Welding Tips and Tricks

I've been stick and mig welding for about 8 years, always wanted to do tig, finally saved up enough and bought a lincoln aspect 230 ac/dc.
Hardest part for me has been dipping the tungsten when adding filler and feeding the filler between my fingers. Heres a pic of a better bead i ran, I didn't get the heat consisent throughout the weld.

Looks good. Aluminum tig sure ain't easy.

Actually, your heat was probably consistent. The change is from the base metal getting hotter and hotter as you weld it (pretty much the hardest thing to conquer with aluminum). Travel speed looks good, filler looks very consistent, heat looks right. So what's the complaint? Sure, anyone can nit-pick that bead into oblivion but it would hold up all day long in most every shop or on any production part.

Looks great-

nick121 wrote:I've been stick and mig welding for about 8 years, always wanted to do tig, finally saved up enough and bought a lincoln aspect 230 ac/dc.
Hardest part for me has been dipping the tungsten when adding filler and feeding the filler between my fingers. Heres a pic of a better bead i ran, I didn't get the heat consisent throughout the weld.

Looks good

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Thanks guys, Been putting in some practice every day or two. Definitely takes a lot of skill/coordination and gotta start moving quick on alum

nick121 wrote:Thanks guys, Been putting in some practice every day or two. Definitely takes a lot of skill/coordination and gotta start moving quick on alum

Or feed more filler to chill the puddle when it starts getting sideways on you...

I'm certainly no professional, and only been doing TIG aluminum for less than a year, but I'd say you're doing great!

You're right about feeding filler as well....that's super important to get smooth and fast. Nothing's worse than having a bead going great and then sticking the filler to the work and dragging the piece or fumbling the filler right into the tungsten....ugh!