Welding Tips and Tricks

Has anyone noticed varying degrees of gas coverage with different brands of gas lenses? I switch between two brands myself and I have found that one of these delivers far better argon coverage than the other. The one that's not so good requires me to limit my tungsten stick-out to about 1/4" whereas the other one gets me up to 3/4" stick-out, if not more. And in my work, I'm often working in super-tight corners that require a bit more stick-out. Generally, I'm using a #9 glass lens and my setup is stubby-style.

Just curious if anyone else has noticed a similar phenomena. Or maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree and all gas lenses are created equal?

Gas lenses do vary in quality and effectiveness. There’s no disputing that.

But, gas lenses are not “sized” by a #, they’re sized by tungsten diameter.

If your comment about gas coverage and stick out is related to the cup size, rule of thumb is equal distance out as diameter of cup. A #9 cup I’ve never seen. A TIG torch style of a 9 is a common size for lower amp welding.

A 9 torch with a #5 cup and collet body would be a tidy little setup. Stick out should then be limited to about 1/4”. If you need 3/4” stick out, you need to bump up to a #12 or #16 cup and crank the argon flow up to ~30-40cfh.

ekbmuts wrote: ↑Thu Jun 20, 2024 12:08 pm Has anyone noticed varying degrees of gas coverage with different brands of gas lenses? I switch between two brands myself and I have found that one of these delivers far better argon coverage than the other.

yes, a lot of cheap ones out there perform badly. thats why i recommend known good brands even if it costs more. most people don't ruin gas lenses so they last a long time.
i usually stuff up a lens because of welding dirty material, but a cheap way around that is use something like ck gas saver (yes they have a stubby version) as that has a cheap replaceable screen (buy them in packs).

tweake and cj737, thanks for that. Glad to know I'm not the only one suffering from potentially inferior gas lenses.

My workable setup, btw, is a 26 torch, 3/32" stubby gas lens, No. 9 quartz nozzle (yep - it's definitely a No. 9) with a 3/32 LaYZr tungsten.

The gas-saver kits sound interesting and I'm going to invest in some. Thanks for the tip.