[squeegeeman]

I would like to get advice about buying a TIG welder.
I'am a beginner and want to just do some metal art welding. I want to weld aluminum and stainless and carbon steel.
Also might do some small repairs besides metal art.

I want something reliable and have enough power.

Any suggestions?

[Farmwelding]

What thicknesses do you want to weld? 120, 240 volt? Budget?

[Poland308]

In order to do aluminum, steel and SS you need to get a machine capable of both ac and dc. If you start out with a machine capable of around 200 amps then that should be a good start.

[cj737]

To find a decent AC/DC TIG box, you'll spend some money. the Lincoln Squarewave 200 is a very good value, and it does have HF start. For DC only, you can spend less, but no aluminum and you may end up with a "Lift Arc" or "Scratch Start" only TIG. Not the best for "art" welding as the initial amperage may be too high and blow out your material (if you are using thin gauge metals). A foot pedal is extremely useful for delicate welding, and probably 150 amps for non-structural stuff is fine, but thick aluminum/steel will want 200 amps. You can supplement a 150 amp machine by using a 90/10 Argon/Helium mix to aide in the welding.

[squeegeeman]

Thank You for the interest.

I will be welding maybe up to 3/8" thick metal but mostly thinner gauge. I think I really want the TIG so I have more control on thinner gauge.

The Miller 211 I have has the spool mate for aluminum and it does not work so good. I cant dial it in for some reason.

I will be welding out in my non heated garage, I do have a space heater.

My budget is around $3,000.00 - 3,500.00 tops. I'm not sure if Miller is over priced.

[RamboBaby]

The Miller 211 I have has the spool mate for aluminum and it does not work so good. I cant dial it in for some reason.

What's your puddle doing? If it looks like swiss cheese or some kind of fungal infection instead of a nice shiny puddle then you're likely running the wrong polarity. It has to be set on electrode positive for aluminum, else you won't have any cleaning action.

[Farmwelding]

+1 on the squarewave. Or you could go with a dynasty 210dx with all of them features if you want when you get more advanced. At leadt in the squarewave you get pulse and some AC settings.

[BigD]

If that's your budget I would get a Dynasty. You should be able to find a used 200DX for a good deal and add the wireless pedal, water cooler and other things. Or get the new 210 without the jazz. The machine itself won't help you learn but once you learn the basics, the other features will be there for you to explore. Well, that's not entirely true. Things like the 1 amp start will make doing thin stuff easier, which I imagine for art welding may be up your ally.

Just know going in that you can't buy skill. I think it's hard to resist the feeling that if you spend 3-4x more for a machine then it should work that much better and easier. But other than that, this is a case of where I don't believe there is such a thing as a beginner machine. Even the resale argument doesn't hold water because for some other things you could say that if you find out something isn't for you then getting out of it won't be so expensive if you start out small. But if you need to sell a Dynasty you aren't likely to lose much money (or any at all depending on what kind of deal you find).

Regarding spool guns, they have their place but the art welding world is not it (unless it's "modern art"). You can weld aluminum with it, as long as it's not too thin or too thick and you can do it very quickly. But it will never look pretty.

[RamboBaby]

But it will never look pretty.

Man, I've seen some very pretty aluminum mig welds. The problem with pretty aluminum mig is that it's almost always cold. Lack of fusion is a very bad thing. I've seen several of those pretty welds break along their toes for LOF.
I don't really care what anyone says about aluminum mig welds because they all SUCK! My buddy has about 50 of them on his 53' flatbead trailer that need to be ground out and replaced because even the ugly ones often have LOF or a crater crack causes them to split straight down the center of the bead. I would trust aluminum mig for non critical applications but never for anything that's high stress.

[BigD]

But it will never look pretty.

Man, I've seen some very pretty aluminum mig welds. The problem with pretty aluminum mig is that it's almost always cold. Lack of fusion is a very bad thing. I've seen several of those pretty welds break along their toes for LOF.
I don't really care what anyone says about aluminum mig welds because they all SUCK! My buddy has about 50 of them on his 53' flatbead trailer that need to be ground out and replaced because even the ugly ones often have LOF or a crater crack causes them to split straight down the center of the bead. I would trust aluminum mig for non critical applications but never for anything that's high stress.

Can you post a picture of what you mean by a pretty aluminum MIG weld? The best I've seen (in pictures, never in person) look like decent steel MIG welds, but never anything resembling a nice TIG weld. Most of them look like a caterpillar that was beaten up by Mike Tyson.

[RamboBaby]

Can you post a picture of what you mean by a pretty aluminum MIG weld?

I used to have a few nice photos in my phone because a former buddy was becoming quite an artist with a spool gun while building gates. Don't have em anymore.
October of last year I was driving a flatbed semi and picking up a load of rebar in TN. one of my straps was frayed about 2/3 of the way through so I changed it out for a new one. The hook end of the new strap was more open than the one I was changing out (30 degrees on the old one and 60 degrees on the new one) and would not fit through the aluminum railing on the side of the trailer in order to hook on the bottom side of the flat bed. You cant just throw it over that rail because it will collapse the rail when you cinch the strap down. The rail was already partially collapsed because it's not the greatest thing under the sun. So i have to stick a prybar under it and bend it back out. Couldn't do it from the top side because I was on the ground and I'm a smurf with no leverage. So i bend down and attack it from the bottom side. I couldn't get the place that I tried first because it was totally collapsed near the channel that it was welded to and I'm not that strong. Damn, that was where it really needed to go. So i go to the next section and notice how pretty (very, very pretty) this particular weld is where the rail is welded to the channel from the botton side. I stick my prybar under the rail about a foot away from the weld an POP! The entire weld shears along both sides of the toes and detaches from the channel and is now clinging only to the rail. That's when I realized that a pretty aluminum mig weld is only pretty because it was welded too cold. No wonder it had such pretty ripples instead of that slick look that you get with a good, hot weld. It poped so very easily that I realized that it had almost a total lack of fusion and was no better than of it had been brazed.
Caption under photo explains a bit more.

[GreinTime]

That's one of my MIG welds from work. If you set the machine right, you can definitely achieve ripples with good penetration. They want ours to look like TIG but have MIG production time, so that's what I set the machine to do. 24.5-24.6/450-460 with 3/64 wire and you can weld basically as fast as you want to move. I don't have Crater Fill turned on in this picture as I haven't quite dialed it in, and it's given me more problems than I've solved for it.

If I can find some 1/2 scrap laying around, I'll weld a section with MIG set up just like that, as well as TIG and slice it and take some pics. It may be a few days, as I often forget that I say that I'm going to post something on here until I re read my reply a few days later.

Sent from my VS995 using Tapatalk

[RamboBaby]

I would like to see a weld like that one get cut and etched because the high crown on it makes it look extremely cold to me. The toes really look like they only wet in on the right side where the soot is.

[Oscar]

That's one of my MIG welds from work. If you set the machine right, you can definitely achieve ripples with good penetration. They want ours to look like TIG but have MIG production time, so that's what I set the machine to do. 24.5-24.6/450-460 with 3/64 wire and you can weld basically as fast as you want to move. I don't have Crater Fill turned on in this picture as I haven't quite dialed it in, and it's given me more problems than I've solved for it.

If I can find some 1/2 scrap laying around, I'll weld a section with MIG set up just like that, as well as TIG and slice it and take some pics. It may be a few days, as I often forget that I say that I'm going to post something on here until I re read my reply a few days later.

Sent from my VS995 using Tapatalk

Thanks for flippin' us the bird.

[squeegeeman]

The Miller 211 I have has the spool mate for aluminum and it does not work so good. I cant dial it in for some reason.

What's your puddle doing? If it looks like swiss cheese or some kind of fungal infection instead of a nice shiny puddle then you're likely running the wrong polarity. It has to be set on electrode positive for aluminum, else you won't have any cleaning action.

The polarity is set to wire drive feed positive. The Spool Mate is connected correctly but the welds just don't seem to be good. its either to hot or too cold. Ill try to send a photo of some beads that I ran on aluminum plate.

[GreinTime]

I would like to see a weld like that one get cut and etched because the high crown on it makes it look extremely cold to me. The toes really look like they only wet in on the right side where the soot is.

They just emptied our scrap bin as soon as someone goofs up on some 1/2" plate I'll do it.

Sent from my VS995 using Tapatalk

[clavius]

<good info snipped>
Just know going in that you can't buy skill. I think it's hard to resist the feeling that if you spend 3-4x more for a machine then it should work that much better and easier. But other than that, this is a case of where I don't believe there is such a thing as a beginner machine.

Among lots of great info that's been offered, this is a key thing right here. As a pretty rank amateur myself, learning to TIG weld seems to keep me somewhere between "extremely humbled" to "extremely frustrated" depending on the day. It just looks so darn effortless when you watch someone who knows what they are doing. I can see exactly what they are doing and understand why they do most of it, only to find that my hands just don't seem to move that way much of the time. I know it's a matter of spending the time and just getting the practice but boy, it sure comes slowly, to me anyhow!

[maker of things]

Bang for the buck the Squarewave is pretty tough to beat IMO. Especially when you add in the fact that you can walk into your local weld shop and pick it up just as cheap as on the web and not have to wait for delivery. I mean, you will need to go to the LWS to get gas anyhow, right? Starting out, it might be nicer to not have so many features that you are always wondering if you have the setting wrong. Just a thought.

[BigD]

Among lots of great info that's been offered, this is a key thing right here. As a pretty rank amateur myself, learning to TIG weld seems to keep me somewhere between "extremely humbled" to "extremely frustrated" depending on the day. It just looks so darn effortless when you watch someone who knows what they are doing. I can see exactly what they are doing and understand why they do most of it, only to find that my hands just don't seem to move that way much of the time. I know it's a matter of spending the time and just getting the practice but boy, it sure comes slowly, to me anyhow!

Agreed, same here. I started with the Dynasty so I couldn't blame the machine for anything and if I got an older used machine I could see myself starting threads on here asking what's wrong with it because it was quite a disaster at first (didn't help that I started with aluminum).

I followed a training regimen given to me by a good fabricator: set aside 30-45 minutes every day for 2 weeks straight. No matter how tempted you are to keep battling, at the end of the time, put everything down and walk away. In retrospect that was invaluable advice. It's a complex motor skill and your body and mind needs time to chew on it and adapt to how it needs to function and trying to sit there losing your patience for 3 hours once a week isn't going to get you far, and could simply reinforce bad habits. Sure enough, every session was better and better, even though early on it felt like I was putting the torch down sucking every bit as badly as I did when I picked it up a half hour earlier.

I'm a year into TIG and I'm pretty confident that I can pull off whatever I need to do now, there's definitely improvement to be had but I'm at the point where I usually know exactly what I did wrong and I can make changes without excessive reps. But sometimes when I don't have any welding planned for a while, I go in and do coupons of the most frustrating kind (usually an aluminum T fillet).

[GreinTime]

I actually find Aluminum fillets to be the easiest weld for me. Butt welds are the devil.

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[C. Livingstone]

This was a dupicate/error, so I deleted it.

[C. Livingstone]

The AHP AC/DC AlphaTIG 200 seems an obvious choice for a beginner or even a thrifty old pro. I mean, at under $750, delivered, it's what I call a "full-featured" unit, since it includes AC frequency control and pulse.

Otherwise, I dig my own "advanced-feature" digital Everlast 210EXT, which can sometimes be had for under $1600, delivered, tax-free, via Amazon to most places.

200 amps will probably be all you'll need for a good, long while, as it'll usually do 1/4" aluminum in a single pass.

[soutthpaw]

Among lots of great info that's been offered, this is a key thing right here. As a pretty rank amateur myself, learning to TIG weld seems to keep me somewhere between "extremely humbled" to "extremely frustrated" depending on the day. It just looks so darn effortless when you watch someone who knows what they are doing. I can see exactly what they are doing and understand why they do most of it, only to find that my hands just don't seem to move that way much of the time. I know it's a matter of spending the time and just getting the practice but boy, it sure comes slowly, to me anyhow!

Agreed, same here. I started with the Dynasty so I couldn't blame the machine for anything and if I got an older used machine I could see myself starting threads on here asking what's wrong with it because it was quite a disaster at first (didn't help that I started with aluminum).

I followed a training regimen given to me by a good fabricator: set aside 30-45 minutes every day for 2 weeks straight. No matter how tempted you are to keep battling, at the end of the time, put everything down and walk away. In retrospect that was invaluable advice. It's a complex motor skill and your body and mind needs time to chew on it and adapt to how it needs to function and trying to sit there losing your patience for 3 hours once a week isn't going to get you far, and could simply reinforce bad habits. Sure enough, every session was better and better, even though early on it felt like I was putting the torch down sucking every bit as badly as I did when I picked it up a half hour earlier.

I'm a year into TIG and I'm pretty confident that I can pull off whatever I need to do now, there's definitely improvement to be had but I'm at the point where I usually know exactly what I did wrong and I can make changes without excessive reps. But sometimes when I don't have any welding planned for a while, I go in and do coupons of the most frustrating kind (usually an aluminum T fillet).

So honestly, after a year, how many of those advanced features of the Dynasty do you use?

Composed with Swype on mobile. not responsible for typos.

[Tom Osselton]

I see Princess Auto has a ac dc tig, 200 amp 20/250 hz tig now with pulse.
http://www.princessauto.com/en/detail/s ... -p8560237e

[BigD]

So honestly, after a year, how many of those advanced features of the Dynasty do you use?

Composed with Swype on mobile. not responsible for typos.

All of them. But to be fair, I'm a nerd. I started cranking settings one way of the other as soon as I was able to do basic beads. Now, how much benefit I've seen out of them is a different matter. It wasn't until I became good enough at the basics that the features started to make a difference. It's like with racecars - if you're not driving what you currently have at 10/10ths, you can't really say if a car mod made the car faster or you just now suck less. But I can now honestly say I've had a use for all of the features, some of them I feel allowing me to do things that I don't think I could do on a lesser machine, like my 040 alu project.

Now I have the independent AC card on the way and I can't wait to mess with that