reverse crater?
Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2014 11:45 pm
So after a few months of being very busy at work, and only MIG welding to get some things done on the weekend, I'm back sitting down with the TIG machine to try and get a bit of seat time now that I have 220 power in the garage (so much nicer with 220!!) time to get familiar with TIG so that I can hopefully start making some furniture with some nice pretty welds 
I ran a few short beads tonight, trying alot of different things, everything from torch angle, to torch speed, to torch motion, filler timing, and what not just to get a feel. That's all good and well, I'll keep doing this to get a better feel of things. However, one thing that seems to happen every time is a reverse crater (mountain?
) as I terminate each run. I don't know if I'm backing off on the power to slow, or to fast, or what. As I view some videos online, I don't think I'm to far off on the timing as I ramp off the power. It's the opposite of what I get when I'm TIGing aluminum, with aluminum I almost always get a crater that goes down into the base metal pretty deep. But on steel, I get a mountain. I suppose the mountain isn't bad structurally... ? But I don't like how it looks.
Metal is 1/4" mild steel, 1/8" filler rod, tungsten is 2% lanthenated 3/32" and Argon at around 12CFH with 10 seconds post flow (I need to look at the gauge again, to see what it's set at, but that's what I think I remember setting it at when I set it up last time)
I ran a few short beads tonight, trying alot of different things, everything from torch angle, to torch speed, to torch motion, filler timing, and what not just to get a feel. That's all good and well, I'll keep doing this to get a better feel of things. However, one thing that seems to happen every time is a reverse crater (mountain?
) as I terminate each run. I don't know if I'm backing off on the power to slow, or to fast, or what. As I view some videos online, I don't think I'm to far off on the timing as I ramp off the power. It's the opposite of what I get when I'm TIGing aluminum, with aluminum I almost always get a crater that goes down into the base metal pretty deep. But on steel, I get a mountain. I suppose the mountain isn't bad structurally... ? But I don't like how it looks.Metal is 1/4" mild steel, 1/8" filler rod, tungsten is 2% lanthenated 3/32" and Argon at around 12CFH with 10 seconds post flow (I need to look at the gauge again, to see what it's set at, but that's what I think I remember setting it at when I set it up last time)
