Welding Tips and Tricks

So I have been tig welding for about a month now and recently purchased a furick arsenal kit from jody. I noticed thefe are 2 gas lens, one with a full threaded body, and the other with flat spots (i assume this is solely for the pyrex cup to be able to accomodate an o ring). My confusion starts where jody says in order to run this kit on a 17 style torch (which is the kit i purchased) you need a special wedge collet. Well, in another product page he sells the furick jazzy ceramic 10 and 12 cup with the gas lens and a standard collet (i am looking at it for a 17 style torch). Do I use the wedge collet for every single cup? Is the wedge always needed when running a gas lens on a 17 style torch? I purchased a gas lens kit from jody and noticed it came with a standard collet (alumina cups).. Just need confirmation, not sure if its a matter of "if the tungsten doesnt move with whatever collet you end up using is fine" type of situation.

Any help is appreciated, thanks.
And yes, i called jody but i think they were busy and couldnt return call.

I don’t know of any situation where you specifically need a wedge collet over a standard collet. They are interchangeable from a size perspective AFAIK so long as you have the correct series for your torch size (17/26 in your case, but you may need the stubbies which are 4 series for the GL cups you mentioned).

If it fits from a length perspective, grips adequately, and doesn’t impede gas flow in any way then I would say you could use that collet without issue.

Subone,

I'm pretty sure the collets are the same, but the Furick gas lens does in fact have the flat area where the thread is removed to accommodate the oring. The Furick gas lens is intended so you can use either a glass cup with the oring or the threads with a ceramic cup such as a regular alumina or the Furick ceramic cups.

The whole thing seems like a big can of worms to me after trying the #8 Pros, you need special gas lenses, the orings, then they sell defusers for the larger cups and defuser installers, protector rings for safety, etc...

I switched back to regular alumina cups with a standard CK stubby gas lenses. Furick sells CK stubby gas lenses for use with his ceramic cups as well. The pyrex cups are pretty pricey. They do have better visibility, but not without faults, like being fragile, not being able to walk the cup, not good for aluminum in most cases, etc...He charges like $15 for a 3/32" Furick gas lens, and he sells the CK Worldwide for $7. I've not been able to figure out why the 3/32" Furick gas lens is $15/ea but the 1/16" and 1/8" are $9, other than 3/32" are wide spread because of Jody's recommendation.

Don't get caught up in large pyrex cups unless you really need them for the work you do. It seems more marketing and fad to me. If you have a need, by all means use them, but if not stick with alumina. At least speaking for myself I don't really have the need. My $0.02.