Welding Tips and Tricks

I finally got to try some tig welding, stared off welding on these 1 inch 2mm thick pieces and then moved to some thin wall tubing, which was alot move enjoyable to weld.

Welder.

As the months pass, you will probably have a chuckle looking back at the first weld.
As with all processes, the restarts, tie-ing in to the end of the last bead, are important to develop the techniques.

Tanks for sharing the photo.
Curiosity ... what is the white-ish background behind your weldment in the photo?

Alexa

Hey,

Im guessing this is not you first weld ever, merely your first tig. good effort, keep up the good stuff. And dont mess up the carpet.

Mick

That's not bad at all for a first effort at TIG. The shadow lines suggest very little distortion.

Alexa must have tile floors...

Steve S

Very good start to your TIG, but the lounge room floor is perhaps not the best place to practice

Back to night class this week for another go at tig welding, thought i might try some filet welds this time.

That fillet is either too hot, or bad gas coverage.

A fillet traps gas better than a groove, and should show better color than that.

Technique-wise, there's nothing wrong with it I can easily see.

If you have too much angle between the torch and the work, you can draw air in and discolor the weld. It's also possible to have a line-leak in the gas, or even bad gas.

That weld should be shiny/blue.

It may also be bad camera angle, in which case, ingnore me.

Steve S

Nice for a first. I added 'hardener' to my first, in a few places.

Lucky enough to get a job welding stainless.

first photo was me dragging the cup, I haven't tryed walking the cup before and I am lucky to have experienced guys showing me how its done. Seem to get better consistent results, hopefully i can post up the purge pipe in the future as im still working on that.

w31der wrote:Lucky enough to get a job welding stainless.

Congratulations!

Otto Nobedder wrote:That fillet is either too hot, or bad gas coverage.

A fillet traps gas better than a groove, and should show better color than that.

Technique-wise, there's nothing wrong with it I can easily see.

If you have too much angle between the torch and the work, you can draw air in and discolor the weld. It's also possible to have a line-leak in the gas, or even bad gas.

That weld should be shiny/blue.

It may also be bad camera angle, in which case, ingnore me.

Steve S

On that particular weld I'd have guessed at it just being very dirty MS with a lot of carbon, I keep arguing at work with a guy who refuses to even contemplate taking it off first.

Those stainless pieces are looking very nice though

first time doing this, I couldn't cap it off

second

I could figure out if i was trying to fill to much, I tried 2mm wire and 2.5mm wire. it didn't come out to nice.

Hey,

Maybe trying to fill it too quickly, looks pretty thick. Don't cap until its just below flush. More quick passes to keep the heat input down.

Mick

w31der,

We tend to be our own worst critics.

Frankly, that doesn't look bad at all. I don't see flaws, such as undercut or an excessive HAZ.

I'd expect it to be a solid weld and pass "bend".

The sharp edges I see from one "weave" to the next suggest you could carry more heat in the cap. This will help it to "wet in" and lay down a bit smoother.

Practice, practice, practice. One day you'll be amazed that you ever thought it was hard. And then you'll try something new, and start from here again...

Steve S