I have been TIG welding a total of 3 days (not solid lol)
I was wondering if anyone had any tips on my beads and keeping consistency of the weld?
Running:
Lincoln electric square wave TIG 200 on 220
100a
2% lanthanated 3/32 tungsten (5/16" protrusion from gas cup)
308L rod on 1/8 stainless plate
6.5 L/min 100% argon
Non-pulse
I wouldn't bother starting on stainless....get some mild steel, and get it clean (shiny, white metal). Then make sure you're in a comfortable position and can slide your torch hand the full length of the bead easily. Scribing or tracing a line to follow can help keep things straight. After that it's all about consistency....speed, torch angle, arc length, etc.
Miller Syncrowave 250DX TIGRunner
Miller Millermatic 350P
Miller Regency 200 W/22A and Spoolmatic 3
Hobart Champion Elite
Everlast PowerTIG 210EXT
In my opinion, what you're doing there looks great. Looks to me like you can see pretty well, that's usually what I blame first is a crappy helmet. If you can't see, you can't weld.
If you want practice without using up gas, electric and filler metal, grab a sheet of paper and try writing in perfectly straight lines without a guide. If you can't do that, (as most of us can't) it's unlikely you'll be welding like a robot any time soon.
90% of the time I weld using 3/32 (2.4mm), and if you sharpen it right you can weld razor blades with it. Consistency on stainless depends on a lot of things. The first three most important things are: clean, clean, and clean. You need to have everything clean, base material, rods and nice grinded tungsten. Beginners don't take in consideration the tungsten oxidation (try maxing out the post flow, 10 seconds will be enough).
Stainless also loves larger cups and fast travel speed, so it's not recommended to start with it.
Start with carbon steel, 8 cup, 3/32 tungsten, 8l/min gas flow, 1amp per 0.001 inch (40amps per 1mm). And if you're welding on the same coupon multiple times, let it cool off (or quench it). Weld on a larger coupon, so it doesn't heat up very quickly.
When you get comfortable with that, then, and only then you can switch to stainless.
Nice welds tho, you are more consistent than 90%of the beginners.
Your welds are noticeably cold, yet you are also cooking the part. This means that your amps are too low, and you travel speed is too slow. Those two problems feed each other. You are traveling too slowly because of the low amperage. Try upping your amperage to about 130A at the pedal.
There are a bunch of x amps per thousands thumb rules that are basically worthless when welding with a pedal and only seem to hinder beginners, IMO. Always give yourself more amps than you think you will need. If/when you don't need that extra 10-20 amps, just let off the pedal a hair.
I've lost track of how many people post pics exactly like yours (cold, yet cooked) because they were trying too hard to follow an unnecessary rule of thumb.
Always plan to start your weld (the first couple seconds) 10-20% hotter than what your travel amperage will be (that's about the only thing the 1 amp per thousands rule is good for--traveling amperage). If you started that weld at 100A on 1/8" thick SS while it was sitting flat on a metal table, then you had already lost the battle before you even made your first dab.
