Welding Tips and Tricks

Hello there, I am starting to get into tig here and there and since I'm a right I must feed the wire with my left hand, I find myself using my thumb, and putting the wire between my index and middle finger and using a slight motion to feed the wire, but as I am doing that Ifind it is difficult to keep both hands steady, when I do the motion to feed more wire my hand doesn't stay steady (sometimes to a point i accidently shake and touch the tungsten with the filler, only happened once, but dont want it to happen again) so I often have to wait till I'm done the feeding motion to resume dipping. Any tips to keep a steady hand while feeding wire?

Also, I find myself going with the torch sometimes in an uneven speed, I.e: start good, stop for half a second ( don't know why) and resume decently. Now that I mention it it might also be because of the filler wire issue...

And I think I recall Jody saying something about only using one hand at a time when you start off (move the torch forward, stop, feed wire, move torch, etc..) Do you think that would help until I get comfortable with the filler wire movement


Doing the motion now I think I realize why the rod swaysto the left, when I pull it with my index and middle finger it moves more to the left, so you guys use different methods or fingers to feed the rod?

Thank you for your help and time

Regards

Noah

[Edit]: Shouldi do many smaller movements to move the filler instead of one larger one with my fingers?

First, you might want to try all the motions without firing up the arc before you weld anything. With the issues you are having, you might want to just do that for a half hour or so on some butt joints and then fire it up and see if that helps.

There are a lot of ways to feed and not all of them work for everyone. Play around and see what actually feels natural. Personally I run the wire between my middle and ring fingers cause it feels better than between my index and middle fingers. There are also tools like:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/TIG-PEN-Tig-Fin ... SwzhVWrj-A

Which I hear great things about from my British friends but have never seen here.

As far as even travel speeds go, practice just doing fusion welds and that make mistakes obvious. If you are fine there and you are just hitching to feed... Well, you know where you need to focus your efforts.

-Sandow

Sandow wrote: There are a lot of ways to feed and not all of them work for everyone. Play around and see what actually feels natural. Personally I run the wire between my middle and ring fingers cause it feels better than between my index and middle fingers.

Yeah, tried between different fingers, and I still get that sway motion, so do you do many small motions with the wire to feed, or few large ones? And I think i'm gonna have to practice alot

Update, been doing it for like an hour straight, and getting abit less left and right sway, but it's still there, and I'm getting abit of up/down sway
Noah

Feeding rod is the last skill that develops. Those big long stack o dimes welds are cool but not really practical. You need to watch your heat input into your base metal and those long welds usually put in a lot of heat without some sort of heat sinking. There is no dishonor in starting and stopping a weld. I know we strive for weld porn but just starting out you should aim for proper welding techniques, the rod feeding will come over time. You can do a suprisingly long bead just working your torch toward your filler and just dabbing as the rod is getting shorter. Patience and practice will always get you where you need to go.

exnailpounder wrote:Feeding rod is the last skill that develops. Those big long stack o dimes welds are cool but not really practical. You need to watch your heat input into your base metal and those long welds usually put in a lot of heat without some sort of heat sinking. There is no dishonor in starting and stopping a weld. I know we strive for weld porn but just starting out you should aim for proper welding techniques, the rod feeding will come over time. You can do a suprisingly long bead just working your torch toward your filler and just dabbing as the rod is getting shorter. Patience and practice will always get you where you need to go.

Could not agree more, practice filler feeding while watching TV at night. (left and right hand)

DLewis0289 wrote:

exnailpounder wrote:Feeding rod is the last skill that develops. Those big long stack o dimes welds are cool but not really practical. You need to watch your heat input into your base metal and those long welds usually put in a lot of heat without some sort of heat sinking. There is no dishonor in starting and stopping a weld. I know we strive for weld porn but just starting out you should aim for proper welding techniques, the rod feeding will come over time. You can do a suprisingly long bead just working your torch toward your filler and just dabbing as the rod is getting shorter. Patience and practice will always get you where you need to go.

Could not agree more, practice filler feeding while watching TV at night. (left and right hand)

Certain things I can do with both hands but tig welding is not one of them

Least honorable wrote:

Sandow wrote: There are a lot of ways to feed and not all of them work for everyone. Play around and see what actually feels natural. Personally I run the wire between my middle and ring fingers cause it feels better than between my index and middle fingers.

Yeah, tried between different fingers, and I still get that sway motion, so do you do many small motions with the wire to feed, or few large ones? And I think i'm gonna have to practice alot

Update, been doing it for like an hour straight, and getting abit less left and right sway, but it's still there, and I'm getting abit of up/down sway
Noah

This is nothing that practice won't take care of. Practice feeding the filler without feeding it through your hand first. In other words, move your hand closer and closer with each dip as it gets consumed. This way you can stabilize your torch hand, and also manage to get the filler into the leading edge of the puddle at the correct time. Once you get that rythm going, then your pre-set mental synchronization of feeding the filler at the correct time will help translate that into feeding it through with your hand into the puddle at the correct time. You still need a lot of dexterity and muscle memory to do this, as well as find the technique that works for your particular natural hand dexterity.