I think I've found the problem. I forgot to turn on the argon a while back and got a bunch of sparks. After turning the argon on I continued to get sparks. A previous reply suggested changing cup size so I tried that. When I did I found all kinds of crap caked on the inside of the cup. Looked like m...

Ok, making progress but now having another issue. I'm getting a lot of sparks coming off the weld metal. I cleaned it up with a buffing wheel and used acetone. All that stuff flying around contaminates my tungsten, then things get worse. It doesn't happen when I'm on flat plate but does when I'm on ...

I stood up a vertical plate behind the tube, changed to a #8 gas lense and played with a few settings. The welds look better but not particularly good. Operator technique most likely accounts for what's happening now. Anybody out there that lives in the Vancouver, WA area and hires out as a welding ...

Thanks. I'll give that a try and report back.

Howdy, New to the forum. New to tig welding. Currently just practicing with hopes of becoming proficient. Running beads on mild steel, starting to look fairly good. I put a piece of 4130 square tube on the table and used the same settings and it looked like crap. Very flat bead, frosty texture and s...