here welded with HF are the few Aluminum bits that I made at home and brought in.

I wouldn't even think of paying $300-$2000 for some fancy grinder unless what I was welding required those super short micro torch tungsten. Then it would just be to save my finger tips and nothing to do with the grind. If you have someone paying that thinks they're worth it by all means buy away, I love tools and gadgets, but not with my dime.

Len

Well said, Len,

Your "scratch start" example sums it up nicely.

I'm going to have to pay attention to my next coded welds... At some point, I'l be finishing a weld with a teardrop of metal hanging off my tungsten... I've passed some stringent tests with crapped up tungstens.

Steve S

I think we must also consider whether we are talking about fillets v butts. If you can lay a nice fillet with a messed up tungsten, you are going okay.

If I may add to this - I actually agree with both sides of the discussion - but it surely depends a great deal on the material & joint being welded - I do a bit of handrail / bracketry for small boats in fairly thin wall stainless tube - typically no bigger than 30mm OD - wall from around .8mm up - if I try this with blunt or crappy tungsten I cannot get a weld I'm happy with - maybe it's me or lack of regular practice ? but I rather think our bicycle friend would agree & maintain sharp clean tungsten - on the other hand I used to weld oddity bends / joints for medium pressure water application in carbon steel from 4" bore upwards - generally with scratch or lift start & the tungsten made little difference using way higher amps - so I guess treat your tungsten as the job & experience dictates - plus the tungsten type & quality plays an effect too & the output quality of the power source is a variable - import inverters seem to have issues with grind quality not sure why - wherever you land on the debate I do believe it's worth the cost of buying a cheapish bench grinder & fitting a fine diamond wheel dedicated to tungsten - it saves time - reduces airborn contaminants & leaves a good finish for reliable low amp work - would I spend $$$$$$$ on a purpose made unit ? NO.

My main application for tig at the moment is repair of 309ss fillet welds on low alloy steel. Sharp tungsten is a must to allow a nice leg to the repair with out undercut. (We have a $3k grinder, but a bench grinder does the job.) On the other hand, the other main application for tig is still 309ss on low alloy steel but in a build up of weld craters on corners of auto welds, where the main idea is solid sound metal to a nice square dimension. Tungsten shape matters little.

I too have never used a tungsten sharpener.
At work, I use the belt grinder, and spin the electrode by hand. It lets me shape the electrode, as I want it, quickly.

At home, I have a water-cooled diamond bench grinder. It's a slow way to shape the electrode, but it gets nice and shiny. With my diamond wheel you could actually grind the electrode sideways, and you'd still be fine lighting up the arc.

In the field, I use my angle grinder to sharpen electrodes, and it works fine too. It's just not as easy as a stationary grinder, and the grinding marks might have a slight curve, but honestly, that's not an issue.

Mick wrote:I too have never used a tungsten sharpener.
At work,...................................
In the field, I use my angle grinder to sharpen electrodes, and it works fine too. It's just not as easy as a stationary grinder, and the grinding marks might have a slight curve, but honestly, that's not an issue.

I'm also using a small air angle grinder with 3" 3M Roloc style discs. You can easily change the grit and disc if you need to be fussy about steel/alu/stainless.

I have one. It's nice having it by the bench where I can lean over and grab it and freshen up the tungsten if I wanted and be back to welding in less than 30 seconds. Maybe not $300 worth. $235 at htp, maybe?

I found an attachment for the Dremel style grinders to grind chain saws with and thought it could be made into a simple tungsten grinder. Turned out quite ok.
I'll probably skip the bolt and make drill the correct hole directly into the round piece, easier done when missing a lathe.
Easier to make a few for different tungsten size and it would be possible to grind short ones too.

I recently bought a tungsten grinder from Tech South, very nice piece for under $250... Puts a very nice finish on the tungsten, has a cut off feature I like as well. Easy to use but if you dip the tungsten you will have to grind it off or cut it off to fit into the collet/guide.

Basically works just like the above pics, nice

Rick_H wrote:Easy to use but if you dip the tungsten you will have to grind it off or cut it off to fit into the collet/guide.

That is the main reason for me needing to re-grind them

I made it this so I can put them in without cutting the ball off first.

I made my own too this winter out of a chainsaw sharpener set-up I had. The 10 loonie 3" diamond disc is still on the original side after 100's of sharpenings lol.
Main benefit for a jigged set-up is relaxed repeatability on any length and being able to do the "shorties" in .040" and .060" for the 9 torch head (especially the stubby set-up using reverse collets) on both ends using a small electric screw driver. I could never do a 3/4" length with my fingers and a grinder lol.

The other benefit of an adjustable jig set-up for me was being able to play with repeatable angles. The generic tung prep shown in the books is maybe not the only way IMO. The combination of the welder, the machine and the type of tungsten can benefit from something different sometimes. It was worth it for me to experiment
Since getting an inverter and being able to adjust frequency, I have found myself using one size smaller tungsten (1/16th to 150-160 and 3/32 to 200- 220) than I did with a transformer.
Since starting with gas lens I have started using longer stick out.
I think inverters and longer stick out benefit the most from consistent tungsten prep. More than I would have guessed before playing with it.
I've been stuck with E3's (bought a pack of each size lol.). They seem to run cooler (I consider them as a gas saver too because they need less post flow than other types) but are not the best on AC IMO with a standard grind but change to larger angle (smaller cone) and they run golden in AC. My favourite now especially with longer stick out and a wedge collet.

"Cause I ain't perfect", the benefits of smaller tung and larger angle (AC) for me have been: less high frequency shorting, if I dwell too long on the bead, don't ramp down fast enough, don't have the torch angle perfect in a joint or cluster. I have even found arc length a little more forgiving when trying to focus the arc into a root. I think it is all about the path of least resistance and anytime you grind the surface is rough compared to the rest of the electrode.

I couldn't live without a tungsten sharpening jig with the inverter now but was just fine for 20 yrs without one and a transformer.

I laid down some nice beads today adding castors to my gangbox. Came out really nice.

One of my co-workers asked if I was using pure tungsten (I wasn't) because it was so crapped up with spit-backs from rust, paint, and grease that the end appeared "balled".

If you're doing high-precision work (like when I do ASME welds), a pretty grind might mean something, and a clean tungsten is important.

However, dimes can be stacked with turds hanging from the tungsten.

You'd be stunned how little that grind angle affects the outcome when you just focus on the puddle and make it do what you want it to do.

Steve S

Otto Nobedder wrote:I laid down some nice beads today adding castors to my gangbox. Came out really nice.

One of my co-workers asked if I was using pure tungsten (I wasn't)

You'd be stunned how little that grind angle affects the outcome when you just focus on the puddle and make it do what you want it to do.

Steve S

Judging by your co workers question, and your comment of "stacking dimes" I presume your welding aluminum. However when DC TIG welding the angle of the tungsten is important, in some circumstances more then others. With semi-automatic, and automatic welding the tungsten angle is considered an important parameter for repeatability.

LtBadd wrote:

Otto Nobedder wrote:I laid down some nice beads today adding castors to my gangbox. Came out really nice.

One of my co-workers asked if I was using pure tungsten (I wasn't)

You'd be stunned how little that grind angle affects the outcome when you just focus on the puddle and make it do what you want it to do.

Steve S

Judging by your co workers question, and your comment of "stacking dimes" I presume your welding aluminum. However when DC TIG welding the angle of the tungsten is important, in some circumstances more then others. With semi-automatic, and automatic welding the tungsten angle is considered an important parameter for repeatability.

Nope. Carbon steel. Just sticking castors on my box. Rolls nice, now.

Several sweet-looking welds, and crow shit on my tungsten.

No, I would not put them up for x-ray...

Steve S