Welding Tips and Tricks

Yeah,

Aluminum TIG welding is still pretty new for me, and on the last small project I did fabricating a diamond plate shroud, which I included on a video, there was a moment that seemed like I dipped the tungsten, but I kept motoring on, so to speak. But upon completion of that weld, the tungsten was not dipped at all, as I suspected it might have.

But still, there was a “blip” that spit out of the puddle without making the bead look bad. And as I get ready to prepare for a similar small diamond plate project, I’m now thinking that it was probably an example of “tungsten spitting”, maybe because I was using too small a tungsten size for the amperage setting.

Anyway, I’ve gotten a new, high-quality pack of 3/32” tungsten that I think will prevent that kind of thing on this next project.

But I’m curious about what causes tungsten spitting and if it acts like a tungsten dipping.

I've only had tungsten split on me that came from one particular case of sticks. I still use the same brands but I think it was a manufacturing issue. I believe tungsten rods are formed just like steel rods. I.e. Molten extrusion and then ground to diamiter. Impurity in base metal will act like that sometimes as well. It causes the weld to spit out at the tungsten. If this was a full penetration spot where the base metal was molten all the way through then lack of a back purge can pull impurities from the back side all the way through the puddle.

Hey,

Thanks for that, Poland.

Maybe it was nothing that deserved much of my concern then.

Have had that occur when I dabbed a bit to much filler and it touches tungsten just a milli second maybe and doesn't harm the tungsten like on a carbon steel in DCEN. You did mean spitting not splitting correct?

In addition to the others, if you cut tungsten by splitting it then breaking you can induce small fractures that will make it split when heated. Or after dipping your tip wiggling it loose can do the same (I've heard )