My welds suck donky nuts. Advice please
 

So, I picked up this HF tig a while back and have been gluing metal together with it for a while. I can make stuff stick but it doesn't look great. I am working now on making my welds look better and was hopping for some suggestions.

Top and bottom welds were adding material and the middle was just a straight pass.


http://www.thezcr.com/gallery/data/5...m/100_2113.JPG

http://www.thezcr.com/gallery/data/5...m/100_2116.JPG

http://www.thezcr.com/gallery/data/5...m/100_2117.JPG

http://www.thezcr.com/gallery/data/5...m/100_2118.JPG

Re: My welds suck donky nuts. Advice please
 

those do indeed look like ----, first push your tungston in further and what cfm are you running on the argon?

Re: My welds suck donky nuts. Advice please
 

they 100X better than mine

Re: My welds suck donky nuts. Advice please
 

some deets on the setup would help us help you.

Re: My welds suck donky nuts. Advice please
 

Clean your metal first. Stainless brush, acetone. Keep your tungsten sharp and clean. Looks hot. I would run minimum of 18 cf of flow. Get a gas lens.

Re: My welds suck donky nuts. Advice please
 

It is SCH 40 304 SS with 308 filler. I am running 40 cf of argon, probably to much? I need to get a stainless brush. I cleaned it with mineral spirits first.

Re: My welds suck donky nuts. Advice please
 

what they said.
it's grey because youre a bajillion times too hot. that means too many amps, and too slow welding.
the rest of he ---- colors is because you might as well cut your argon down to a trickle at that point. it's not really doing much... all that gas is streaming out of your torch so fast it simply swirls the air right back into the weld. i bet your tungsten gets contaminated and rrodes away real fast lol

15-20cf/h, drop the amps and speed up. go get your some 1/8-3/16-1/4" mild steel strips and practice just running basic T joints. alot cheaper in the long run and not as sensative to the heat.




get the fundamentals right.eveything is more breaking bad habits, and simple repetitions to build consistancy.

Re: My welds suck donky nuts. Advice please
 

what ever your welding on looks like it has a coating you never ground off. That will add to the suckyness as well.

Re: My welds suck donky nuts. Advice please
 

Waaaaay too much gas.

Anything between 15 and 20cfm will generally be fine.

What size is the cup (hehehe... or, what is you cup size? :P)? The smaller the cup the more finicky it will be to good gas coverage.

Try just making a puddle and moving it along with no filler at around 50 amps.

Re: My welds suck donky nuts. Advice please
 

Thanks for the help so far. I knocked the gas flow down to 18, pushed the tungstun into the cup more, put a bigger cup on, cleared the coating and cut my power in half. Here is where I am at now.

http://www.thezcr.com/gallery/data/5...m/100_2123.JPG

http://www.thezcr.com/gallery/data/5...m/100_2124.JPG

http://www.thezcr.com/gallery/data/5...m/100_2125.JPG

http://www.thezcr.com/gallery/data/5...m/100_2126.JPG

http://www.thezcr.com/gallery/data/5...m/100_2127.JPG

Re: My welds suck donky nuts. Advice please
 

good improvment on the welds

Re: My welds suck donky nuts. Advice please
 

Ok, I cut a piece of pipe apart and welded it back together. Am I getting close? Think I just need more time welding now.

http://www.thezcr.com/gallery/data/5...m/100_2129.JPG

http://www.thezcr.com/gallery/data/5...m/100_2130.JPG

Re: My welds suck donky nuts. Advice please
 

You're getting there... better...but still not quite right... what do they look like if you don't add any filler? I suspect you are pulling the hot filler rod back too far out of the shielding gas, and it is getting contaminated, and then you are dipping it back in.

Based on the size of the heat affect zone I doubt you are too hot at this stage...

Re: My welds suck donky nuts. Advice please
 

Here are two passses with no filler

http://www.thezcr.com/gallery/data/5...m/100_2134.JPG

http://www.thezcr.com/gallery/data/5...m/100_2137.JPG

Here are two more I did with filler but I made sure to keep the filler in as close as possible. I think that may have been part of the issue too because not pulling out was way better, as usual 8)

http://www.thezcr.com/gallery/data/5...m/100_2139.JPG

Re: My welds suck donky nuts. Advice please
 

You're getting there now... thise appear be to pretty close to serviceable. In the last pic you posted, to top right weld looks a bit hot, and the botttom left one looks a bit cold.

One thing to remember is that adding filler sucks the heat out of the pudlde, with stainless you just need to add enough to keep the weld form being seriously undercut, you need very little filler.
I have been using 0.035" mig wire for filler these days and it makes things much easier. It is much more expensive than 1/16" though so I'd practice a bit more with that first. You need to dip right at the very front edge of the puddle, try to avoid pushing the rod right into the center of the puddle as it will just add to much.



Couple other things:

See how the weld is still grey at the end? Either you are pulling the torch away form the weld as soon as you finish, or you do not have enough postflow to keep the weld shielded until it finishes cooling. Also back off the heat gradually at the end while moving the torch in a tiny circle- this will help avoid the "crater" at the end of the weld. This is VERY IMPORTANT when welding pipe becuase that crater is either as pinhole leak, or a pinhole leak/crack waiting to happen.

here is a major closeup of what my welds on 1.5" schd 10 look like when I fit thngs up properly... :S

http://www.pbase.com/capnbondo/image/96266668/large.jpg

Re: My welds suck donky nuts. Advice please
 

Awsome, thanks for the help. Unfortuantly, I cannot control pre or post flow with this welder or current. I have no thumb or foot control for it so I am stuck. I just want to try get the best weld I can out of it with what I got. Thanks again.

Re: My welds suck donky nuts. Advice please
 

At the end give one last dollop of filler and pull the torch away at a slow pace like you were trying to break the arc. This will cut the heat input somewhat.
You're adding too much filler. Little dab.

---- welding with .035. You can't fill a groove with it and it doesn't eliminate any mre problems than it causes. Just learn to dip or walk the cup on a real size.

Re: My welds suck donky nuts. Advice please
 

What about tungstun size? I have been using 1/16" thoriated tungstun. What effects will going with smaller tungston show?

Re: My welds suck donky nuts. Advice please
 

to have a good quailty weld it take alot of time and pratice dont worry the more u do it the better ull get and from pics to pic it looks like your getting the hang of it.

Re: My welds suck donky nuts. Advice please
 

nothing if the tip is ground to a correct profile.
You have a 1/16" tungsten and a 5/32" tungsten sitting side by side. You grind both to a 15-22* point and trunctiate the end. They use the same torch stick out. Aside from the top end amperage what's the differance???

Use whatever you want. If you're not going to be at the top end of that little welder then 1/16" will be fine. When it comes time for more 3/32" may be a bit cheaper tho. It's the most common size at any rate.

Technically the smaller 1/16" tungsten should provide easier arc starting at lower amperages. Personally, I've never noticed a differance to note. Engloid says is doesn't matter if it's ground correctly and my instructor always said the same thing too.

Re: My welds suck donky nuts. Advice please
 

It's not like his house is going to blow up or he'll get AIDS by trying it- some people have good results with it. ;)

Maybe you mean you can't fill a groove with it. :P I do just fine. See posted weld. Lots of very capable and certified weldors use it in such an application, it is a personal preference thing. You can certainly get away without it, but IMO it is worth a try just to see if it suits you. No point in telling a boob to flat out not try something that many people do find helpful.

Also it has nothing to do with walking the cup. ::)

Re: My welds suck donky nuts. Advice please
 

its not life or death. but you're ------- stupid. hell never fill a groove well with it for a reason you dumbfuck. what's going to happen even filling a second pass on a junk piece of schedule 10??? He's going to weld for less than half an inch and need to advance the filler through his hand. his filler angles, and overall technique is *relatively* poor simply because he's never tig welded before.
guess what? now you've compicated what he's doing FOR NO GOD DAMNED REASON; along with wasting time and money taking longer to fill it, and wasting tungsten having a newbie having to deal with a stratch start far more often than he otherwise would need too.

im not engloid, nor am i a CWI. that said this is a prime why i got paid to teach brand new gtaw welders at the Honda plant outside of Cullman, AL how to GTAW their mufflers together last year. its a matter of i know more why and why not than you do. its not a personal attack. dont make it so, ill call you a douche bag and your feelings will get hurt.

Re: My welds suck donky nuts. Advice please
 

and what's the point in saying anything about me telling him to learn how to dip or walk the cup?

i TOLD him to learn how to dip or walk properly period. what the ---- mucus did you think i was talking about

Re: My welds suck donky nuts. Advice please
 

Ha! I also told him to practice some more first. :P

The thing to remeber though is even beveled sched 10 stainless does not require much filler at all. You can easily weld 1/4 of the way around the pipe without having to advance the filler, provided you hold it 4-5" back from the end of the rod. If you decide to be a dumbass and strike the arc holding the filler rod 1" from the end then then yu need to seriosuly re-think the process in general.

How much filler do you think it actually takes? :1

I can do a demo if you really want.

Re: My welds suck donky nuts. Advice please
 

---- all that argon bs get your self some hf flux wire turn that bitch to high wire speed at 7 let that bitch splatter.

Re: My welds suck donky nuts. Advice please
 

proper tig'n=baller status

Re: My welds suck donky nuts. Advice please
 

Another thing w/ the HF tig is gas coverage sucks balls

stuff a tiny bit of steel wool inside the cup of the torch; make an hmt gas lens if you will

my welds went form meh to decent when I did just that one mod...

Or get yourself a real torch w/ gas lens used for chheap if you can and be happy with that!