Welding Tips and Tricks

When welding aluminum I always get a balled end. Is this normal? 30% cleaning, 120 freq. 2% lanthinated sharpened to a point. Welds look great! Machine set at 75 amps. thanks for any help john.

Forgot to mention 1/16th diameter tungsten.

Is it objectionable? Are you using a machine you can't tweak the settings such as a Diversion? I grind a very blunt point. It produces a narrow arc. bump up one size tungsten if it's a problem.

thermal arc 186 lots of settings. Miller welding video shows a guy sharpening to a point and keeping it like that throughoput the weld.

Hollywood...I have a new Miller Syncrowave 210...inverter... I use 1.5 lanthanated it always balls. It is still relatively sharp but always gets a small ball at the tip. I dont know if its possible to keep a sharp tungsten on AC

here is a picture.

I appreciate the info from everyone. I see people purposely balling the tip on dc but it just happens on ac for me.

Looks like you got it nailed. I have heard Jody say that he starts with a shap tungsten and let it ball as it may so that what I do and it works great. Jody explains how to ball tungsten on one of his vids but I don't bother. You should see pure ball up on a transformer. Your welds look great!

Thanks for the info exnailpounder. I sure appreciate this forum and the tips from everyone. thanks, John

I have an HTP Invertig 221 and I sharpen to a sharp point also on A/C, usually 3/32 2% Lanthanated and it will form a small ball at the end after a while. As long as the ball stays small and the bead narrow, I just leave it. The arc stays very stable even with slightly balled electrode.
I was using pure tungsten on my Eastwood TIG200, that would end up with a huge ball after a while, unstable arc, bad news lol.

Thanks massacre. I thought I was doing something wrong.

Nothing wrong. Don't let the ball get bigger than the diameter of the tungsten. Set post flow to keep tungsten clean. Consider larger tungsten, and blunt grind. Consider a water cooler & torch, nice anyway, they are smaller. On very clean aluminum you'll do very well as high as 80% EN,

thanks Bill.

I just looked at the tungsten and the ball is the same size as the tungsten and there is no more taper. Should I have blunted the tip more.

Currently welding at over 110 amps with 1/16th. Is this possibly the problem?

I'd go to 3/32.

I usually use 3/32 and set the point either sharp or blunted depending on use?

Ill try a 3/32 and blunt the tip some more. Thanks. John.

Hollywood1 wrote:thermal arc 186 lots of settings. Miller welding video shows a guy sharpening to a point and keeping it like that throughoput the weld.

Is he welding aluminum in the video?

If I recall correctly, Fronius has a setting for automatically putting a ball on a new tungsten that was specially designed for welding aluminum.