Welding Tips and Tricks

Need some help people ....

I am a hobby welder but I have welded a lot of SS and Al with TIG .. and although not an expert by any means I can lay dropped pennies with regularity in most situations. Previously when I had to weld plain steel I turned to the MIG ... its easy, fast and clean ... turn on, weld, turn off ...

OK so my MIG died and I only have the TIG and I had to weld a small job in mild steel .. went to the local HW store and bought some rods, Now they didn't have the usual copper coasted TIG rods so I bought some rods labelled RG45, they are coated in a black film, they are labelled as "mild steel oxy filler rod".

One of the pieces I had to weld was gal coated so I ground off the gal ... well sort of ... this was a quick and dirty job ... so I wasn't very thorough ....

But when I tried to weld the pieces the welds look like crap .... to me it looked like when u MIG but forget to turn the gas on ...
Tried cleaning, different gas flow, different tip, pulsing etc etc but nothing seemed to work ... welds were crap.

Stupid question but is TIG particularly sensitive to the Zn in the gal or are these "black" rods coated in something that's stuffing the welds or am I missing something completely ?

Any and all suggestions received graciously ...

Pretty sure RG45 are brazing rods for use with OA not TIG
https://www.harrisproductsgroup.com/en/ ... -rg60.aspx

You’d be better off using a metal clothing hangar

You did a lot wrong. Not cleaning correctly is a mistake.
Buying "mild steel oxy filler rod" for tig is an obvious one

RG45 rods are not made like tig rods. With good clean steel the weld will often be very gray.
Same for coat hangers.

In 70s-2 and 70s-6 tig rods, the -2 and -6 are silicon content if I remember correctly, which RG45 doesn't have or need with oxy/acetylene welding.

Basically, tig rods work good as oxy/acetylene rods, but not generally the reverse.

MinnesotaDave wrote:You did a lot wrong. Not cleaning correctly is a mistake.
Buying "mild steel oxy filler rod" for tig is an obvious one

RG45 rods are not made like tig rods. With good clean steel the weld will often be very gray.
Same for coat hangers.

In 70s-2 and 70s-6 tig rods, the -2 and -6 are silicon content if I remember correctly, which RG45 doesn't have or need with oxy/acetylene welding.

Basically, tig rods work good as oxy/acetylene rods, but not generally the reverse.

OK thanks both for replying ...

I wondered if if that was the base problem, I just assumed that if I could use tig rods for oxy I could do the reverse .... is that black coating on the RG45s some form or flux or something thats contaminating the welds?