Welding Tips and Tricks

Having issues with aluminum splatter. I'm welding 1/4" aluminum. using a 1/8" pure tungsten at 200-220 amps and 1/8" filler rod. I've adjusted the amperage settings and used clean electrode but I'm still getting a mess and the electrode is melting. Ive included pictures bellow:

What sort of gas lens is that???? Stick on a stock ceramic and see if there is a difference. I’d say a crap lens is the problem. How much gas are you running??

I've done that. Are you sure that you're getting gas (ARGON) through the torch? Are you welding on AC? And is the balance set correctly?

Darrin wrote:What sort of gas lens is that???? Stick on a stock ceramic and see if there is a difference. I’d say a crap lens is the problem. How much gas are you running??

That's a pyrex gas saver kit from CK. I'm running 20psi to the torch. Yeah, I should try switching back to the ceramic to test

BillE.Dee wrote:I've done that. Are you sure that you're getting gas (ARGON) through the torch? Are you welding on AC? And is the balance set correctly?

As best I can tell, yes. I'm showing 20psi on the tank outlet and I hear the gas discharge through the torch before and after. I'm welding AC. I'm not sure what balance I should set. What is recommended?

crimsonmarshal wrote:

BillE.Dee wrote:I've done that. Are you sure that you're getting gas (ARGON) through the torch? Are you welding on AC? And is the balance set correctly?

As best I can tell, yes. I'm showing 20psi on the tank outlet and I hear the gas discharge through the torch before and after. I'm welding AC. I'm not sure what balance I should set. What is recommended?

30-35% cleaning is a good place to start.

What kind of aluminum is that? Where did you get it? What is it a part of? I ask because there are many many types/alloys of aluminum. Some of which are not welder-friendly.

Lots of things can cause this but the most common is poor gas flow. If your machine has A/C balance set it in the middle of its range to start with. You should see frosting (cleaning) on the edges of the weld. Use your balance adjustment to increase or decrease the frosting. Also, remember your 3 C's, clean, clean, clean and make sure you're using a diamond sharpener or a silicon carbide grinding wheel (120 gr) when sharpening your tungsten. Personally, I would not be using a pure tungsten. Any of the alloy tungsten would be better in a corner weld.

I agree with all points except the need for a diamond or silicon carbide grinding wheel. Plenty of alumimum TIG welding has been done with a standard aluminum oxide grinding wheel. Are the other ones better? Yup, a little. Is the alum-oxide wheel sufficient? Yup. The problem is likely else where, but definitely get rid of that pure tungsten, don't waste any more expensive CK pyrex cups, and start with the basics, like forming your very first clean, shiny aluminum puddle without any filler.

Oscar wrote:I agree with all points except the need for a diamond or silicon carbide grinding wheel. Plenty of alumimum TIG welding has been done with a standard aluminum oxide grinding wheel. Are the other ones better? Yup, a little. Is the alum-oxide wheel sufficient? Yup. The problem is likely else where, but definitely get rid of that pure tungsten, don't waste any more expensive CK pyrex cups, and start with the basics, like forming your very first clean, shiny aluminum puddle without any filler.

Agree, you are right, he doesn't need the diamond or silicon carbide. I was looking at his welds and said to myself, I wonder what he used to sharpen that tungsten with. I should have just told him to dress his grinding wheel before sharpening. I use diamond and SC wheels on a dedicated grinder in the shop but I've also used a flap disc on a 4" angle grinder and gotten away with it.

I'm the type that likes to remove all the screw up factors so that when I screw up it's a short troubleshooting path that typically begins with a slap to the forehead

Certainly many of the posts above are all valid, but, I'd like to mention a couple of obvious points:
1. The arc distance to the base metal appears to also be a problem.
2. You are not getting the base metal sufficiently hot before adding filler. It does not appear that you ever got a puddle forming from the goop on the material, and the blob on your tungsten. 220 amps is really the bare minimum to get .250 material going. A preheat with propane could help you. Once you get your puddle, you won't need all 220, but to start you will.

Oscar and many others eschew pure tungsten for AC. It works just fine. 2% Lanthanated works too. But tungsten type is not your issue. What taper or grind are you putting on the end of your tip, curiously?

And how about some info on your machine? Model and make, AC balance you're set to?

crimsonmarshal wrote:Having issues with aluminum splatter. I'm welding 1/4" aluminum. using a 1/8" pure tungsten at 200-220 amps and 1/8" filler rod. I've adjusted the amperage settings and used clean electrode but I'm still getting a mess and the electrode is melting. Ive included pictures bellow:

going from the other forum,
big problem is using pure tungsten on an inverter machine. need better electrode and also glass/pyrex lens is not recommended with AC, and thats one is thrash anyway. i doubt the gas flow is any good now the mesh is clogged up.

tweake wrote:

crimsonmarshal wrote:Having issues with aluminum splatter. I'm welding 1/4" aluminum. using a 1/8" pure tungsten at 200-220 amps and 1/8" filler rod. I've adjusted the amperage settings and used clean electrode but I'm still getting a mess and the electrode is melting. Ive included pictures bellow:

going from the other forum,
big problem is using pure tungsten on an inverter machine. need better electrode and also glass/pyrex lens is not recommended with AC, and thats one is thrash anyway. i doubt the gas flow is any good now the mesh is clogged up.

I’ve used Green for years on my Dynasty 200 inverter without issue. I do also use Blue and normally end up with it in my torch for versatility. But until I fully exhaust all my Greens, I’ll continue to use them. They ball more quickly with an inverter, but they certainly weld quite well inverter or transformer.

cj737 wrote:

tweake wrote:

crimsonmarshal wrote:Having issues with aluminum splatter. I'm welding 1/4" aluminum. using a 1/8" pure tungsten at 200-220 amps and 1/8" filler rod. I've adjusted the amperage settings and used clean electrode but I'm still getting a mess and the electrode is melting. Ive included pictures bellow:

going from the other forum,
big problem is using pure tungsten on an inverter machine. need better electrode and also glass/pyrex lens is not recommended with AC, and thats one is thrash anyway. i doubt the gas flow is any good now the mesh is clogged up.

I’ve used Green for years on my Dynasty 200 inverter without issue. I do also use Blue and normally end up with it in my torch for versatility. But until I fully exhaust all my Greens, I’ll continue to use them. They ball more quickly with an inverter, but they certainly weld quite well inverter or transformer.

not saying its impossible to use pure, but it looks like he was over amps for the tungsten hence the big ball.
plus things like this make life difficult for a beginner.
you always want the gear to be working for you not against you. having to compensate for the gear makes learning difficult.

having a good all rounder tungsten, good cup sizes etc all help.
learning what that is from you guys is really helping me a lot.

As to using pure Tungsten (Green), that's not the problem. It would probably be better to use an alloy but not the root of this problem. Its clearly a contamination issue as evidenced by the soot. Figuring out what's causing the contamination is what we need him to figure out. If it was dirty metal then it would be more like pepper in the weld and that could have started the problem. If you look at all the splatter in the cup and diffuser something went wrong right off the bat and then he continued to try an make something work which just made things worse.

Anybody remember the first time they stuck a tungsten and just wiggled it loose and kept trying. Don't tell me you never did that... LOL... I did and I also remember the mess it made of my attempted weld, the tungsten, the cup and the gas lens. I jumped on the internet and I started looking for answers and in one of the forums a very kind and gentle man said simply "You stuck the tungsten to the work piece didn't you". He went on to explain that once that happens, you must stop and re-sharpen the tungsten, and check all the other parts before you try again.

I appreciate all the feedback and answers from everyone. Very helpful.

So I have gone back to a ceramic cup, now using a Thoriated red tungsten, am operating between 200-230 amps and and floating between a balance of 65-70. And I'm still getting splatter. I have cleaned the material religiously. I'm using a stainless steel wire brush only used for aluminum in one direction and wiping down with acetone. here are some pics. The last pic shows the passable welds I was getting before i started getting this splatter.

Based solely on what I think I see, you are way to hot. Those black spots in the weld are probably from your tungsten if you did get everything else as clean as you say. At the end it almost looks like you stuck the tungsten into the weld puddle. That tungsten burn down is what I'm looking at mostly.

So, I'm going to assume that you are doing everything right which leaves the machine as being the culprit. I really hate to send you down that path but I'm afraid at this point I must. I would suggest that you make up some coupons and do some test welds. Use different thicknesses and different machine settings and see if you can replicate the problem. What I'm suspecting is that your machine itself is getting hot and some electronic component in it is failing.

You can put absolute faith in the fact that I'm just guessing my way through this response. I can't possibly know for sure without having your torch in my hand and experiencing it for myself.

Try a different bottle of argon. I have a bottle of argon in my shop that I know is clean and have loaned it out to
friends. Four times it turned out to be water contaminated argon. Don't rule that out, it happens more than you would think.

edit: Some small welding gas suppliers just refill the smaller bottles without properly purging before refilling.

crimsonmarshal wrote:I appreciate all the feedback and answers from everyone. Very helpful.

So I have gone back to a ceramic cup, now using a Thoriated red tungsten, am operating between 200-230 amps and and floating between a balance of 65-70. And I'm still getting splatter. I have cleaned the material religiously. I'm using a stainless steel wire brush only used for aluminum in one direction and wiping down with acetone. here are some pics. The last pic shows the passable welds I was getting before i started getting this splatter.

put a blunt grind on the tungsten. ie like a crayon. i'm not sure if you put a sharp tip on which simply blew up with those amps which will cause splatter.

then can you light up on the old good weld. start low amps and ramp up. that well tell you if its contaminated aluminum or not.
check your gas flow, make sure you enough gas coming out.

can you ell us a little bit about the machine? OR even a picture of the front of the machine and the setting adjustments. I'm not the best in deciphering but the frost line in the one picture seems to be moving around/changing. Don't know what would be the cause or maybe my eyesight is seeing things. Also what is the cup size and the stick out. Maybe too much argon is swirling and drawing atmosphere into the puddle. Hang in there, we'll get r figured out.

sschefer wrote:At the end it almost looks like you stuck the tungsten into the weld puddle. That tungsten burn down is what I'm looking at mostly.

If he's using RED as a tungsten on AC at 200+ amps, I would not be surprised his tungsten looks like that. Also, his BALANCE is set pretty high on the cleaning side, which is very hard on the tungsten too.

I'd switch back to your GREEN if you don't have BLUE, set the balance to 75-80, a blunt grind (think 20* taper) and keep the stick out pretty short. The ceramic cup in your picture looks to be pretty small. Set your argon flow to 2X the cup size (ie, #5 cup, 10CFH).

If your machine works for a short bit producing a decent bead, then starts crapping all over itself and producing those welds, you have a machine problem, not a gas problem.

So, details on your machine please

Im using a Miller Dynasty 300 DX. Set on AC, Balance between 65-70, and frequency at 120Hz. I don't think I understand Balance as well as I thought. What is the reference point for the percentages? If I'm at 70% then is that 70% EP and 30% EN or the other way around? Is a higher percentage greater or lesser cleaning process?

I thought the red thoriated tungsten was set for the 200amp range since I'm working at around 220 amps.

crimsonmarshal wrote:Im using a Miller Dynasty 300 DX. Set on AC, Balance between 65-70, and frequency at 120Hz. I don't think I understand Balance as well as I thought. What is the reference point for the percentages? If I'm at 70% then is that 70% EP and 30% EN or the other way around? Is a higher percentage greater or lesser cleaning process?

I thought the red thoriated tungsten was set for the 200amp range since I'm working at around 220 amps.

Those tungsten are fine for the current you're running. The greens are pure and most susceptible to burn down but a practiced tig welder can do just fine with them. People tend to discourage the use of Thoriated because it is slightly radioactive but it's not enough to hurt you unless your are breathing the dust when you grind them. They are the hardest but only slightly harder than Lanthinated. A good compromise between pure and alloy hardened is cerriated. None of the problems you are having appear to be tungsten type related now that you've switched.

Too little cleaning can cause some of the problems you're having but too much will not, it just makes the surrounding area of the weld look bad. EP does the cleaning, EN does the melting so drop your EP to 35% and up your EN to 65% as a starting point.

So the issue seems to be corrected. I switched back to pure tungsten and balled the tip. Raised the balance to 75% and lowered the amperage to around 170. Picture below. Not a pretty weld but controlled and no contamination.

You need to bump your amps back up. The toes of that weld are not fully wetted in. I'd bet you can hand bend that vertical straight off due to a lack of penetration. And if you cut and etch that fillet, you'll see no penetration.

With those type of welds, you really got to put the tungsten into the seam, get your puddle wet top and bottom, add some filler, then make sure you aren't leaving a rabbit hole at the root of the fillet. Add filler, push the puddle forward, as it "keyholes" back up, add filler, then push forward. This will help drive the filler into the root. That and amps.

amps to cold.
the other problems that arises is travel speed slows and the part over heats rather quickly. hot and fast is better

i would guess the issue was probably blowing the tip off the tungsten at the higher amps.
if the pure balls up to much, then change to a better tungsten.

i can run 180 amps 1/8 2% lanthinated tungsten without it balling. blunt grind 70% balance.