Welding Tips and Tricks

Been welding for about a decade but I am a noob when it comes to AC TIG welding ... in anticipation of the arrival of my new machine I stopped at Airgas yesterday grabbed some aluminum filler rod and asked the guy behind the counter for some 2% lanthinated tungsten ... he sees I have aluminum and tells me the lanthinated is for steel and stainless only ... I asked him what I should be using and he says pure tungsten. Now this guy has never steered me wrong before but I've heard from many people that pure tungsten is pure crap ... I think I even heard Jody say to stay with the 2% ... so now I'm totally confused.

Pure tungsten are kinda a old school way of welding aluminum and are often used with a old transformer style tig machine. The 2 percent lanthanated tungstens are for inverter style machine but they will also work with the the old transformer stly tig machine as well. Pure tungstens tend to ball up a lot more the a 2 percent lanthanated will, thats why most people do not like the pure tunsgten. The more the tungsten balls up the more your arc will want to wonder around. I learned on the transformer style machines with a pure tungsten and I still think that they make the nicest looking welds possible, but if you are just starting out just stick with 2 percent lanthanted.

ajlskater1 wrote:Pure tungsten are kinda a old school way of welding aluminum and are often used with a old transformer style tig machine. The 2 percent lanthanated tungstens are for inverter style machine but they will also work with the the old transformer stly tig machine as well. Pure tungstens tend to ball up a lot more the a 2 percent lanthanated will, thats why most people do not like the pure tunsgten. The more the tungsten balls up the more your arc will want to wonder around. I learned on the transformer style machines with a pure tungsten and I still think that they make the nicest looking welds possible, but if you are just starting out just stick with 2 percent lanthanted.

Thanks I was of that mind too just thought I would ask because like I said in the past the fellow at Airgas has been a good source of info ... he must be stuck in the old transformer mode ... LOL ... looking through the Everlast manual I see that pure is discouraged for use with their inverter machines and my new unit is their 200DX (awaiting shipment now ... with gr8 anticipation) Thanks again ... this is a terrific forum!

Those seem like really good machines. I have never personally used one, have always been a miller guy myself, but after watching some of jody's videos on them they seem to do what needs to get done. One tip that might help with balling the tungsten is to grab a scrap piece of copper and light up on it for a couple of seconds. The tungstens will ball up naturally over time of welding, but when you sharpen the tungsten and then weld with it right away your first couple of beads wil not weld that nice and there is a risk of getting contaminates in the weld from the tungsten. Lighting up on the copper kinda cleans the tungsten and starts the balling process, so your first actual weld will be good.

ajlskater1 wrote:Those seem like really good machines. I have never personally used one, have always been a miller guy myself, but after watching some of jody's videos on them they seem to do what needs to get done. One tip that might help with balling the tungsten is to grab a scrap piece of copper and light up on it for a couple of seconds. The tungstens will ball up naturally over time of welding, but when you sharpen the tungsten and then weld with it right away your first couple of beads wil not weld that nice and there is a risk of getting contaminates in the weld from the tungsten. Lighting up on the copper kinda cleans the tungsten and starts the balling process, so your first actual weld will be good.

Thanks that's good to know ... ganna have to go over the settings for welding aluminum before I strike an arc ... good thing I have a resource like weldingtipsandtricks.com I am sure glad I found it ... Jody is awesome!

yep this site is really good, there is a lot of knowledgable people on here to help each other out.

If you do a search Jody did a vid a while back on tungsten comparison in real time showing the difference between them and what the tip does as far as balling.