Welding Tips and Tricks

Hello,

New to the site and new to tig welding.

I am using a Hobart ez-tig 165i tig welder and have a question about welding aluminum.
I have been using the 2% Thoriated ground tungsten electrode (3/32). I have read about "balling" the end of
it when welding aluminum.
I tried it with the end of the electrode totaly flat not sharpened at all. Then I put the welder on DC at 150 amps then held the electrode over a think piece of aluminum
but didn't really see any balling happening.

Am I doing something wrong or is there an easy way to do this?

Thanks,

Hi there,

You should be using a Zirconated tungsten for Aluminium. A lanthinated one is apparently good too.

Just round off the end slightly and it will ball over naturally while welding the Al.

Mick.

I've welded Al with Thoriated, and gotten good results, but it's not good practice, especially if you'll be facing x-ray testing. The alloyed tungstens work better with inverter type machines than with older transformer styles.

There's nothing wrong with learning on the "old school" pure tungsten, even on an inverter, because it will "ball" nicely, but you'll get a fatter ball and a wider bead than with an alloyed tungsten.

An "old school" buddy of mine told me the best way to ball a tungsten-- crank up the amps and strike an arc on some scrap yellow brass. Just maintain the arc until you see the end of the tungsten round off, and you're ready to go.

Steve

I've never been a fan of using 2% Thoriated tungsten for Aluminum on any machine. If it's all you have it will work but you will get inclusion (small pieces of tungsten falling off into the weld) that is one cause of porosity. After you've welded a few beads with Thoriated it's a good idea to break off the little balls at the end with some needle nose pliers or change out the tungsten with a sharpened one. As Mick said the 2% Lanthinated tungsten works well with the inverters and is a bit cheaper than Zirconated. If I'm using a good old syncrowave machine Pure works just fine, but that's just personal preference.

The old school trick I heard was use a piece of copper to ball your tungsten with but I've always just let it ball as you go. Something that a lot of people seem to forget or don't seem to know is, if the ball at the end gets to be larger than the diameter of the tungsten itself (Gorilla/Monkey Fist), you're using to many amps for that size of tungsten. Move up to the next size and everything will be fine.

What I've always done to sharpen tungsten for aluminum, regardless if it's .040-5/32, is to sharpen it to a normal point, and let the amps do the rest. If it's for a X-Ray part I'll have a piece of clean scrap aluminum to start a few arc with incase of any break off. So far, knock on wood, haven't had any parts come back yet.

Let us know what you try and how it works out for you

Not sure if that was a typo or not but you need ac when welidng aluminum or at least if you want to make a nice weld. The ac freq breaks down the oxides that form on aluminum. But if you are trying to ball your tungsten on a old transformer style machine then switch the machine to dc and switch it to dcep and get some scrap copper and then light up on the copper and watch the tungsten ball up and use a pure tungsten for the old transformer style. 2 percent thoriated are not ideal for welding aluminum on ac with a newer inverter style machine but they do work. The shop I work at only uses 2 percent thoriated because they don't want to spend the money for the lanthinated cause they are double the cost and all I weld for the most part is aluminum. The best way I have found to get a 2 percent thoriated to ball up decently is to drop your ac balance down to 50 and get some scrap copper and than light up on that until you get the tungsten ball that you want. I usually put a small flat spot on the end of the tungsten if I am running amp stuff but for thinner stuff I like to leave it nice and sharp. Balling your tungsten on the copper also helps you avoid any tungsten from breaking off into the weld. I have found for whatever reason with 2 thoriated sometimes you will a tungsten that does not what to ball nicely and it forms nodules, when I get this happening I just grab another one and try again and re sharpen that one that did not ball correctly. I think that problem has more to do with how it was sharpened, we don't use a tungsten sharpener, just a bench grinder so I think that is the reason for a little in consistensy.

At the recent TIG course I attended at Lincoln Electric Welding school, we used 2% Thoriated for steel and aluminum. The Instructor told us that even though it states in their literature to "ball" the tungsten, they prefer to leave it sharpened for aluminum as well as steel. He said that the info on balling the tungsten was outdated. The stuff we were doing was not critical, so we did not even knock the sharp point off. If you are worried about inclusions, you could blunt the tip.
In order to ball the tip, you would want to switch to DCEP, light up on scrap copper or brass, then switch back to AC to weld.

Not sure if the Hobart ez-tig has a balance controll but I know my Lincoln SW175 doesnt and its a Transformer machine. So whats the best to use with a transformer machine? I have used pure but had same experience as Jody did on here with the monkey fisting BALL..... 2% Thoriated has been working ok so far but keeps getting little cracks or fishers on the ball after a few and current wonders, now on the sole advice after watching Jodies video I decided to order the 2% Lanthanated and give those a go, you guys only reccomend using these with the new Inverter style welder?
Thanks

I used 1,5% lanth on my Miller Sync 250DX. It's okay, sharpened it but leave a little flat on the tip.

Ya using a pure tunsten and balling it up is kinda a old school way of doing things. i learned on a sycrowave 250 so I actualy prefer to run a pure and ball it up. I still think the old pure gives the nicest looking welds, just is a little tougher controlling the arc but thats what makes it fun. But you can run a 2 percent lanthanated on either a inverter or transformer style machine. When I weld at work with the dynasty 350's thats all we use and when I weld at the shop at home I will sometimes use the 2 lanthanted when I am welding thin stuff just to make life a little easier.

lol, you might like a challenge but i like easy, so far I havent really had to weld anything small on alum. so pure is ~mediocre at best but hasnt caused realy any problems but im sure right when I start welding on a T joint Ill start having those problems. As soon as I get tose Lanthanated ones im gonna give them a go and see how well they do, got them from weldcity but there on backorder so i wil wait and see.
thx

Well wih a pure on a t joint you can help yourself out by adjusting the ac balance. The more ac cleaning you run the more the tungsten with ball up, so when you weld a t joint use less cleaning action for two reasons. One it will give you more control and two when welding a t joint you do not need as much cleaning. And you can also drop you gas pressure when doinf t joints because your gas get concentrated in the joint and that will give you more control as well. Hope thats helps you out at least until you get your lanthanated.

The Lincoln square wave doesnt have a A/C balance adjustment, its automatic, greater the amps = more cleaning action
and just so im not thread jacking, I sharpen my tungsten on a bench grinder that I also use to grind metal with, they say it will cross contaminate but im a hobbyist and dont care (I also use this practice while welding in the Aerospace field)...... lol jk

I know its been awhile sense I posted but haven't stopped welding.
For the welding practice I have been doing I have been using the red tip 2% Thoriated (3/32)
with 20 CFM of Argon.

I think i'm going to get some 2% Lanthanated and see how that works.

The Hobart Easy TIG 165 is essentially the same as the Miller Diversion 165. It is an inverter type welder which produces square wave AC. Miller (part of the same conglomerate as Hobart) recommends 2% Ceriated tungsten for these machines. The general "rule" for tungsten and AC is to ball a pure tungsten when using sine wave AC from an older style transformer power supply. The electrodes for a square wave (inverter) power supply should be sharpened with a small flat spot on the end. The tip will round a LITTLE with use but not a ball like the old pure tungsten.

Jody has an interesting video comparing various types of electrodes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpanERwagaU

After watching it I purchased some 2% lanthanated Tungsten Electrodes from www.weldingcity.com. I am very impressed with the performance of this formula of electrode and would probably not purchase anything else in the future.

Ken