Welding Tips and Tricks

Here is the links to two videos, each with a unique set up for use in the metal fab shop. Enjoy
https://youtu.be/KUeV32Ku9AE
https://youtu.be/FRqz4M3OuHY

Neat! Now I know what that valve thing I got in a box of various welding gear I was given is, gonna have to set it up, thanks UV!

Poleframer wrote:Neat! Now I know what that valve thing I got in a box of various welding gear I was given is, gonna have to set it up, thanks UV!

No problem. Please post your set up here when you're done.

Well, there's a bit of a story with it... I have a decent metal working shop, been getting into blacksmithing over the last few years, along with the carpentry work I do for bread and butter these days. This older fellow I was doing a remodel for came up to my shop and saw that I have a miller legend generator welder as my main welder.
At the end of the job he said he had a blue box I might like, gave me a miller HF250D-1 high freq box (with the necessary and expensive secondary contactor already installed) a Tec 250 amp water cooled torch, and a box full of tig tips, nozzles, and related stuff.
SO, after years of stick welding I've upgraded to TIG and MIG. Boy, he really lit up my welding scene.
Now, whats interesting about this valve, that looks a lot like the one in your vids, is that on the sides someone had stamped the words...HELIUM and on the other WATER.
I wonder why you would want a spring activated double valve for those???

Poleframer wrote:Well, there's a bit of a story with it... I have a decent metal working shop, been getting into blacksmithing over the last few years, along with the carpentry work I do for bread and butter these days. This older fellow I was doing a remodel for came up to my shop and saw that I have a miller legend generator welder as my main welder.
At the end of the job he said he had a blue box I might like, gave me a miller HF250D-1 high freq box (with the necessary and expensive secondary contactor already installed) a Tec 250 amp water cooled torch, and a box full of tig tips, nozzles, and related stuff.
SO, after years of stick welding I've upgraded to TIG and MIG. Boy, he really lit up my welding scene.
Now, whats interesting about this valve, that looks a lot like the one in your vids, is that on the sides someone had stamped the words...HELIUM and on the other WATER.
I wonder why you would want a spring activated double valve for those???

Wow. Can you ask him still? Now I need to know.

Only a guess - but if it's real old then helium was commonly used ( Tig was called heliarc as it used helium & arc ! ) so the valve may have been used to stop / start both gas flow & water flow when the torch was in use - never seen a valved water cooled torch so makes sense especially if the water was mains water dumped to a drain prior to closed loop coolers - worked a place that had water cooled Mig torches added to old non cooler machines this way to improve feeding / duty cycle at high amps.