Welding Tips and Tricks

Being a new TIG welder owner I was surprised by the price of not the welder but consumables. Tungsten's, gloves. wiring for machine, helmets,brushes, tables and so on. My biggest mistake, I have had a MIG welder for 16 years and having a good feel on how much gas I used with that I purchased a 80 cubic foot tank of argon. BIG mistake, went through that in an morning of messing around with welder on steel and alum. I went with the 80 as it's the largest I could buy at the supply house, don't like to lease. So now I own a 80 cf tank and will need to lease a larger tank. Hoping to trade in the 80 argon for a 80 helium.
Bottom line is I I bought the Miller AD/DC for $2700 and will have another $1000 in extras. Not complaining, love being able to do alum and stainless as I'm building a ProStreet but was unaware of how fast the argon bottle is used up. Wold make a good video for newbies to TIG.

For sure. Just be wary that the gas flow rate us set at the minimum requirements for the job. It's easy to have too much flowing

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All new to me and the Miller Syncrowave 210 has two gages so I was going by the instructions trying to get something that looked like a weld rather than a bunch of gobs. Was getting much better when I noticed the tank gage at 500. And thanks will be playing with lowering gas pressure as I purchased the stubby gas lens kit and tied it out tonight and it does make a difference.
I build street cars and always wanted to make aluminum parts for the car but couldn't weld the aluminum. Hopefully I will catch on quickly.

Gas flow at 2 to 3 times TIG cup size is a good starting reference

WhiskeyJack wrote:I purchased a 80 cubic foot tank of argon. BIG mistake, went through that in an morning of messing around with welder on steel and alum. I went with the 80 as it's the largest I could buy at the supply house, don't like to lease. So now I own a 80 cf tank and will need to lease a larger tank. Hoping to trade in the 80 argon for a 80 helium.

Keep your eyes open for a 300CF . I bought one from a buddy, it's $70 to swap it, my LWS swaps it no prob, and they last quite a while, much cheaper this way too .

All the LWS that I've ever dealt with will give you 100% purchase cost credit on your tank if you want to upgrade to a bigger tank. You just pay for the gas and the difference in price between the smaller and larger bottle.

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80 cu. ft. used up in a morning of practice sounds like:

A. You have a leak.
B. WAY too much gas flow.s
C. You're doing a LOT of practice
D. WAY too long pre and/or post purge. (I find that the AUTO setting on my Dynasty post flow is WAY WAY WAY too long, even for stainless. Although I do run a water cooled torch, maybe the auto setting is programmed for an air cooled torch?

As far as the bottles, keep your eyes peeled. I've bought these all locally:
(4) 330 cu.ft. bottles (3) 250 cu.ft. (4) 20 cu.ft. (1) 140 cu.ft. Acetylene (1) 75 cu.ft. Acetlyene

Even if you need more gas, just buy another bottle in the largest size your LWS will sell, it seems to vary between 80 and 150 cu.ft. depending on the city. You can always sell the bottle back to the LWS or even privately for what you paid or more. Even at that, if you are swapping your own bottles, it's a heck of a lot easier to move 80-150 bottles rather than the big ones if you don't have truck.

Yup a lot of practice, going by instructions as Syncrowave 210 has two gages and even new to TIG I thought post flow was too long. I'll be swapping in my 80cf and leasing the 250/330 depending on price as Haun won't let me buy a tank that big and I don't know of other suppliers in the area. I set post flow to 3 seconds, does it sound like I'm in the ball park as I do have an air cooled torch?
Thanks for the help as I feel like a fish out of water. Was the shop welder back in the early 90's doing stick on steam lines and machinery, moved into mig around 2000 and now TIG. Kinda like gas welding except lots cleaner and less heat needed.

WhiskeyJack wrote:Yup a lot of practice, going by instructions as Syncrowave 210 has two gages and even new to TIG I thought post flow was too long. I'll be swapping in my 80cf and leasing the 250/330 depending on price as Haun won't let me buy a tank that big and I don't know of other suppliers in the area. I set post flow to 3 seconds, does it sound like I'm in the ball park as I do have an air cooled torch?
Thanks for the help as I feel like a fish out of water. Was the shop welder back in the early 90's doing stick on steam lines and machinery, moved into mig around 2000 and now TIG. Kinda like gas welding except lots cleaner and less heat needed.

To determine if 3 seconds is enough, run a good hot practice bead, let the tungsten cool (don't move it from the end of the weld 'til the gas stops), and check it's color. If it's discolored at all, add a second or two, re-prep the tungsten, and try again. Until you're welding stainless or other high-alloy or exotic metals, you just need enough post-flow to protect your tungsten from oxidizing.

Steve S

WhiskeyJack wrote: swapping in my 80cf and leasing the 250/330 depending on price as Haun won't let me buy a tank that big and I don't know of other suppliers in the area. I set post flow to 3 seconds, does it sound like I'm in the ball park as I do have an air cooled torch?

Follow what Steve said about post flow. Too bad you're not in Rochester, Mahany sells 150 ft tanks. Keep you're eye open for customer owned big tanks, you might not see any for sale for months then 3 in a week. Where about are you in Central NY? East of the soda/pop line? Gasman is in Manchester? I see all their tanks at Mahany, I think they just resell Mahany stuff who is mostly just Rochester area. Don't know much about Haun other than buying a set of gloves from them at the farm show a few years ago at the state fair grounds.

I wouldn't exactly call it central NY by any stretch but Craigslist has a 300 ft tank listed for sale in Ogdensburg under the Syracuse sublisting.

Went out and leased a 250 cubic foot tank tonight it's only $47 a year plus whatever gas I use. I should have checked further into the settings post flow was way too long almost 12 seconds too much gas while welding 22 CFH was way too much in a hurry to start using the machine and I found its really necessary to wear gloves especially when you go to strike and arc and the filler rod hits the tungsten as the arc starts it's a real eye opener. Thanks for all the input now I can watch welding tips and tricks on TIG and relate it to something and hopefully it will sink in.

12 seconds is an eternity. Going through an 80 ft bottle in a day is a LOT. you were probably using the gas 2-3 times more than you needed. With a gas lens and no bad drafts you should be able to use 10CFH. $47/yr ain't too bad, I've seen lots at $15/month. I just did a a day's worth of Tig on these 316 Stainless bearing journals, there's a LOT of weld on there, I bet I didn't use more than 40 cu ft of argon.

After trading out my 80cft to a leased 250 I've spent a lot of time on the machine both on steel and alum.. I checked this tank when received and it had 2400 psi and after a week of after work welding maybe an hour a night I'm still over 2000 so I'm not sure how full the 80cft was. Lesson learned but at $47 a year lease I'm ok with that. Gotta get me a metal bench as I keep setting my wooden bench on fire. Good thing is it's a concrete floor and block wall.
So far welder has done well, I keep up on all the new YouTube segments picking up tricks as I work through the learning curve.