Any TIG welders that can help me?

[wyowolf]

Thin stuff warps, plain and simple. Stainless even more so. Combating it requires clamping and chill bars (essentially heat sinks you can clamp the work onto that gets rid of heat quickly). Kettles have the advantage of being round so they hold shape nicer, but coupons will heat soak and warp really easily. This is where having a good handle on TIG basics helps. The shorter you can keep the arc, and the faster you can move while getting good welds will cut down on the overall heat input to the part and reduce some of that warping. But if you're holding a long arc and moving slowly because you're still not confident, things are going to overheat and warp a lot.

A common mistake on thin stuff is to reduce amps too much, which then forces them to move slower to get good penetration, which raises the overall heat input to the part. Especially where you don't have a foot pedal you need dead on power, short arcs, and the confidence to move quick.

That's why I teach noobs on thick stuff. They need that muscle memory worked out before they move down in thickness and start dialing in all their settings.

Thats 100% true... that is exactly what happens, and I have LONG way to go to get to that point...

 

[schiersteinbrewing]

Glassbeaded the coupons, then a wire wheel, then mineral spirits, then acetone, Increased to my largest cup a #10, bumped the amps from 120 to 127, went from 10lpm to 12lpm on gas (mine measures in lpm not cfh so have to do math), 1/16 filler, pretty good results

 

[schiersteinbrewing]

Coupon on the left is the way most of mine look...coupon on the right is after 10 min of flapping with 60 and 80 grit....media blasting takes forever also...any suggestions on cleaning process? I have also used the grinder and then flap it works okay.

 

[wyowolf]

I wouldnt think you need to clean the whole thing like the one before... just the area thats getting welded I should think should be sufficient...

 

[cegan09]

Some hot rolled steel just has a ridiculous layer of mill scale. I've had coupons from similar stuff that just takes ages to get clean. No good way around it.

100% overkill, but if you have a mill and a fly cutter or face mill you can just run a light pass to take it all off.

 

[schiersteinbrewing]

Wish I had a mill.

 

[GreenMonti]

Some hot rolled steel just has a ridiculous layer of mill scale. I've had coupons from similar stuff that just takes ages to get clean. No good way around it.

100% overkill, but if you have a mill and a fly cutter or face mill you can just run a light pass to take it all off.

Or a surface grinding machine

 

[GreenMonti]

Thin stuff warps, plain and simple. Stainless even more so. Combating it requires clamping and chill bars (essentially heat sinks you can clamp the work onto that gets rid of heat quickly). Kettles have the advantage of being round so they hold shape nicer, but coupons will heat soak and warp really easily. This is where having a good handle on TIG basics helps. The shorter you can keep the arc, and the faster you can move while getting good welds will cut down on the overall heat input to the part and reduce some of that warping. But if you're holding a long arc and moving slowly because you're still not confident, things are going to overheat and warp a lot.

A common mistake on thin stuff is to reduce amps too much, which then forces them to move slower to get good penetration, which raises the overall heat input to the part. Especially where you don't have a foot pedal you need dead on power, short arcs, and the confidence to move quick.

That's why I teach noobs on thick stuff. They need that muscle memory worked out before they move down in thickness and start dialing in all their settings.

Heat input does come into play. It’s also basic geometry due to the fact that welds shrink. That puts stress into the pieces causing them to distort. An example of this is a piece of acrylic that is exposed to water on just one side. It will warp and distort due to a very small amount of expansion on just the one side.
Weld on just one side of square tubing will cause it to bow and not be straight anymore. Pre load the same square tube in the opposite direction and after the weld has cooled it will be straight. Knowing the pre load is another story and changes with every situation.

Clamping a piece behind and on top of thin material helps in two ways. It’s also not difficult to accomplish in the home shop. It also lends the ability to back purge the coupons if someone so desires. Stainless requires it if the weld is to be sanitary. In the case of these lap weld samples that are being pictured. Just one piece across the top clamping them to the table is all that’s needed. A series of tack welds that are about 1/4” apart is the widest I’d go if I wasn’t clamping the pieces heavily.

I still stand behind my advice of welding the thinner materials right now if that’s the end goal. Learning what is required in order to keep the samples flat and what the materials require will not change. These requirements have been the same since welding sheet metal was invented. Low amperage tight arc gaps is a low light small puddle hard to see environment. Thick material is nowhere close to the same.
Setup the gauntlet and force the adaptation. You’ll inherently reach the end goal faster and have more skills built up before you try welding on your brewery.

Schiersteinbrewing, if there’s anything you’d like to see just ask. I’ll do my best to show you and help you. I’m a 5 1/2 hour non stop plane ride from you but I’m willing to help the best I can. I just need to know what your questions are.

 

[GreenMonti]

Here is a quick example of why I recommend such a large cup on the torch. I just finished welding this 2” sanitary ferrule on a keg for a dual purpose vessel in my brewing system. You see just how tight life becomes welding on a ferrule. In my case I use a blank cap that has a hole for the purge to escape and while I don’t use a gasket (it’ll melt) I do use the clamp to hold the cap on the ferrule.

 

[GreenMonti]

Since I’m board I thought I’d go ahead and throw these up. I truly am not using anything fancy. The machine nor the helmet makes the weld. It truly is the user. Anyone can do this.

I also put in a bottom drain on the old keg pictured above. I got the skirt PLENTY HOT once apon a time. Haha

Old machine stashed in a dark corner. 1978 ish model. You have to be patient with this machine. It doesn’t react very fast to what you want. New machines are almost instant to your request. Not this one.

Cheap $20 steady eddy weld hood. I can’t tell you how many airplane parts have been welded with one of these cheap hoods. This one is newer as the crusty one is at work. I got tired of hauling it back and forth. Auto hoods for me TIG welding don’t get along. My hands get in the way and I get flashed. So I quit using them a long time ago.

0.035” filler cause I don’t have any smaller right now

Air cooled manual gas control torch. Flex head, though I don’t bend it much ever.

I hand sharpen my tungsten on a 6” bench grinder white wheel. Nothing special.

 

[GreenMonti]

to make you feel better I will post this hideousness... .025 SS sheets... it did not go well at all... warping buckling etc... reg Steel razor blades were WAY easier than this...

View attachment 594437

You just need proper fit up and fixture. I have a manual weld cert on 0.016” thick sheet that allows me to manually weld down to 0.011” thick. Maxstar welder, no pulse settings, 1/16 tungsten, 0.020” filler, number 10 shade in a cheap $20 helmet.
Leave a gap in the material in the shape of a V and as you weld the V will close in front of your puddle due to weld shrinkage.
This does require a fixture. A very simple fixture for short (6” ish) welds. However it does take some setup. Longer welds just take more thought and setup.

 

[wyowolf]

You just need proper fit up and fixture. I have a manual weld cert on 0.016” thick sheet that allows me to manually weld down to 0.011” thick. Maxstar welder, no pulse settings, 1/16 tungsten, 0.020” filler, number 10 shade in a cheap $20 helmet.
Leave a gap in the material in the shape of a V and as you weld the V will close in front of your puddle due to weld shrinkage.
This does require a fixture. A very simple fixture for short (6” ish) welds. However it does take some setup. Longer welds just take more thought and setup.

what kind of fixture?

 

[cegan09]

GreenMonti, I agree that equipment makes less of a difference than the welder. A good welder (and I'm not claiming to be a pro by any stretch of the imagination) can make good welds with fancy or very basic machines.

My logic on starting with thick material is this: I teach complete noobs how to get started welding at a local makerspace. Typically people who have never touched a welder, or have basic knowledge with a MIG at best. It takes them a good while to get used to the motions of TIG. They get caught in this loop where they can focus on 2 things at a time but ignore the 3rd. So they'll watch their arc length and their filler, but forget about the foot pedal. Then all of a sudden they have a puddle growing out of control so they shift attention and ignore arc length, so now they're wandering up to a 1/2" arc. Repeat.

When I teach I stick people on 0.09" coupons and bits of 0.083" square tubing. It's not monster thick, but it is thick enough to resist the insta-burn through that really thin stuff will do. I tell them to stick to that stuff until the muscle memory starts to build up and they can run a number of beads in a row with minimal issues. Once they can do that, move on to material that's similar to what they want to work with for their project. I don't tell them to stick to the thicker stuff until they're a pro, just until they acclimate to the motions of TIG. In just about every case this helps them learn faster than if they try to jump right into some more specialty material.

 

[GreenMonti]

GreenMonti, I agree that equipment makes less of a difference than the welder. A good welder (and I'm not claiming to be a pro by any stretch of the imagination) can make good welds with fancy or very basic machines.

My logic on starting with thick material is this: I teach complete noobs how to get started welding at a local makerspace. Typically people who have never touched a welder, or have basic knowledge with a MIG at best. It takes them a good while to get used to the motions of TIG. They get caught in this loop where they can focus on 2 things at a time but ignore the 3rd. So they'll watch their arc length and their filler, but forget about the foot pedal. Then all of a sudden they have a puddle growing out of control so they shift attention and ignore arc length, so now they're wandering up to a 1/2" arc. Repeat.

When I teach I stick people on 0.09" coupons and bits of 0.083" square tubing. It's not monster thick, but it is thick enough to resist the insta-burn through that really thin stuff will do. I tell them to stick to that stuff until the muscle memory starts to build up and they can run a number of beads in a row with minimal issues. Once they can do that, move on to material that's similar to what they want to work with for their project. I don't tell them to stick to the thicker stuff until they're a pro, just until they acclimate to the motions of TIG. In just about every case this helps them learn faster than if they try to jump right into some more specialty material.

In this case, there is no foot pedal involved. That motor function isn’t going to get in the way here.
In this case all that is needed is a setting and they can concentrate on the gap flowing the the materials together. I suggest doing autogenous welds first. If need be two hands can be used to guide the torch.
If they blow a hole, try again. Either faster or lower amperage. After the two can be fused together without filler. Bring that into the mix knowing more power will be needed to accommodate the extra material. How one adds the filler will also effect the heat settings.

I’ll post more later and I’ll put up pics about a simple fixture after work.

 

[GreenMonti]

Hopefully this get the juices flowing as what can be done based on extra pieces in your garage/shop.

Missing from the pics is clamps. Or, if so inclined the top pieces could be bolted to the bottom pieces by drilling and tapping the bottom pieces.
Also ideally the edges of the top pieces would be beveled to aid in access to the weld joint. The basic idea is in the pics though. I simply don’t have nor do I keep much scrap or bits and pieces around to clutter up my small space at home. You can get as fancy or basic as you want. This doesn’t “have” to be aluminum either. It will cool best being either aluminum or copper if your made of money. Haha.
I’ll try and get a pic of the same idea just a fancy version tomorrow.

 

[GreenMonti]

The lap joint that keeps getting reposted is even easier

 

[wyowolf]

Hopefully this get the juices flowing as what can be done based on extra pieces in your garage/shop.


View attachment 595291 View attachment 595292

Missing from the pics is clamps. Or, if so inclined the top pieces could be bolted to the bottom pieces by drilling and tapping the bottom pieces.
Also ideally the edges of the top pieces would be beveled to aid in access to the weld joint. The basic idea is in the pics though. I simply don’t have nor do I keep much scrap or bits and pieces around to clutter up my small space at home. You can get as fancy or basic as you want. This doesn’t “have” to be aluminum either. It will cool best being either aluminum or copper if your made of money. Haha.
I’ll try and get a pic of the same idea just a fancy version tomorrow.

Ok that makes sense...do you purge back with argon as well? Or does enough get trapped in clamp?

 

[schiersteinbrewing]

So my dad has some nice metal square tubing stadium seats that were 17in wide. Where we use them they have a new policy of 16in, so we cut them down and TIG welded them back together. It's around 17-18 ga metal, did the 3 C's (clean X3), set the machine to 50amps. It wasn't pretty but got the job done. What I learned was need a pedal (scratch start was very difficult in odd positions), need finer control of amps (pedal) on thin material ( heat would build and have a blow out so would weld a tad, break arch let cool and go again), pre and post flow would be awesome (forgetting to turn on gas happened a few times, once forgot to turn off gas), need way more than 10-12 sharpened tungstens (stratch start and stick ruined more than dipping).

Going to cut some 16ga coupons and work on fillet/butt/lap joints. My lap joints on the thin material were the best part. Thin material is quite a bit more difficult to manage.

 

[GreenMonti]

Ok that makes sense...do you purge back with argon as well? Or does enough get trapped in clamp?

If it’s stainless, yes gas would be required. In which case you can use tape to close off the ends and make a chamber. Just remember that an exit is needed for the backing gas.
I can do another pic tomorrow showing the details of this and some small pointers for success so the backing gas doesn’t interfere with the weld.

In the case of the mild steel lap weld, backing gas isn’t required. Just clamp it to the table and go. Things will be just fine.

Moving the pieces (blocks, chill bars, fixture pieces, whatever you wat to call them) closer or further from the joint ends will obviously give more or less support/cooling. My statement of a manual weld cert on .016” thick material was done on a fancy version of this with a .100” inch gap between the bottom pieces.

 

[GreenMonti]

So my dad has some nice metal square tubing stadium seats that were 17in wide. Where we use them they have a new policy of 16in, so we cut them down and TIG welded them back together. It's around 17-18 ga metal, did the 3 C's (clean X3), set the machine to 50amps. It wasn't pretty but got the job done. What I learned was need a pedal (scratch start was very difficult in odd positions), need finer control of amps (pedal) on thin material ( heat would build and have a blow out so would weld a tad, break arch let cool and go again), pre and post flow would be awesome (forgetting to turn on gas happened a few times, once forgot to turn off gas), need way more than 10-12 sharpened tungstens (stratch start and stick ruined more than dipping).

Going to cut some 16ga coupons and work on fillet/butt/lap joints. My lap joints on the thin material were the best part. Thin material is quite a bit more difficult to manage.

Any pics of the weld joints? We’re there gaps in the cut down pieces? What type of material?

Scratch start definitely reduces tungsten life. Common info is to strike the arc on a scrap copper piece next to the weld joint and then move off the copper and on to the joint.

Harder to manage thin material in what way?

 

[schiersteinbrewing]

Schiersteinbrewing, if there’s anything you’d like to see just ask. I’ll do my best to show you and help you. I’m a 5 1/2 hour non stop plane ride from you but I’m willing to help the best I can. I just need to know what your questions are.

Thanks, just trying to learn right now. I knew it was a more involved process going into it, just trying to get feedback from persons more experienced.

 

[schiersteinbrewing]

Mild steel tibubv. I will try and grab pics tomorrow, no gaps, sticks were the biggest issue, blow outs were next and then porosity.

Managing my heat input on thin material was difficult. If I turned the amps down to 35-40 it was hard to get a puddle going and the pace was pretty slow. If I cranked the amps to 60 it would blow out very quick. 50 amps was the sweet spot. Unfortunately I don't have any scrap copper yet.

The seats were powder coated if that helps.

 

[GreenMonti]

Thanks, just trying to learn right now. I knew it was a more involved process going into it, just trying to get feedback from persons more experienced.

The little things matter. It’s a bunch of little things that add up to build success with TIG. They all come together and make people smile.

 

[GreenMonti]

Mild steel tibubv. I will try and grab pics tomorrow, no gaps, sticks were the biggest issue, blow outs were next and then porosity.

Managing my heat input on thin material was difficult. If I turned the amps down to 35-40 it was hard to get a puddle going and the pace was pretty slow. If I cranked the amps to 60 it would blow out very quick. 50 amps was the sweet spot. Unfortunately I don't have any scrap copper yet.

The seats were powder coated if that helps.

We’re you welding through the powder coating?
I’m guess these welds were in a T joint fashion? If so, you can keep the arc focused on the wall (vertical portion) of the tube and let the puddle walk or work it over to the flat portion that’s being joined. I hope that makes sense.

 

[schiersteinbrewing]

I ground off the coating and cleaned with acetone.

2 buts, 2 fillets, 2 laps and two round stock to top of square tubing

 

[schiersteinbrewing]

 

[GreenMonti]

It looks to me like your focusing the heat in the wrong areas for the joint being welded. Those look like your trying to place the heat right in the middle of the joint every time.
Your second pic is what I was asking a T-joint. Square tube has a radius edge inherently giving you a gap.

 

[GreenMonti]

This guy does a good job explaining how things are intertwined to each other. A lot better than I could type out in an explanation. It isn’t any one thing, they play together.



After watching this video, I ask. What is better? Thick or thin for practice? The answer to me is, you have to move relative to the material. You don’t get to go slow on thick material. If thin is what you want to weld, start there. Use a block to hold them down like I showed for a lap joint. I’ve even spent a little time watching 2 of the other guy’s videos (not the ones above) posted. He shows the same block I showed to hold down the lap joint coupon.

Also, schiersteinbrewing. Notice where the heat is being placed at about the 11 minuet mark. It’s biased towards the base plate. Not the center of the joint. Same goes for square tubing T joint. Bias the heat on the full tube as you have so much more of a heat sink on the full tube. Your essentially trying to weld on the edge of the tubing wall.

Another thought I had which the other guy shows (can’t remember his name) is try holding the filler in the weld joint and just wash over it till you get better. This is not as easy as it seems. Not for me anyway. However, I bet this would have helped you a lot in the seating situation since your still trying to get the hang of it. Just wash the materials together.

 

[wyowolf]

Pretty good explanation of how different heat settings effects the weld...

 

[GreenMonti]

Pretty good explanation of how different heat settings effects the weld...

I agree. From a “look at all these” kind of way.

Does his point of view help you more so than the guy I posted? I ask only for me to learn from a teacher stand point. Everyone has their own reality and their own take away’s from things.

I deleted quite a long post to remove my opinion and just end here....