Welding Tips and Tricks

I try to stay off of here and just lurk. And I almost always find my answer without posting. But this has me stumped.

Long story short, I went to welding school, got a couple of mig jobs and I hated it, got a job tiging aluminum, loved it and stayed. Owner of the company dies and company shuts down. Trying to get my steel skills back to open up a small Fab shop.

So anything 11 ga and smaller I cook the crap out of. So turn the power down right? Nope, worse. Turn it up, worse. Gas up and down, same. When I turn on the pulser it looks better. By this time I am quenching every bead. Trying to puddle fast and drop to half peddle to control heat input.

The crazy thing about it is with the same torch, welder, and gas... I can pull a piece of 11 ga scrap aluminum out of the scrap bin, blow the dust off of it, no prep at all and lay a decent bead down first try. Front piece. My 7018 is to the right. WTF am I missing?

Square wave 200
Tried from 90 to 160 amps DC
Pulse on/off

Lincoln protig 175 torch
Jumbo gas lens and I tried a standard cup
3/32 2% thoriated tungsten sharp/clean
Gas from 12 cfh to 40cfh out of 2 different bottles

3 inch carbon strap down to clean bright metal w 36 grit sandpaper wheel on a normal grinder.

Just banging my head against the wall and feeling like I'm missing something. It's the same thing with mig for me. I can't run hardwire to save my life but I can run dual shield with the best of them. I just don't get it.

Do I not know something I should? Jody always says 1 amp per thousandth. I guess I just don't know what I don't know. Driving me nuts.

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From the picture, the stickout of your tungsten looks a bit long. Your actual arc length while welding may be an issue, picture of the steel beads is a bit unclear to me.

For a #8 cup and 3/32 gas lens, 12-15cfh is all you need. DC amps works best at 1/.001 per the rule of thumb. If the material is 1/8, and the filler is 3/32 or less, set it to 115-130 amps and weld away. Torch angle about 75* to your material, arc distance 1/8 or less, stick out less than 1/2”.

PS - you can’t fix stupid, but duct tape muffles the sound

130, less that 1/8 torch hieght, stick out cut in half,15 cfh

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Quite literally getting better results in the rust

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Quite literally getting better results in the rust

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Those don’t look bad for someone starting out. Another thing to attend to is the tungsten. In the prior picture, the tip looks contaminated and the taper angle looks very slender.think about a taper more similar to stubby pencil. Long thin tapers create narrower weld puddles (which yuor stringer beads show) and wider tapers (shorter length, wider angled) create wider puddles.

There’s plenty of great videos showing effects of tungsten grind angles and their resulting puddles. It might help you diagnose your results.

Except I am ashamed to say, not really a beginner. I do typically sharpen a pretty thin point. I will get a lot closer to 15 degrees. thanks for the input, I really appreciate it.

What does it mean when the filler rod sticks a little coming out of the puddle? If it where alloy I'd give it 2-3 more amps.

cj737 wrote:Those don’t look bad for someone starting out. Another thing to attend to is the tungsten. In the prior picture, the tip looks contaminated and the taper angle looks very slender.think about a taper more similar to stubby pencil. Long thin tapers create narrower weld puddles (which yuor stringer beads show) and wider tapers (shorter length, wider angled) create wider puddles.

There’s plenty of great videos showing effects of tungsten grind angles and their resulting puddles. It might help you diagnose your results.

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Same thing with steel if your filler is sticking to the leading edge of the puddle either use smaller filler or more heat.

CJ you are awesome! It was my tungsten grind. Dug out my sharpener and put a proper grind on it and I don't look like a noob anymore.

So now I'm just guessing the heat was too pinpoint and overheating or pootching out the back. The stupid thing is I watched that video not that long ago. I am such a habitual person I have a problem stepping back and looking at things.

My second guess is that aluminum transfers heat so well I didn't have this problem

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Only thing that matters is that you’re back on track