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.

 

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

 

they 100X better than mine

 

some deets on the setup would help us help you.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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

 

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.

 

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.