Welding Tips and Tricks

Jody

First thing, thanks for your GREAT web site. It's obvious that you have put in a great deal of time and effort into it.

I am just starting tig welding. I have done about 2 ft of welding (some looks ok but none of it pretty) and many hours watching videos. I have found your videos to be very helpful and a pleasure to watch a master at work.

That said, as a beginner, I feel a "TIG for Dummies" video would be of great help. What I mean by that is as follows.

1. What welder to buy. A discussion of features and the value of each. There seems to be diction on the web about different machines and their features but none seems to describe the value of these features enough so the beginner can make an educated decision on what feature best fit his needs and can grow into.
A. Scratch start, lift start, high frequency start. I tried scratch start then bought a machine with HF and lift start and find it so much easer it is worth every penny I paid extra for it.
B. Option for pedal. I have yet to use one, but can see that adjusting the amperage as the weld heats up would be handy.
C. AC DC. An added expense but if aluminum welding is in their future it would be a better investment to only buy one machine.

You seem to have covered most of the other machine features in your other videos, so links to them should cover machines.

2. Photos and videos of bad welds and what to try to correct them.
None of my weld look like yours. The steel welds look like they are covered in mill scale. I even had little volcano shaped mounds erupt at the ends of my welds (increasing gas flow stopped those). This is the type of problem beginners want answer for.

3. Weld speed. TIG is always described as a slow welding process. Yes, it is slower than other methods, but, as a beginner, it's seems hard to go fast enough. I know that I am way to slow since I start melting through the plate when doing a bead on plate. A discussion on rod size, amperages and inches of weld per minute for a few plate thicknesses would be helpful. It seems that welding speed has to increase as the metal heats, if true, talk about what best to do, Speed up, stop and let it cool? How do you know if you are using to small a rod?

Just a few thoughts.

Thanks again for a great site.

Mark Peters

Jody covers all your concerns in his basics of tig series.

I thought that I had covered that,maybe I missed something.

Jody does a great job and covers a lot of information but, after viewing and reading a lot of his TIG posts I have yet to see true beginner quality welds and explanations on causes and fixes. If I missed them olease point me in the right direction.

Mark

This is Jody's playlist of the TIG Basics series. Some of the best info I've seen:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... tml5=False

I agree with the original post-er i would like to see BAD WELDS. When we "rookie", "hobby", non-professional welders get under the hood we don't always see what we see in videos of proper technique and results. By seeing the wrong way and what caused the wrong thing we can learn to identify the result with the corrective action. My skills have improved tremendously due to the videos and practice but I have not yet moved to Aluminum TIG (for example) because I don't think I fully understand what would happen if I did something wrong. Don't really understand what "cleaning action" is or what it would look like if I didn't have proper cleaning action. I spent a whole bottle of Argon/Co2 mix (which I was told was pure Argon) trying to figure out what I was doing wrong. I got crappy contaminated welds which I have never seen a picture of. Show people what happens when you do the wrong stuff. We don't intentionally do the wrong thing. In some cases we don't know better in other cases we buy something we think is right but cant identify the problem because we don't have the experience to know what is wrong because we haven't seen enough welding to understand. Nobody is more grateful for the work that has been put into this site, the podcasts etc. We appreciate the work. None of the above is intended to be a Gripe. It's a suggestion, request, as the owners have requested. Could you video doing the wrong thing and the results? "If you use CO2/Argon Mix on Stainless.. this is what you will get." Will save someone a lot of time and frustration. Believe me! Thanks for all you do. A Weldmonger store patron.

Tbaugh wrote: I spent a whole bottle of Argon/Co2 mix (which I was told was pure Argon) trying to figure out what I was doing wrong. I got crappy contaminated welds ... CO2/Argon Mix on Stainless...

I'm not clear, from your description- are you.using Ar-CO2 mix? At a beginner TIG level, use only pure argon. You can blend in helium later if you need it, but never co2. Ar-CO2 is a MIG gas. That might account for your contamination.

Did a supplier give you a MIG bottle labeled Ar-CO2 and tell you it was pure argon?

And as for the videos, there are a decent amount of them. How not tig weld or 3 common mistakes are just a couple examples. Showing you-if your welds look like this, it may be this

Realized i was contributing to topic drift. So first, i'll say "good on ya" for trying hard and staying with it.

Next, and this is just a guess, I suspect the effort and expense of making a "how to do it right" video is substantial enough that a "how to do it wrong" video may not be worth it.

But not to leave you hanging: if you're not getting the results you expect, post up a pic on this forum and i know tou'll get some help. It's a good group of helpful people. Post up a pic and the settings on your machine.

A "TIG For Dummies" thread would include the basics:
- learn on steel
- start on bright shiny metal that you've wiped down with acetone
- use settings from this site
https://www.millerwelds.com/resources/w ... calculator
- run beads with no filler while you get the rhythm down

Tbaugh wrote:I agree with the original post-er i would like to see BAD WELDS. When we "rookie", "hobby", non-professional welders get under the hood we don't always see what we see in videos of proper technique and results. By seeing the wrong way and what caused the wrong thing we can learn to identify the result with the corrective action. My skills have improved tremendously due to the videos and practice but I have not yet moved to Aluminum TIG (for example) because I don't think I fully understand what would happen if I did something wrong. Don't really understand what "cleaning action" is or what it would look like if I didn't have proper cleaning action. I spent a whole bottle of Argon/Co2 mix (which I was told was pure Argon) trying to figure out what I was doing wrong. I got crappy contaminated welds which I have never seen a picture of. Show people what happens when you do the wrong stuff. We don't intentionally do the wrong thing. In some cases we don't know better in other cases we buy something we think is right but cant identify the problem because we don't have the experience to know what is wrong because we haven't seen enough welding to understand. Nobody is more grateful for the work that has been put into this site, the podcasts etc. We appreciate the work. None of the above is intended to be a Gripe. It's a suggestion, request, as the owners have requested. Could you video doing the wrong thing and the results? "If you use CO2/Argon Mix on Stainless.. this is what you will get." Will save someone a lot of time and frustration. Believe me! Thanks for all you do. A Weldmonger store patron.

I've posted many welds I've done that are inadequate in some way here. Not so much other places, as FB is not kind. Poor welds, and why they are poor, educate everyone. I've got some comments on an aluminum thread where I learned what I've been doing for years could be improved on.

I don't think too many people here are unwilling to post a "look at this crap" fail they've done.

Steve

Otto Nobedder wrote:

Tbaugh wrote:I agree with the original post-er i would like to see BAD WELDS. When we "rookie", "hobby", non-professional welders get under the hood we don't always see what we see in videos of proper technique and results. By seeing the wrong way and what caused the wrong thing we can learn to identify the result with the corrective action. My skills have improved tremendously due to the videos and practice but I have not yet moved to Aluminum TIG (for example) because I don't think I fully understand what would happen if I did something wrong. Don't really understand what "cleaning action" is or what it would look like if I didn't have proper cleaning action. I spent a whole bottle of Argon/Co2 mix (which I was told was pure Argon) trying to figure out what I was doing wrong. I got crappy contaminated welds which I have never seen a picture of. Show people what happens when you do the wrong stuff. We don't intentionally do the wrong thing. In some cases we don't know better in other cases we buy something we think is right but cant identify the problem because we don't have the experience to know what is wrong because we haven't seen enough welding to understand. Nobody is more grateful for the work that has been put into this site, the podcasts etc. We appreciate the work. None of the above is intended to be a Gripe. It's a suggestion, request, as the owners have requested. Could you video doing the wrong thing and the results? "If you use CO2/Argon Mix on Stainless.. this is what you will get." Will save someone a lot of time and frustration. Believe me! Thanks for all you do. A Weldmonger store patron.

I don't think too many people here are unwilling to post a "look at this crap" fail they've done.

Steve

Hello, yes a "TIG beginner" series could be nice, but may be that is not where is the most fun

For posting our horrible mistakes, I think anonymous pseudos may help, professionals do not wish to do so, that is understandable somehow

Thanks for that great forum, honestly I find that it is easier to have answers on "points of detail" or practical tricks, more than on the french forum where the generosity have its limits


I've posted many welds I've done that are inadequate in some way here. Not so much other places, as FB is not kind. Poor welds, and why they are poor, educate everyone. I've got some comments on an aluminum thread where I learned what I've been doing for years could be improved on.