lkailburn

weir and Cs - thanks both for the comments and tips. definitiely very much appreciated.

im not sure what size tungsten i have but it does have a red stripe on the end. and i'll deff look into buying the gas lense setup. i hear its amazing how much it helps.

weir-holy crap you can extend the tungsten 2" past the cup?? damn. i keep it 1/16" out of the cup haha i can't imagine 2". but i did always wonder how i would weld tight areas with it only out 1/16" gas lense ftw i guess.

cs- one of the drawbacks of my setup is its a scratch start tig. so i have to touch the metal with the tungsten then pull away to start the arc. but i do keep a good eye on the condition of the tungsten and i regrind it often. also, i have no control over heat besides adjusting arc length.

i really want to look into adding a foot petal. i heard you can add a pedal to the setup. hopefually that means its no longer a scratch start? idk. any input guys?

thanks again !

-Luke

SpankedYA!

The scratch start is permanent. The pedal will allow you to regulate your heat better though. Scratch start/Lift start will put you at a disadvantage due to the fact you are contaminating your tungsten from go. My buddy has a scratch start with a pedal and he does very well with it.

lkailburn

damn i was afraid of that. well if i can add it i'll atleast have better control over heat, thats a plus.

thanks again for the comments everyone

-Luke

Smith-02

could one not take a large starter solenoid, like off of a ford, and use it in-line with a trigger from a mig gun, to make a trigger start?

lkailburn

i just ordered some gas lense parts. hopefully this will help eliminate some more contamination. and also let me extend the tungsten out further for tight to weld places.

when it gets here i'll try it out and post up results

-Luke

Toysrme

lol man i shoulda payed more attention ot this thread once you started updating more often.
Huge ditto on the fitment quality. Very very good! Be sure to read tips on bandsaws here & on google! (coolant/wax, tension, mounts, etc). In all honesty your bandsaw work is better than most experianced members chop-saw work so you got nowhere to go but up

No strikes allowed out of the weld zone period. If done they must be ground & filled.
3/32" electrode. Some people like 1/16" because of it's charicteristics VS 3/32" below 30amps or so, however you wont be needing that as much as the ability to weld at 100-150amps when doing flange work. If you want some 1/16's go for it. I have a pack & use them on occasion, but it's 95% of the time 3/32".
Quit using the .045" filler wire LoLoLoLoL! Use 1/16", and 3/32" filler. It's going to take you months of hard practice to be able to weld with .045. There isn't enough filler for the gaps.
Beveling, landings & root gaps oh my! Use 30* bevels (not 45*). Feather edge the workpiece (grind to a point, not to a landing) and use a gap opening around the size of your filler rod. You want the filler rod to stick THROUGH the bottom of the gap & catch itself so that the filler rod can't simply fall through.
(Unless you want to one pass that at a high travel rate & more around 125-150amps. you're simply not going to get a full pen weld as-is. Your 2 pass welds are not full pen either.)

This is pretty much what the back of a full-pen groove weld should look like when the heat, travel speed & root opening are correct. My next semister strats back monday, if I need to bevel a piece of plate & demonstrate I will. Beware of cp quality pics tho LoL!

See how it burns through the feather edge, and the reinforcement that is below the joint? That lets you know your joint is tied in real well

I'd bet money had you used another 5amps, a correct root gap & a 1/16" rod this weld would have been a good full pen root pass


The flanges are undercuttig & concave. Incorrect electrode angle, too hot/too low of a travel speed/insuffecient filler.
Honestly... Most people cure that naturally by getting the correct amount of heat input on the flange so that the weld ties in, without burning up the pipe. Then traveling faster.
You've already figured out the groove in the colellector. It takes more stickout while maintining good shielding gas coverage. (If you have the ability to apply shielding gas before your arc is struck, I highly recommend doing so... Preflow = saves tungsten contamination + easier arc starting for me personally.)




The red tells you that you're using 2% thoriated tungsten. It's good for DC- welding about everything, and is the longest lived type I've been exposed too at school. I did my entire summer semister off one 3/32" tungsten . It's also mildly radioactive & while not harmful to handle, breathing the dust will ---- your lungs up over time. The orange bands are 2% Ceriated. They work well, no health concerns, are AC/DC, but are not quite as long lived as 2% thor.
Be sure you're prepping the tungsten correctly. Everyone has their own prefferance but you want it ground down lengthwise so that the angle is roughly 3X the diameter of the electrode. Then finish it off by truntuating the tip (grind just the sharp point off real small) When you strike an arc on a newly prepped tungsten it may wander just slightly. Fix that by running the amperage up alittle until it quits wandering. Leave it there afew seconds & then you'll be 100%.







There's free-hand & there's walking the cup.
There's dipping the filler rod & there's lay-wire. (where you lay the filler into the joint of the weld & then apply pressure to hold it there).
It's more consistant walking + laywire. I suggest practicing that almost exclusively for the pipe work. When walking, the electrode movement perpendicular to the weld (side to side) should almost NEVER exceed the width of the filler rod. Ever. Use just enough motion (in many welds none is needed...) to keep the ends of the welds tied in without using so much heat they undercut. (via melting the weld away from the toe of the weld & having it wash down into the weld)
Making the pipe to flange a 2 weld pass is OK if it's thick, or you're unsure. To do so you bevel the pipe 30* & set it on the flange. Then you weld that so that it is flush, or convex. Prep the surface for more welding & then you're just running a fillet weld ontop of the other weld. Doing so takes alot more time, but it does increase penitration...

I'm not 100% down with how it works, but the current running from the torch, to the ground, to the workpiece magnetizes the workpiece slightly. (do some MS pieces ontop of a MS work table then pick it up... Even a tack weld will make it slightly magnetic!) and the arc itself because of the engergy transfer is succesptible to strong magnetic fields)
Along with that understand that when tacking up root openings. The metal pulls together during welding. If you lay a piece of filler in there to do a 3/32" gap & don't have the pieces secure, then remove the filler before welding. You'll wind up with a 1/16" opening.





















Personally, I would ban you from using any filler smaller in diameter than 1/16". Ban you from trying to weld anything using any motion but forward travel angle (Your sweeping the cup is part of your undercut problem. It's getting alot more consistant, but its not there yet). Ban you from trying to weld anything thicker than schedule 10 (.109") WITHOUT using a root opening large enough to let the filler stick out the bottom.







ER70S-2 is the common MS/4130 chrome-moly filler. -6 is more expencive, less avalible & great for millscale / rust 308L for welding 304 stainless to 304. 309L for welding 304 stainless to MS.

Toysrme

AFA tieing in the inside of the welds... Not really gunna happen without a root opening unless achived via monstor amps, which is gunna make it FUBAR anyway. I dont tie absolutely everything in. Don't get that impression either. But I try to do it anywhere it's possible to do so. In the long run it's a *real* good habbit!
If you're 2 passing... There's absolutely no reason NOT to do it in my mind. SImply put you're using a thick material for it's strength, so why use a weld that's much, much weaker than the base material. Food for thought.



Remember that when you get the joint too hot, you'll get suckback. That's where the reinforcement (hump, tiny weld bead from the filler wire, w/e you gotta tell yourself) on the back of the weld will suck itself back up into the weld. That can lead to contamination, along with it being unsound for the weld simply becuase it'll normally turn concave if it's really hot. Nastly looking.

lkailburn

Toysrme - wow man thanks! haha thanks for joining back into the thread btw.

there's so much information there my brain is going crazy trying to understand it all

i wish people told me filler rod size was such a big deal. i have 5lbs of SS and 5lbs of mild in .045 lol. damnit. i mean how much of a difference will i really see? for right now the only work i need to do is this sch40 mani and a new downpipe. what drawbacks will i face using .045 instead of 1/16" or 3/32?

i know you already posted a TON of information but could you do me a favor. on the pipe to flange pics, could you point out with arrows exactly what in the weld shows too slow / too low of heat / incorrect angle? usually when i look at my own welds i can see exactly what is wrong and when people critique im usually right on board with their comments. but when i look at the pipe to flange it looks a hell of a lot better than some of my other welds and i guess i can't quite see all the flaws. i mean its not perfect but if you could specifically point out some of the key indicators that really would help me out so much.

I'm hoping that gas lense setup comes today cuz i'd love to try it out

i'll have to reread through all your post theres a ton of information and i don't want to forget any of it

thanks everyone!

-Luke

Toysrme

shiiiiat i didn't say much different than CS & wier and some of those guys. they're on the nipples.

See... The thing is with the undersized filler is that you have to manually add a boatload of it to keep it the correct weld size. Which... That just aint gunna happen yet. (doubt I could do it without alittle practice first) And with you having to do that, it's an inconsistant amount of filler. Where-as you go using a larger 1/16 and 3/32 rods, you let it burn just the very tip of the rod off. That way it doesn't undercut from drawing all the weld-metal from the base matal. And it doesn't cold lap & bulge the throat of your weld from a sudden influx of cold filler metal cooling the weld down too much.
It's a huge differance trust me. I had done alots of DIY tig before this last semister and it took me a whole two days (5+h/d of straight welding) just to get use to welding with 1/8" rods b/c they throw so much more metal in they take a light touch. Say for like an 8" fillet weld I'd use 1/6 of an 1/8" rod, 1/3 of a 3/32" rod and 1/2 of a 1/16" rod.
Grab two pounds of 3/32" and a pound of 1/16". Trust me in that it'll be grossly easier to make a 1/16" rod look prettier, but you really need to practice with the 3/32". It's a real good match for schedule-40. The smaller rod it's natural to make a smaller weld where things aint as obvious and its just easier. (atleast to me)

.045 is more a medium sized MIG wire. (you can use mig wire btw aslong as it's classified ER). I just can't tell you in exhaust work where I personally would be better off using it. It'd be a super tiny weld.

lkailburn

yah by no means do i disregard what weir, cs or anyone else for that matter, posted. they have helped a lot aswell to you guys hahah

the wire im using IS actually mig wire haha its so damn cheap i thought i might as well waste cheap filler instead of expensive filler.

im almost empty on my tank so when i take it in i'll pick up some 1/16" rod to pratice with. i'll get mild for practice and such and stainless for the real deal.

-Luke