Welding Tips and Tricks

I've been fooling around with my tig machine lately and I just started having problems with aluminum welding. It's been about 4 years since I last welded aluminum and I have a little project that I want to do with aluminum so I figured I better get myself back up to speed and practice. I just can't seem to get a good puddle started. The Aluminum I am attempting to weld just sputters and the arc starts to wander. I can't get that shiny mercury look and the weld, if you could call it that, looks like bird poop. There is quite a bit of black in the area where the arc is trying to work and it is impossible to even get a good bead going. I try to start a bead and all I get is a very erratic arc and lots of spitting and sputtering. I'm using 1/8 inch 2% & 1.5% lanthanated electrodes with a pedal and 150 amps max on 1/8 inch thick 12 x 3 aluminum. Never had this problem happen before while tigging aluminum in the past.

I recently had my tank of argon replaced and noticed that my steel welds are looking a bit gray also. Not the nice shiny welds I used to be able to do. And since I started practicing my aluminum welding again, I can't seem to get a decent weld even started. Could it be a bad tank of argon? How common is that. I've been tigging for about 10 years and never had this happen before. Or maybe I've lost the touch and am getting too old to weld? Maybe I've been migging too much and the tig god is punnishing me? Possible leaks in the gas line or regulator?

It's not my settings. I've been over that a hundred times and have tried several changes. Still the same result.
I'm going to try a new bottle of gas. And replace the regulator and lines.

Geesh this is getting frustrating. I used to tig pretty good. Now I'm kicking out bird poop. Help!!!!! What does this look like to you?

hi steve
I cant say it that it cant happen as far as bad gas but i would go over all my setings one more time you got your welder set on AC and your gas is on right i have done that so many times its not funny anyway good luck

john.pruette wrote:hi steve
I cant say it that it cant happen as far as bad gas but i would go over all my setings one more time you got your welder set on AC and your gas is on right i have done that so many times its not funny anyway good luck

Hi John. I had the same thought so.......

I have checked that I was on AC. My gas is installed correctly, pretty sure anyways. I have had a friend who tigs for a living check me out as far as settings go. Everything checked out. He even had a problem trying to weld with my set up. He wasn't sure if it was bad gas or a malfunctioning machine. He said..."Hey, I'm a weldor....not a fixer of welders."

Going to get a new bottle of gas today and see if that helps. I have a Chinese made regulator/valve and that could even be the problem. It sure looks to me to be a shielding gas problem. But it has been a while since I tigged so I need some opinions so I can get my rear in gear and get going.
It reminds me of when I first started tig welding. I was the king of bird poop welds back then and it looks like I'm having Deja Vu all over again.

Bad gas is possible, but unlikely. I had chili tonight, so I can't say the same for me.

Is you torch water-cooled? I had a similar problem recently on a lincoln tigmaster(?) 375 rental machine. A torch change solved the problem. I had arc wander with this same machine when using 75/25 Ar/He mix. Does your tungsten get all messed up, dirty, smokey? If water cooled, I'd suspect the coolant and the torch lines. It's also possible your machine is only producing the + half of the hi-freq AC.

How much gas are you flowing? Too much can be worse than too little, as it creates turbulance that mixes air with your argon at the business end of the torch. This is magnified by using a plain collet body vs. a gas lens, and multipied even more by torch angle.

Is your machine a transformer, or an inverter? If a transformer, have you cleaned and set the spark gap? (You said it had been a while since you welded aluminum.)

When you solve this, please let us know; It'll be one more thing the rest of us can check when we have trouble.

Ok...problem solved. It was not me after all. The argon gas bottle was mis marked and had 75% argon 25% CO2. Makes for a nice mig weld but a really crappy tig weld. No more bird crap king. Now I am the tig god. Ok..maybe just an apostle.

One thing the gas guy told me was that often even though the tanks are purged and vacuumed, sometimes liquid CO2 sticks to the side of the tank and it contaminates the argon. So some times the argon you think is good may not be. You may be struggling with welding when it is not you or your machine but the gas. Yes you can say I had bad gas. Pass it on! I always do.

What was nice was that even though I did not purchase the tanks from the dealer I went to, they gave me a free exchange.

The dealer owner showed me how to tell if the argon is contaminated. You just open up the valve slightly and let a small amount of gas out and sniff with your nose. You release a little bit of the gas and since argon is heavier than air, sniff above the valve as you open up the valve. CO2 will rise and If your nose tingles and has a slight smell like a pop bottle, then CO2 is present. It is like sniffing the top of a 2 liter bottle of fizzy pop. He told me that he has seen a few tanks of argon contaminated lately. He sniffs every tank he sells so he catches them before you take them home and wonder if you are getting too old to do this and maybe lost your touch.

The moral of the story is.....argon tanks should be used only for argon. If it was used previously for 75/25, then there is a good possibility that it may be contaminated.

Wow, it's interesting how such a tiny bit of CO2 can influence the welding so much. I wonder how it does that!?

WOW!!!! I will never look at a bottle of argon the way !!! but anyway thanks for the tip steve.