[MosquitoMoto]

Another vote for big tanks. I use a 330 cu.ft. tank mostly. My spare is a 150 cu.ft.

Note: if your flow meter is set at 16 cfh, then a 20 cu.ft tank gets you about an hour including pre/post flow.

Pretty hard to get your first 100 hours of practice like that.

Go big.

Couldn't agree more. Took some bad advice when I first took up Tig and started out by purchasing a 1.7 cubic metre (60 cubic ft) tank of argon. It lasted about a week. From there I went up to 6.8 cubic metre (240 cubic ft) and my latest tank is 10.2 cubic metres (360 cubic ft). I think I've finally hit the sweet spot.

My itsy little 1.7m3 tank is now my 'portable kit' tank for when I have to pack up my gear and take it all to a (small) job.

If you are learning, get a BIG tank.


Kym

[entity-unknown]

Having all degree of burns on your palm, stomach, and both feet so you can't do any stick or plasma really suck. What sucks a lil more? Sticking yourself with a 70s2 rod in the leg because you're in shorts n sandals and that's all your can wear. At least it's a precision TIG melting of flesh :\
What sucks more than that? Being the carbon life form called a moth that's attracted to bright lights that landed on the carbon steel work piece. Now that sucks!!!

So lessons learned today: (75 and 80 Amp max aluminum with feathering and no feathering of the pedal with every weld having some degree of max press)
-Turn off that fan you have by the door to cool your work area down in AZ before you begin TIGin!
-I can't say for anything on my welds today because of this but the two beads I ran after I can't say weren't much better. I think today was a stale mate in the learning curve but it has to happen!
-Changing drastic sizes in metal thickness can hinder your learning process, or perhaps speed it up. TBD!
-A pretty clean piece of sheet metal is not a clean piece of metal. You must get ALL mill scale off or steel looks even worse.
-Running without gas seems to give you laser beam precision on DC and instant burn through on 16g metal not to mention instant rust. (2 attempts till I realized it) No gas on AC gives you radiation burns for aluminum (previous days).
-Heat absorption seems higher with steel (obviously) but the beads don't seem to care as much and the puddle seems more controllable than AC/aluminum. The puddle still seems to grow exceptionally if you travel more than a few inches as with aluminum unless you figure out how to drop the heat as you continue. I still gotta figure that one out.... The problem is the heat absorption with steel seems so much that if you're traveling more than a few inches, you better have some very insulated gloves and even that can be worse than probably thin gloves due to heat retention. I saw all sorts of smoke rising off my gloves and there's a bit of burn to show for it.



Questions:
-Truly random but does the rotation of Earth and the hemispheres have anything to do with the twist you put when you grind your tungsten? Obviously flushing a toilet affects water drastically so could this be a relative factor for the twist of the tungsten when grinding? Hopefully a fair question....
-Is feathering the pedal not so important with steel? The only guess is maybe it helps with heat but I'm not enjoying steel as much as I enjoyed aluminum with TIG. I didn't mind steel at all beyond just figuring things out with stick n steel but I'm feeling steel n TIG is my weakest point thus far compared against aluminum and TIG and steel with stick.
The thicker steel with TIG at least laid out pretty nice and way better that I've ever done with stick but that 16g sheet just didn't work out so well. Blowing fan was there too so maybe a moot point but ehhhhhhhh.
-Is the excess heat on the 16g steel sheet indicative of me needing to add more Amps and faster travel speed? The blue halos I think are telling me I should but I don't know....?
Jody's TIG finger has been very helpful albeit I've used it about 1/3 of all my welds. It did fail me when I had to run it against the edge of my piece since the piece was not smooth so the grains of the fibers caught and stuck me. I'll have to work around that one...
-Undercut seems most apparent with the heavy Amp/heat welds. Add warpage to it, and I think I'm undeniable pushin too much for this 16g steel right?

Special Thanks:
Exnailpounder! I feel like you're my net mentor! You've been giving me consistent useful advice without hesitation and you've been very thorough in your thoughts/advice/opinions. You rock man! You ride with your balls nicely tucked too I'm sure so beyond the no-homo You're doubly awesome!
Kym! I love your work, commitment to the forum, general advice, and you hit the track so I'll always appreciate any insight you've got! Me and the girl are jealous of how much track time you get too
MinnesotaDave! I've seen your work too and I've seen your general posts/advice. You're a true help to this community!

Nothing will ever replace hands on teaching with a true professional but for someone that doesn't want to make a career out of welding nor put peoples lives at risk with their welds, this is the perfect education I could ever get so I'm in debt to you all

Once I'm out on this tank I'll probably go for the largest based on all your suggestions. I thought pressure would leave more volume to loss but considering the price, I guess that loss is likely not worth considering.

So for pix... This is my very first weld table I built with scrap and stickin. It stands about 2 inches high These were my very first joins I made with my Lincoln and I'm pretty sure 6013 rod. Arguably the the penetration looks more controlled with stick than TIG.
What you can see here though is everything between the soap stone lines is TIG runs. Definitely nowhere near as decent as my thick steel practice. Can't really pick out a really decent bead either. I'm willing to at least bet that if I tried to join metal it would happen since I have but the quality of the join would likely fail any inspection.
So yep, there ya have it, day 4 in the n00b TIG day.
BTW It's worth saying this table was reasonably flat before I TIG'd it.... Mucho warpage! But nothing a skilled hammer can't fix

[Poland308]

Did you know that any bare skin that's exposed to the light your welder produces will get the equivalent to a bad sunburn?

[Coldman]

Actually its worse. The arc produces uvc which is worse for cancers than a & b.
That's what the ozone layer is holding back. If the ozone layer disappears we all die of uvc.

[entity-unknown]

I actually do know about the UV from the arc light and that's one thing I keep forgetting to ask. Do I have to worry about anything in my garage with the UV or is that generally not too much of a concern?

As for my own flesh, my legs nor feet haven't really been exposed to any direct UV light because of where they're at under the table and the relative adjacency to the part/torch/arc. UV is fairly directional, not omni-directional so theoretically with the time I'm spending out there I shouldn't have much to worry about. As you all might be aware of, you usually feel those UV burns pretty soon or at least the next day and it's visible especially on white legs. I'm in AZ and a sun kid with mostly French skin so I don't burn very easily but usually can tell when I'm getting hit with UV. My legs are still completely white and I have yet to wear pants while TIG'in. Honestly I can't wait to wear my boots and pants again but I simply can't right now with these mostly 2nd degree burns on my feet and the burns/scrapes on my legs. I do have a long sleeve though and even used my leather cape (with short sleeve instead) for some of the work
Considering the 2nd degree burns and how sensitive they are, I'm very confident I'd feel the UV burns VERY well on them if they were getting any direct/concerning UV hits.
Is this smart? By all means no!!! One of those burn thrus dropped some sparks on my feet But it was ok, more fear than pain. Once I can wear boots again I'll be in em to TIG and then I can go play with my plasma finally and make some real spark showers! I'll also be able to test the stick out with a more precise machine since my stickin skills seem to want something more in ranges between what I can select on the 20 year old Tombstone. You should see me in my full leathers for stickin and soon to be plasma cuttin. I've got a leather cape, those Lincoln pro gloves from Home Depot, leather boot covers, a 48" leather apron that covers a bit past my knees, and a FR doo rag under the hood. (I plan to take some balloons filled with fake blood and violently pop them in front of me while wearing my gear so it gets that extra special look) Even better is you should see me on my motorcycle, my gear is a cross between moto-X and Mad Max
Still, you guys are awesome! Definitely safety first!

[entity-unknown]

Since we've got a couple riders following and helpin out... Here's the Mad Max gear and the results of my very first time playing with fiber glass. That's a Honda CBR 600F2 in case you didn't recognize it from the fiberglass work I did on the front with my own custom LED/Fog with caps/circuit board light setup I built (which could benefit in a few spots from TIG welding :O )

[MinnesotaDave]

I'm not really seeing any progress.

Stop going at this like an ADD monkey on crack.

Sit down with a large plate of 1/8" about 8" square or up to 12" square.

Fill the entire thing with beads where the next bead half overlaps the previous and develop your muscle memory and consistency.

When done you should have a nearly flat surface with all the beads the same height and very little valleys in between.

This is called padding beads.

Dunk in water every couple beads.

Use at least 125 amps - only feather the pedal right at the end of a bead and "button off."

[entity-unknown]

Mr. Dave! You're on point about the ADD Monkey on Crack. It's a slightly natural issue/tenacity. I'm also very verbose at 80-120WPM without caffeine. A drop of that stuff is balls to the walls for me so I truly apologize for jumpin across the forum the other day trying to be "Mr. Helpful".

The crack monkey showed in my welds too but really that was attempt #3 at steel. I've kept my focus on aluminum since that's all I really care about. It was horrible and it was my first time at such a light gauge in comparison with TIG. I agree with you though it was a step back if anything. I had a lot of sticking issues with my torch, glove, etc. and honestly all the dumb things including the operator were going wrong. The fan had nothing to do with it either.

So to seek repentance from the Mongers, I post this! I'm going to try to keep this thread as a track record of a 100% first time n00b TIG'er and also help me look back later on to see where I've gone which hopefully helps someone else in the future too.

Here is day #3 of steel after most practice focused on Aluminum. I chose 1/8 steel with 120 Amps DC and a 22 Ohm foot pedal. 15 CFH for Argon at about .5 to .75 pre-flow and about 8 seconds post flow. I'm on 2T with no slope, and I've got a fairly blunt, but sharp tungsten grind I keep fairly consistent and will re-grind if I dipped or if it looks abnormal.

The pix are attached and between the first two photos (since attaching posts them in reverse history order) I took this video to give an idea as to how the TIG Monster Claws are working out for me and also to show what I'm doing as is which includes travel speed.
https://youtu.be/n_Ha08EI348

[exnailpounder]

ADD monkey on crack...now that was funny Looking better towards the last pic but your beads look greyed out and burned. Too little amps is worse than too many as you heat up the base metal waiting for a puddle to form. I'll try to post a pic later today but you should have nice, shiny silver beads and even some color to them but you don't because you are cooking your metal. One suggestion; when you follow the rule of 1 amp per thousandth, add about 10 more amps so you have a little extra power. 120 amps is borderline for 1/8" steel but having those extra amps will let you floor the pedal and get a puddle started immediately. Try not to weld with the pedal all the way to the floor which 120 amps is likely gonna make you do. It speeds up pedal control...at least it did for me.
You stated that you just want to really weld aluminum. Do yourself a favor and stay with steel for awhile and learn pedal control because you are gonna need it when you move over to aluminum. I have a buddy that is a boilermaker and welds every day but not aluminum. He came over one day and asked to try aluminum on my machine. He was like a new born baby. All of his experience didn't help him that day but after an hour or 2 he was doing fine. Point is, get the basics down and your transition to a metal with different properties and characteristics won't be such a challenge.
Come on man....you're wrecking our winning streak here...With all the good welders offering advice around here, we usually have noobs making good welds in a couple of days. All it takes is proper technique and practice. Keep the pics coming.

[entity-unknown]

Ha, no worries. I won't feel bad if I'm not the fastest especially when I've been trying different things like focusing on alumimum or learning pulsing the pedal on steel is a waste of time. I gave up the pulse this time and will keep that for AC stuff.

The first three did come out kinda shiny though right? Now I've been dipping this plate in water ever 2-3 beads. It didn't look bad to me until I dunked it then it looked like crap and kinda looked worse every dunk. Would that be the cause of the continuous grey/burnt color?
Attached is another pic that was more midway through my runs. Also I disabled the camera flash on the other pics to give a more natural color, not the over exposed white you usually get with a flash kinda like with this pic.
Should I be able to stack the shit outta some beads on a single plate and have them all look shiny? How do you do that without the water, just wait like 5 minutes till the plate reads around 100 degrees on a thermometer then run a new one?
When posting a pic for learning, should I keep the flash on and run just a few beads, or should I do whatever suggestion comes up about stacking since the water and lack of flash "enhances" the cooked appearance?
Is it the extra Amps, say like 160, that will be my ticket to these coupons and becoming a scholar?
P.S. Only frustrated with myself, and even though I didn't want to move to steel yet as you all suggested, I'm trusting you all and doing it anyways

[MinnesotaDave]

After dunking in water, a quick wire wheel on a drill shines it back up and ready to go again.

I always water cool during practice - takes too long otherwise.

[entity-unknown]

Thanks Dave! That makes me feel a little better. Still very frustrated though I know with each time I hit the pieces using the wire wheel brush it looks pretty nice and shiny but without it no matter what I do the beads are always dull. If I clean up one, the 2nd pass will leave the first pass a dull grey again.

I've watched Jody's steel drill video several times in the last 24 hours and I see he's got beautiful shiny beads but even the first bead after his 2nd pass at (time queue 4:40 of video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzIF0H02fBw) is all shiny pretty. I can see what looks like graining but I thought it was video quality but now I'm thinking this is post clean up too with some wire tool or am I just that bad?

So my sanity question is "even with a single bead without dunkin the piece should I see shiny immediately when I'm liftin the hood, the part isn't glowing red, and before I ever attempt any type of clean up?"

As for these two pix, this is examples doing no more than 2 beads very separated with about 60 seconds cooling time between each bead and zero dunking for all pieces. I labeled them 140 and 160 for the Amps I used. You can tell I start out with almost full pedal and transition to full pedal on most of them. I'm also only running right vs. my other pix where I was running both ways. I've got the most practice running the torch in my right hand (I'm a lefty) hence why I did this for these pix.
I can go faster than the 140 but 160 was max speed if not too much. Still, no shiny unless I wire brush it...

[exnailpounder]

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This was the best pic I could get with my crappy phone. The flash washes out the shine except if you look at the piece of tube I put a short filet on. You can also see a little color in there too. The stringer I ran was shiny but the pic flash washes it out.
My parameters were. 2" x11ga. DOM tube welded to 3/16" plate. 190 amps, 3/32" 2% lanthanated tungsten. Gas lens, #8 cup, 15 cfh gas flow, and Er70S2 filler rod. I was on the pedal so I don't know how many amps I really used but you can see that it is possible to get shiny silver welds with the right settings. You can make a nice shiny weld and then make another bead next to it and it will get dull on you so don't be bummed out. For some reason, filets are usually always shiny with some color and I think that is because you have 2 pieces of metal absorbing and disappating heat instead of 1. Not enough amps is bad because you are soaking your base metal and the heat can't get away fast enough and you cook it. Stainless is 10 times worse so be aware of that. Aluminum disappates heat so fast that you need more amps to get it to puddle (or pre-heat it) so that is why pedal control and travel speed is so important. When you're welding on aluminum and you get to the end of the piece, you have to back off the pedal because the heat has nowhere to go and if you keep laying the amps to it, it will fall out.
You should be working on your dip-move cadence instead of making shiny beads. There are many steps to tigging and you are worrying about too much too soon. And stop switching hands. You need to get your brain wired to tig weld with your strong hand and THEN you switch hands. Just do small steps and then start putting those steps together and soon you will be running!

[exnailpounder]

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Here is an example of what heat does to a piece of metal. This is stainless and I was playing around with pulsing to control warpage on SS. You can see the nice straw color as move to the middle of the piece where I stopped because I had to adjust the shade of my hood as pulse is darker than straight tig.. I didn't let the piece cool at all and started welding again and you can see as I move down the piece the colors get darker...because the heat is building up so thats when you need to back off the juice. You can also see the heat in the color band at the toes of the welds. There isn't much you can do to stop the heat buildup except stop the weld and let the piece cool and start again but we all like pretty welds and stops are ugly.
This is why others have told you to quench your piece when it gets hot , otherwise you cook your metal and have problems with your bead flattening out and even worse, blowing a hole.
Pedal control and travel speed and the rest all comes easy

[entity-unknown]

It's amazing how a whole conversation can get confused by one little word. I misinterpreted you saying "borderline" as minimum borderline not max for 120 Amps...
SO I re-did a couple pieces at 120 as you tried to tell me to do in the first place
Yours still looks way shinier than mine

[exnailpounder]

You are improving! I usually go way over the rule of amperage and just use the pedal to do what I need to do, I don't think 120 amps is enough for 1/8" steel. It will work and you will get a puddle but it will slow down your travel speed and you soak more heat into your piece. Hot and fast is better than cold and slow any day. Your wife might disagree
Your going to keep trying and then you will turn out a good bead and the light will come on in your head and then you will realize that this isn't hard Jodys videos are so full of information that its really hard to absorb it all so thats why it's so important as you progress to go back and watch them over and over. It's even hard to ask questions here and try to absorb the info so I always suggest small steps and building on your small success'.
I can see you improving even if you can't so don't get frustrated just keep trying and as I said, the lights will come on at some point. Tig welding is sorta like playing the drums. You are doing multiple things all at once so of course it's going to take some time to get the hang of it. Don't be hard on yourself until you "get it" and then strive to be the best. It's gonna happen sooner than you think.

[entity-unknown]

OK I do feel a lot better now! Especially now after reading your recent post saying I'm improving! I think so too but there were some offsetting questions and comments that made me question a lot of points. I never took offense, just a hard evaluation on where I'm at
Honestly I figured the shiny was the least important. I figured depth of penetration, feed consistency, arc consistency, torch movement speed consistency, and the least amount of heat were the most important factors. The rest will kind of come together as I syncronize all those processes. It's sounding like that's
true...

Also I'll need to figure out those happy mediums for Amps but I think it's fair to say that I can't really figure that out until I figure out the other said steps.

I can see that if I'm stretched out just a bit rather than more upright in the seat, I have less control overall and it shows. The middle lines are generally my best posture and I think that shows too. As you're saying, some of that has to do with letting the part cool since I'm guessing it's about 200-300 degrees after about 60 seconds of cooling. PATIENCE!
Figuring out the start and stop with the pedal seems to be something I'll need to focus on a lot as well. At least I'm not ripping a hole at the end that often. I can see every hesitation I had whether it be filler or me getting hung up on something. I'll really need to work harder on not resting that forearm on the table and still developing that rod feeder;)

As for switching hands, I'm just doin what Jody told me to do in his steel & aluminum drill video It added a huge level of difficulty but my retarded (when feeding) right hand did start working with me more with each try so I do see the value but I think it's going to make my learning experience more enduring.

I can see your shiny pretty welds. That's very nice and I can tell you're not even that proud of it of the mild steel. Ha! The stainless looks beautiful too and look forward to trying that out one day. I definitely got more to go but the pix help me see where I can get to.
Just to confirm, you did not do any clean up besides cleaning the metal before the bead right? Looks untouched post TIG bead to me...

Question:
Should I stick with 120, 140, or the 160 for where I'm at with this 1/8?
160 I'd say I'm as fast or almost as fast as the puddle albeit still need to work on consistency. The puddle travels as fast as me and the torch and took probably less than 10 seconds for 2".
140, I can beat the puddle but can imagine this being close to a comfort zone with little mental pressure. Took about 10 seconds for 2".
120 was more than reasonable but seemed a bit too slow because I easily over ran the puddle. Took probably closer to 15 seconds for 2". Based on your last post while I was writing this, looks like I should move past the 120 and probably stick to 140 - 160.

So I think I'll save Jody's server space and I'll hold on anymore pics till I'm past the coupons and making my first joints. I think what I've used up so far though was super helpful and everything I need to finish my coupon training and prep for my first real steps to welding. You guys are awesome especially you nailpounder!
Hopefully next pix I'll post will be some fairly quality joints to get some brutal honest opinions.

[exnailpounder]

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Ok...heres what I have been trying to show you...and it's a pretty one too You can see shine and even color and I did not clean any of my welds. This pic was taken as soon as I could get my hood off and turn the camera on.

Your question: I would go around 140 and pedal it. Over .125 thickness, the rule is more of a guideline. You will get the feel for it. Then you have to factor in if you are welding 2 different thickness' of metal. This pic is 11ga. to 3/16" plate so I was at about 150 amps but I can't see my readout when I'm welding so I just kinda watch the puddle and it tells me when I need to back down or goose it.
The point I am trying to drive in your head is watch your puddle and control your pedal and it will all come together. Heck, I know a guy that hardly ever adjust his amps...he just throws the piece on the table and feels his way through it.
I wish I got to tig weld more but alas, I am just a lowly repairman and 95% of my welding is mig which you could teach a monkey how to do. I practice tig when I get time because it's a perishable skill and I don't want to lose what I fought to get but if I don't tig for awhile I get unsteady but after a little tune up I get it back so it is definitely a new order of skill for your brain so enjoy the learning process.

[entity-unknown]

Talk about consistency! That's a really beautiful weld man! I'll be welding those 1/8 plates together and I've got two feet left to chop up. Who knows maybe soon enough I'll see the differences you're pointing out between coupon beads and actual joints
I've been keeping an eye on the puddle and that's really all I look at. I will say the 140 and 160 Amp runs were much easier to see than the 120 and the 120 just took too long. I'll try playin with 140-150 and once I'm comfy with what I find and I feel I have reasonable consistency I'll move on the real welding experience and join somethin together!

Side note, my setup minus the machine are Jody's suggestions for the all around tackle most anything setup. 3/32 everything 2% Lanthanated, TIG Finger!, and his Stubby Gas lens kit that comes with #8 cup for my #18 torch.

[exnailpounder]

Talk about consistency! That's a really beautiful weld man! I'll be welding those 1/8 plates together and I've got two feet left to chop up. Who knows maybe soon enough I'll see the differences you're pointing out between coupon beads and actual joints
I've been keeping an eye on the puddle and that's really all I look at. I will say the 140 and 160 Amp runs were much easier to see than the 120 and the 120 just took too long. I'll try playin with 140-150 and once I'm comfy with what I find and I feel I have reasonable consistency I'll move on the real welding experience and join somethin together!

Side note, my setup minus the machine are Jody's suggestions for the all around tackle most anything setup. 3/32 everything 2% Lanthanated, TIG Finger!, and his Stubby Gas lens kit that comes with #8 cup for my #18 torch.

Jody is an educator so he is going to give you textbook information i.e. the way it should be done. There is no better out there so take the advice you get here for what it's worth but Jody helped me get back in the saddle.
Try a few joints and see what happens. Running beads all day sucks and I suck at it so I run all the types of welds I can to stay in practice.
Another thing. I don't know what hood you have but make sure it's adjusted right so you can see out of it when it goes dark. Also an appropriate cheater lens always helps or at least a pair of reading glasses while your welding. I also attached a headlamp to my hood so I can see to get started on a weld. And on't be afraid to stick your face down in the weld and get a really good view of what you're doing. Lastly, get in a good position. Whatever you have to do to be comfortable ,,,do it..it does wonders. It sucks trying to weld out of position. I think you got enough to chew on for awhile it's about beerthirty here so Ill catch you again later.

[entity-unknown]

straight beads is almost boring but probably not till I feel I can lay a fairly consistent pattern. I have the Optrel e684 helmet and this thing is amazing! You don't ever have to adjust anything besides the head piece to get your skull in it. It's 100% automatic meaning the shade level is auto as well. You can switch it to manual and get your standard auto-darkening helmet feel too but really just adjust the auto +/- setting after you lit up a couple times but even then that's almost doing too much. It auto adjusts the tinting based on the light, so if you're running at 20 Amps, it'll shade you perfectly with a beautiful view but now you want to crank it up to 350 Amps, well it'll adjust the tint level right up for you! I haven't tried 350 but 160 down as low as 40 including feathering between those values and I just always can see everything very clearly. There is still a degree of green shade, but you can distinguish many colors vs. your typical lid.

NO brainer lid with tons of brains inside the lens kit. The colors and clarity of view thus far is generally said to be unmatched and compared to my HF Red Racer (hand me down) and my $99 large view Metal Man, well lets just say those will just sit on the shelf till maybe I bust out some stick. Only reason I'd hesitate with stick is because I don't wanna pit the lens cover BUT I got extra and they weren't too expensive considering the curve. It's also perfect for overhead and you can see why at first glance. I bought the leather head cover to get rid of the ambient light hitting the inside lens and now you just can't beat this setup IMO. If you ever feel like splurging and you want to stay in TIG, you really should get the Optrel e684, you'd never be disappointed.

http://www.optrel.com/1/products/augens ... 42d1b51b78

Where to buy (Amazon is like over $100 extra):
http://www.usaweld.com/Optrel-E684-Weld ... 06.500.htm
or
http://www.weldingsuppliesfromioc.com/o ... ing-helmet

[Poland308]

You might want to practice a lap joint with no filler. It will help you work the puddle. You seem a bit overly focused on feeding rod. And like Exnail said from your video and your pics your way hotter than you should be for 1/8 inch material.

[entity-unknown]

Thanks Josh! I'm more concerned with just getting something right and consistent while sticking to "the rules"
I'll be running with 140-150 and see how that fairs out.
Now I've heard the majority of the time with mild steel and aluminum you basically should never run without filler. I thought stainless you could get away with it but it's just generally a good idea to still use filler too.

So am I wrong with these thoughts, or is the no filler joint just a learning tactic for just learning the puddle's behavior as you said?
Still I'll start my first laps without filler and go from there. Makes sense anyways since I need to know what the base metals are doing before I can probably understand when/why I'm adding filler as is....?

[Poland308]

There is a minamum amount of filler that should be added for strength. But in the real world there are some advantages to doing a lap joint without filler. It will help you to watch the edges of the puddle to get an even bead width. without adding the variable of filler changing the flow. Concentrate on getting even edges. There should be no discernible lip or groves at the edges it needs to be a smooth transition from the base metal to the weld. You will likely find that at the amps you are running and the material thickness your using that it will test your skills to make a good, even, and nice shiny bead. Try breaking apart a few of your lap joints without filler. Then take some pics it will be an enlightening experience for you to see the results. You can learn a lot about how effective your welds are based on how they look after there broken apart.

[MinnesotaDave]

Now that you've watched the steel drill, actually do the drill.

Power is your friend. I did these at 250 amps, full pedal.

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Aluminum at 230 amps

Aluminum 230 amps

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