Welding Tips and Tricks

on "T" joints. I have been working on these at school and for the life of me i cant get the puddle on the up to meet the puddle on the out well then i drop the stick in the middle and it sticks to the seam.... ergh!!!

Sounds like to me that you need to stick your tungsten out a little further and point it higher onto the top part of the fillet until it's joined. Also, you might have to sharpen your tungsten more. Sometimes you can get a ball or a burr on the side of it which will make the arc do funny things. Once you get the puddle melting the two together just keep the point of the tungsten right at the seem as you move and add rod. What material are you working with? If you're working with stainless or steels I would just work on fusing the two together not using any rod until you get the hang of that. Once you can run a nice smooth fuse pass I'd start adding rod. But, back to the point there's nothing wrong with moving the tungsten around to get those two edges to melt together. Once they are joined you should be good to go. Even while you're running a bead you should be adjusting the angles ever so slightly to keep the puddle doing what you want. In time it will be something you don't even think about just happens.

Don't give up and let us know how it's coming along!

since i have posted this i have found new levels of frustration that i never knew existed but i just kept on trucking .... i thought of switching classes dropping tig and taking up nursing or even belly dancing anything , i said, i have to be better at anything but i just kept on making the ugliest beads you have ever put your eyes on and then BOOM last night i did something right and layed down one that looked like a pro ran it....than another one and i started paying attention more so to what i was doing and just kept doing that and kept running decent beads i moved on from t joints to lap joints same thing then on to corner joints all in the flat position so now ole teach says it almost time to go on to horizontal ....but first ill have to make a coupon and put it thru the bend tester....ill keep ya posted.....you people on this board have been so much help to me in my studies much obliged

Glad to hear that things started to click! The biggest thing about TIG welding, or welding in general, is finding what works for you. Like me I'm left handed but weld right handed... Why? Cause it works. Now that you're getting the swing of it don't let it get to you if you have a few days that things just are not going well. Some days your hands are just a little shaky, or your eyes just are not seeing it right making you dip your tungsten every other weld. It happens! I bet every Honest welder on this site will tell you that they still have those days no matter how long they've been welding. Keep moving forward and don't be afraid to try different things and ask stupid questions. We all did when we started out too.

I know what you mean about 'BOOM!'
I had been tig welding steel at work for about siz months and would regularly dip the tungsten into the weld.
One day it suddenly ocurred to me (BOOM), that i never watch the arc length. I divided my attention between moving the weld pool along and the filler rod end.
I come mainly from gas welding and brazing background where you don't need to pay much attention to how far the flame tip is away from the weld. As long as the pool is maintained, it's close enough.
After that moment i can sometimes get through a whole week only having to resharpen my fifteen or so tungstens once.
Sometimes a couple of times.
Of course there are some days when i can still get through the lot in a couple of hours...