well, it looks like i'll be on the phone again tomorrow. Nothing too serious though. I had a good two and a half hours welding as i had a machine all to myself. I knocked out three lap joints that were excellent on top, including the stop start in the middle of the weld. Penetration was showing itse...

I completely agree that grinding your own welds makes you a better welder, I did that for a few years at my first job, I liked because it gave me time to study my welds and come up with with ideas on how to improve myself. I was in your exact shoes at my first shop, even after I became the lead wel...

After lat weeks farce, my dolls were truly thrown out of the pram and i had a constructive discussion with the head of engineering, who, apparently, didn't know anything about my...problems... All has been sorted now(hopefully). Material was ordered for the wednesday class. The course handbooks were...

The page address is http://www.weldingtipsandtricks.com/tig-welding-aluminum-2.html The heading is "Tig Welding Aluminum settings on "Old as Balls" Welding machines" The picture is one of the four machines at college! I wonder which decade 'Balls' were invented? Worryingly, i thi...

Well guys... I went to college tonight, after taking a day's holiday off work because this week i'm on the late shift, full of confidence with the aim of doing a couple of perfect butt joints (fingers crossed), and then getting on to the tube to plate. But all to no avail. NO BLOODY MATERIAL! NO alu...

What diameter pipe are you talking about? Could you not use a big pair of 'mole' grips, or 'vice' grips, i don't know what they call them where you are, and clamp a spring loaded earth clamp to the handle? Just make sure you get the ones with a curved jaw and not the straight ones. This is what i me...

I've had shocks from the torches at work, but only had a shock from the rod once, when i tried to weld another onto the end of the short one... WON'T be trying THAT again! WHy did i do that? I hear you sensible guys all saying. Well, i do a lot of brazing as well, and i never waste any rod by joinin...

I find sometimes the friction of the cup on the joint causes it to move in a jerky action, so unless i can slide along the metal and not the joint, i tend to slide my hand along instead.
I've even attacked the bench with the grinder to give me a smooth surface to do this.

Well, i went to college last night. Day five of fifteen. Don't know if it was using Jody's technique, a pure tungsten electrode, or a combination of both, but after the second attempt i achieved penetration :D The tutor said HE wouldn't use that method, because when i lifted i was removing heat and ...

I'd braze or silver solder it. You'd have more control over the heat. Or, try aiming the arc at the thicker piece and let the pool melt the thinner piece. I was having to weld M5 flat washers onto the end of 8mm diameter bar to give the powder coaters something to hang them up by. I didn't have to u...

When i was taught to arc weld at college many years ago, i was told to ALWAYS weld upwards, and 'maintain the onion'. So i've always welded upwards, when welding anything. It's only since i started working as a welder again about a year ago that i saw, tried and now nearly always tig and migweld dow...

A lot of the tube work we do at work is dipped in galv or a similar plating and we have to leave a small hole somewhere as it can lead to problems when it is dipped. I have heard various reasons, from blowing crap through small holes in the weld which then leads to a crappy finish, or the tube being...

I suppose if the oven gloves still let you feed your filler rod through your fingers, then go for it! I think if you found yourself a nice pair of thin leather gloves that fitted well, you'd prefer them. The only oven gloves i have seen are big multi layered 'wooley' type material which i don't thin...

I know what you mean about 'BOOM!' I had been tig welding steel at work for about siz months and would regularly dip the tungsten into the weld. One day it suddenly ocurred to me (BOOM), that i never watch the arc length. I divided my attention between moving the weld pool along and the filler rod e...

Check out ebay by looking for thin leather gloves, or tig welding gloves, or welding gloves. It doesn't help that one supplier calls their size 10 large, another calls them medium. I've found a size 9 fits my hands nicely. I have some 9.5s i wear at work for mig welding once they have got a bit blac...

Mike, at least the gloves would be designed to fit a human hand.
The crap 'tig' ones we are issued at work with are some sort of vinyl material and are designed for alien hands with tapering finger tips.

I've always tried aiming the torch at my cheek to feel how much gas is coming out for a couple of reasons. One is because in one of the bays a welder had a slight mishap when the mig welder's gas cylinder fell over and smashed the flow tube off the wall for the plumbed in argon for the tig welder. I...

Technically you would have probably invalidated your warranty when you looked inside, definately you would have when you swapped the component. Keep the original and swap it back if the machine goes 'pop' or 'bang', or whatever noise chinese machines make... I'd be interested to learn what effect th...

TamJeff, you make a good point there. The t-shirts we are issued with are of a thin material, and i have in the past got into the shower after work and found my chest is lightly sunburnt! I don't bother with the ones issued, but wear my own i got from my last place of work most of the time. Even the...

Well reading this really hasn't improved my mood... The first half of day two was spent at college trying to learn how to weld aluminium on DC by mistake. I was using 100% argon and i was convinced i'd got horrendous contamination judging by the black crust on the weld. Which is why i bought a stain...

Welding Mike, I'll confess i didn't give the edges any attention, although i was using a stainless wire brush to give the two sides of the weld areas a good brush. When i pointed out to the tutor that i'd bought a wire brush, he said that he didn't have much faith in brushing as it won't remove oxid...

Tamjef, I've just checked the 'assessment and grading' notes and it says twice that "PLEASE NOTE that for any welds in there is NO REQUIREMENT to use a backing purge." It also says that "multiple runs are permissible". Maybe i should try a root and cap? The tutor says we should d...

Hi guys, I'm taking a tig welding aluminium course at college at night. I mig, braze and tig mild steel at work but want to learn aluminium. I'm trying to do a butt joint on the flat. I can put down a bead that looks great from the top but i just can't get consistant penetration. The machine i'm usi...

I've always found walking the cup gives me a jerky action, which isn't good, so i 'walk the hand' instead.
I'm lucky in that 98% of my work is in jigs, so i just position it or me so that i can slide my hand or a finger to make things easier.

My welding tutor also warns about using acetone if you don't give it chance to dry thoroughly.
You can produce a gas that sends you a bit 'high' and very drunk.