Welding Tips and Tricks

I can be confident that some of you guys know this already. I, for one didn't.
I have been sharpening my tungstens the same way we got taught at trade school all those years ago.
While searching for tungsten types I stumbled upon some info about grinding techniques, I read it but was very curious so I googled more..........and it brought me straight back to Jody's page. Not suprised really. Besides, there is alot on there I have not looked at yet.
This the link from the wwtat webpage if any one wants to look at it.
https://diamondground.com/tungsten-guidebook/

That is a good guide but they don't say use this tungsten for transformer type machines and this type for Inverter machines like green color end (pure) tungsten's do not work on Inverter machines. Tungsten that work well on inverters do not work well on transformer machines. Grind to a point works on Inverters machines but not on transformer machines. Now a days tungsten's are made for one type of welding and nothing else, where some are okay to work with any type of welding AC or DC or transformer or Inverter machines.

Just going to mention, for those who can't afford a $2,000 diamond wheel sharpener that'll leave a perfect polished point. If you aren't already pretty damned experienced, you'll probably never notice the difference between a piece of tungsten sharpened on a clamped down angle grinder and a 40 grit flap disc or even a plain old grinding disc and one sharpened to nearly a polished finish assuming your grind is consistent and your grind lines run parallel with the tungsten. Can I tell a difference? Yes, however for most tig welding the difference is small enough I'd rather just sharpen it with a grinder and cordless drill instead if I knew I had a few pieces of tungsten sharpened on a high dollar professional tungsten grinder if it would take me 5 extra minutes to get to.

If I was welding thin walled stainless, was testing if my razorblade welding skills were still up to snuff? Yeah I'm going to care waay more about how finely ground my tungsten is, but by then you probably already know when it does and doesn't matter according to your own experience.

My best advice for the best way to sharpen tungsten short of a 2k diamond wheel grinder? Get a bench top belt sander with a dedicated tungsten sharpening belt on it. I'd suggest somewhere around 120-240 grit for a decent combination between finish and rapid grinding speed, but if you can afford a few extra higher grit belts, experiment, figure out what you like for daily use and maybe keep a finer one for special jobs. Then just chuck it in a cordless drill, and with a glove on your finger, yeah, that part actually matters, that tungsten gets hot, grind your tungsten against the belt making sure to grind so that your marks run in line with tungsten piece itself at your desired angle using your index finger on your other hand to provide support on the tungsten so it doesn't flex on you. It's by far the easiest, fastest, most consistent and best finishing sharpening method short of a high dollar tungsten grinder out of any method I've used.

In my opinion those cheaper 300-400 handheld tungsten grinders are not even remotely worth it, the ones I've used have either left such an unbelievably coarse finish that made tungsten sharpened with a angle grinder hard rock look polished in comparison, ate up a good half inch of my tungsten within moments, and taken more effort to grind to a desired consistent angle than just freehanding it with a cordless drill and a flap disc. Not saying that goes for ever user's experience with every brand of those grinders. If they were cheaper or you could get one for free sure, but in my experience, I'd rather take that $400 pick up a desktop belt sander, more than enough belts and spend the rest on tungsten. Or even see if your local community college or welding school has a nice piranha 3 they might let you use after classes, then spend a couple hundred on an ahem, decent amount of tungsten instead, just be warned that if it happens to have a particularly well worn wheel in it, you're, uh going to be there for a little while if you have a handful of tungsten packs to sharpen. The head instructor at my school would probably take pity on anyone with a whole handful of tungsten boxes to sharpen if he knew it was getting close to time to swap the wheel anyway, but as they're $300 a piece, I wouldn't count on them offering. Before my school picked up a second one and put a fresh wheel in the first one I'd usually knock a rough point on a completely unsharpened or badly contaminated box of tungsten at home before finishing them on the tungsten grinder. Could be worth a phone call at the very least if you'd like a few boxes of perfectly finished tungsten for when you need it. I'm mostly joking about saying I'd rather buy $300 of tungsten and trying to find a professional grinder to use for a while before I'd get a handheld grinder, but well, not completely.


Generally when reasonable I like to keep a 10 piece box of tungsten sharpened on the Piranha for certain uses that I'll still occasionally show back up at school to bum 10 minutes on the Piranha to resharpen when needed.

I'd still suggest a benchtop sander with a moderately fine belt, silicon carbide might work best but ceramic belts work more than well enough. but if you're dead set on grinding your tungsten with diamond abrasives, I'd really try to find a piranhas 3 somewhere local they'll let you use. As long as I use a dedicated belt or flap disc/fiber resin disc that's never been used on anything else I've never seen any sign of any sort of possible contamination to the tungsten itself regardless of if I was using an aluminum oxide abrasive, ZA or ceramic, though flap discs generally don't survive long grinding tungsten even in the best situations and a cheap AO flapdisc will become useless extremely quick.

If you're lazy like me and use an angle grinder most the time anyway even if you have other options, those 3M 982c/987C fiber discs are absolute magic for tungsten just like they seem to be for anything else. I've yet to wear one out on tungsten before eventually I decide to do some heavy grinding work with it because it was close at hand and just dedicate a new disc for tungsten afterwards. I've never found a flap disc that lasts long enough on tungsten before dulling enough that I throw it away for it for me to have ever decided to do any other grinding with it.

I know nobody here even asked about any of this, but for any newbies who might not know this stuff I figured I'd post it. Also I didn't get any sleep last night so it may or may not be remotely coherent.

A decent handheld tungsten grinder (a la Sharpies) are nowhere near $2,000 (usually under $300) and provide variable grind angles and tungsten diameters. They produce very high quality grinds consistently enough for code work, hobby work, production work and nearly everything short of high spec code. Faster, more reliable, portable, and a damn sight faster than a bench grinder or an angle grinder.

As for using pure tungsten on an inverter, despite Internet myths to the contrary, they work just fine. They have different characteristics and because of advancements in tungsten’s, there are better choices. But they DO weld perfectly well on an inverter. I’ve used them up until about 2 years ago day in and day out for aluminum when I finally ran out of them and replaced them with other “new types”.

Just saying.

cj737 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 18, 2021 6:45 pm A decent handheld tungsten grinder (a la Sharpies) are nowhere near $2,000 (usually under $300) and provide variable grind angles and tungsten diameters. They produce very high quality grinds consistently enough for code work, hobby work, production work and nearly everything short of high spec code. Faster, more reliable, portable, and a damn sight faster than a bench grinder or an angle grinder.

As for using pure tungsten on an inverter, despite Internet myths to the contrary, they work just fine. They have different characteristics and because of advancements in tungsten’s, there are better choices. But they DO weld perfectly well on an inverter. I’ve used them up until about 2 years ago day in and day out for aluminum when I finally ran out of them and replaced them with other “new types”.

Just saying.

I've used a couple sharpies specifically and found they acted like the literal embodiment of an angry beaver. if was definitely the fastest method I'd ever seen for sure but the finish looked like it had been done with a coarse file and It took easily a good 1/4 off my tungsten in moments while spitting it in my face in the process.

However, looking up the current model, they look different and more refined than the couple models I've used before, I know I've seen other people get the angry beaver finish from one, as I remember either Jody or The fabricaiton series getting the same kind of crude finish I did and mentioning they they knew it didn't look ideal but it was how the tool did it. If they've massively improved in quality or adjustability in recent history, started using higher quality diamond wheels or other possibilities my experience and opinion very well may be quite outdated. Given the choice between the sharpies I used and awkwardly sharpening on a bench grinder, or if you don't own a cordless drill, I'd probably ultimately choose it as the better of the two options. And they definitely are damn fast, no disagreement there.

But I can get pretty close to what a piranha 3 will do with a good belt sander and drill. no I can't precisely set the angle, but I can get type of grind angle I'm wanting very easily while with the sharpies I've used even coming remotely close to the finish I can get with a belt sander and even a 80-120 grit belt would be utterly impossible. I could be totally wrong about just how well the newest sharpies work though and my experience sharpening knives might make using a belt sander and drill feel a bit more "no skill required" than a lot of people might feel attempting it.

This is about well known subject , but I would like to make a little note .
I have a bench grinder hat works fine , but it is nice if you grind the direction
of the arc travel . So i turned opposite the direction of rotation of grinder and things are
a lot better . Grinder turns opposite the usual grinding direction at will when
you want to grind tungsten and normally when you grind other bits and metals.
Maybe it is not that important but some might find it useful and like it ...

cj737 wrote:A decent handheld tungsten grinder (a la Sharpies) are nowhere near $2,000 (usually under $300) and provide variable grind angles and tungsten diameters. They produce very high quality grinds consistently enough for code work, hobby work, production work and nearly everything short of high spec code. Faster, more reliable, portable, and a damn sight faster than a bench grinder or an angle grinder.

As for using pure tungsten on an inverter, despite Internet myths to the contrary, they work just fine. They have different characteristics and because of advancements in tungsten’s, there are better choices. But they DO weld perfectly well on an inverter. I’ve used them up until about 2 years ago day in and day out for aluminum when I finally ran out of them and replaced them with other “new types”.

Just saying.

Maybe some inverters handle pure tung no problem but my dynasty did not like it.

Took about 5+ pedal plunges per start to get a 'arc' going. Was very frustrating till I finally had the lightbulb come on that inverters sometimes don't like pure Tung.

Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk