Welding Tips and Tricks

I am a beginner at welding... and my ultimate goal in this field is to become a professional tig welder.

My first encounter with weldnig was many years ago with a simple stick welder and it stayed that way until recently when I took two welding courses first for MIG/MAG welding and in the beginnig of this year for TIG welding.

I also successfully passed the EU welding certification tests. Whithout these you cant officialy work as a welder... and getting a job in this field was my motivation for taking the courses and passing the exams.

For the past half a year I am allready working as MAG welder for a small company. But my goal is to become a professional Tig welder, and to achieve this I recently purchased a cheap (unfortunateley that is all I can afford currently because of the economic crisis in EU and a poor paying job, 4 dollars/hour, and I can be happy to even have a job) Tig ac/dc inverter.
So I can practice and develop my tig welding skills to a level when I will be confident enough to start looking for a TIg job, since nobody is hiring begginers around here, and even though I passed the certification test, I consider myself a begginer, since all in all I only have done 70 hours or so of tig welding.

This forum and the webpage have been and continue to be a an excellent source of valuable information for me. And the reason I registred is because I need your advice regarding some trouble with my tig inverter, that I could not finde searching the net or this forum.(especially since google removed one of the most useful search filters, may they rot in...) I will be posting my question on the tig board. Thank you for your help.

cheers!

Welcome

welcome aboard...

Welcome, Trebor,

To work a MAG job for those wages shows a passion for welding. I have no doubt you'll build your skills and find the kind of work you want, or at least the kind of job that will take you where you want.

Steve S

Hello!

Thank you for the welcome guys, I appreciate it. Been around for awhile now and only registred because I couldnt find the info I needed. Dont really like to ask questions before I fully utilize the various search options, and really dont care much for people who clog the forums with the same type of questions asked over and over again.

This forum and Jodys videos are super usefull, and entertaining at times... so thanks for that as well.
Currently I dont feel expirienced nearly enough in the welding field to contribute in the form of advice giving (hope that time comes to) so I will refrain myself to watching videos and reading the posts... and asking if the need arises.

And when Im a bit more familiar with my new tig Inverter Im planning to make a rewiev of the machine (as was suggested by a forum member) for those interested in buying such a device but are restricted by a low budget ... hopefully in this case (since I bought it and Im now stuck with it for a while) cheap doesnt translate in to low value... Because thats not always true, somtimes cheap can also mean high value lika with Mora or Opinel... best knives ever... yeah, Im passionate about knife making and forging as well, also woodworking... steel and wood mix just beautifully in my opinion.

I wish you a sharp eye and a steady hand... and plenty of dime stacks all over the place Cheers!

Trebor,
Welcome to the family! All of us will be more than happy to help out in anyway we can with your questions. You now as far as asking the same questions over and over, each time it is asked you might get a slightly different perspective. Each time a question is asked the same people might not be around to answer. While you are correct, in some ways there are only so many beginner questions out there, we here appreciate those asking and will ALWAYS be more than happy to help. From how do I turn on my machine to what effects does Nitrogen have on a weld to what is rotary arc, we will still answer.
-Jonathan d

Hello Danny and Jonathan d! Thank you for the welcome, happy to be here.

You got a good point there Jonathan and I undrstand what you are saying, Things are never clearcut as there are always two sides to the coin, so i hope you also understood my point of view for what it was and which i think to be valid in its own right as is yours. But there is always a grey area between black and white.

I was implying on questions in line of: can I use co2 for tig and alike... That kind of lazziness (for the lack of better word) just gets on my nerve, esspecially since Im old enough to remember how much effort one had to put in to finding information prior to the internet age. To me, with its shortcomings aside, the internet seems the best thing since written word was invented. And I dont mind reading trough some stuff to find what Im looking for, hell, I enjoy it.
And I do not think that it is helpful helping anyone with answering all questions indiscriminately or in other words doing for them what they could have done easily themselves. I think its actually harmfull, for that person and the people around him/her aswell. Its an old proverb that it is better to teach one to catch fish then serving it on a silver plate, but in my mind it still holds water. So we can agree to disagree on this matter, since I would never help out in such a way, and also in real life - I dont, and some people think Im a hardass because of that, like, I wont carry a child that can walk no matter how much he cries and screams, but i will walk with him.

People that are lazy, greedy and/or hypocritical (other stuff too) and just dont care about it, I have no respect for.

Everyone is like that at one time or another, The thing is if one aknowledges his shortcomings and trys to resolve them, thats the kind of person i respect and in light of that I try my best to be the kind of person I can respect, esspecially since im stuck with myself for the rest of my life.

O.k. Just wanted to clear my point of view regarding the matter, and like i said, I understand what you are saying and it is correct, just not 100% of the time, and same goes for my point of view or anybody elses for that matter. As I am a person who does not belive in any absolute truth and Im always questioning myself and the world around me, with a bitter feeling i will never understand anything at all. But that seems to be the price for beeing a nonbeliver.

Hope you dont mind me rambling here, thats kind of what I like to do, even my elementary school teacher gave me a nick name - filosofer (and not in a good way, if there is one), and I made quite a few of them loose their temper with my unrelenting questioning, doubting and just general annoying tendencies... I have never changed in this respect and however it may come across, I mean well.

Have a nice day.