Welding Tips and Tricks

Hey folks! Since it's my first post a little background:

I've done basic TIG work on and off since I was 18, now 30. Nothing critical accept for a handful of babbitt turbine bearings. Mostly just broken taps, dowel pins, and the odd piece or part. Haven't picked up a tig in a few years, but had a job come up that persuaded me to pick up a tig. Grabbed a synchrowave 210 and all the goodies I will need for 304SS, mild and 6061.

Before jumping into the job I decided to do some practice as a refresher, and I'm having some issues. I grabbed a few pieces of mild, chromo, 304 and 6061 off the shelf. So far the steels are giving me a headache, but the aluminum seems pretty dang decent.

When I try to weld mild or chromo I get of lot of popping and sputtering like the material is contaminated or something... which it isn't. Tossed it in the ultrasonic, rinsed with water, dried, then hit it with a fresh sanding disc. The 304 isn't much better... sugars up with no shine.

Setup:
synchrowave 210
pure argon, started at 20cfh went up to 30 with no improvement
dcen <120A
1/16 ceriated tungsten
I tried a plain #7 cup and a #10 lens, similar result

In this pic I started on a piece of 304 tube. I know... it's not purged... so then I went to a block of 304. Both super clean and oil free. This ring is chromo from what I remember. Sputters and pops all over the place, with or without filler. Any ideas?

I'm not 100 percent sure but I think you need some kind of diffusion material in the gas lens. Like a steel mesh circle

Does look like a gas coverage problem.

Either it's not flowing and blanketing the area properly or there's outside air/oxygen being drawn into the argon stream causing the material to oxidise (leaks in torch or sealing to cup).

Perhaps try a plain ceramic gas-lense cup and bump up the flow and gas pre-/postflow timers to see if it improves.

Also keep in mind that stainless does retain the heat much more localised than alu, so you tend to need a lot less power and can/have to move a bit faster.

Bye, Arno.

The pyrex gas lens looks like the generic Ebay / Chinesium kind ( could be wrong ) - if so that maybe the problem - I don't understand why but they just don't seem to work - no logical reason - they flow gas & don't leak so should ! if you have the same results with regular ceramic cups then I would suspect a leak dragging air as previously mentioned or contaminated / wrongly labelled gas - any way you can swap or borrow another cylinder that is proven to be 100% argon ?

[quote="noddybrian"]The pyrex gas lens looks like the generic Ebay / Chinesium kind ( could be wrong ) - if so that maybe the problem - I don't understand why but they just don't seem to work - no logical reason - they flow gas & don't leak so should ! if you have the same results with regular ceramic cups then I would suspect a leak dragging air as previously mentioned or contaminated / wrongly labelled gas - any way you can swap or borrow another cylinder that is proven to be 100% argon ?[/quote

I second this.... have used Chinese ebay sh@# Pyrex cup and gas diffuser before......which have been crap, put a ceramic cup on and see how it goes....

Darrin wrote:

noddybrian wrote:The pyrex gas lens looks like the generic Ebay / Chinesium kind ( could be wrong ) - if so that maybe the problem - I don't understand why but they just don't seem to work - no logical reason - they flow gas & don't leak so should ! if you have the same results with regular ceramic cups then I would suspect a leak dragging air as previously mentioned or contaminated / wrongly labelled gas - any way you can swap or borrow another cylinder that is proven to be 100% argon ?[/quote

I second this.... have used Chinese ebay sh@# Pyrex cup and gas diffuser before......which have been crap, put a ceramic cup on and see how it goes....

or......Buy the 4 pak of #8 pyrex cups from the Weldmonger store.

Been there done that, stick with a good name brand, I like C&K products.