Welding Tips and Tricks

Bought this Everlast 250EX a month ago to teach myself how to TIG weld aluminum. My garage is strewn with shiny pieces of aluminum scrap covered with beads of varying quality. Yesterday, I switched the machine over to DC and grabbed a mild steel weldiment I had scrapped out months ago. Sharpened up my 2% and lit up on some steel. WOW! What happened to all that noise? Welding on steel after only working alum was like a walk in the park on a sunny spring day. Easy! I even filled areas in a fillet joint. Looks totally pro too! What the hell? Jody was right, if you can weld aluminum, steel is easy.

I'm going to make me a third-hand today.

Yep! Different animals.

If you can tame the wolf, you can make the poodle dance....

we were taught, in order, mild steel stainless steel then aluminum now in hindsight i wish it were the other way around now in school when im all flustered from an ally weld thats driving me nuts i grab a piece of ss and run a few beads.... but it is what it is

That's why I advocate learning oxy-fuel first. On aluminum, too.

It's like TIG, in slow motion, and teaches you puddle control/behavior long before it's happening at TIG speed.

I have to beg to differ on the first weld type.....when they teach you to swim you don't get in at the deep end ....period.

Same as for Tig welding......learn to Tig mild steel and once you have the knack you go on to bigger and better things, like stainless and ally.....maybe some cast iron too if you are really masochistic.

Nothing puts a nooby off more than a total failure and it can affect you for the rest of your career.
Ian.

Here In the Uk I was taught Al first, the reason, once you master Al then MS / SS is easy after that, my reasoning is if you learn steel first then move on to Al you end up thinking,.... WTH has happened to my welding, only my 2p's worth.

Clearly two schools of thought here.

Billbong makes a good point about "jumping in the deep end". For some of us, that's the way to go. For others, wading in from the shallow end is more encouraging.

Perhaps it's a difference in personalties, how we choose to approach this learning curve. My first experience with driving was at 5 years old, sitting in dad's lap, screaming "FASTER!" as we passed 100 MPH. I'm a "jump in the deep end" guy, where once I've done it, the rest comes easy. In my current job, my boss seeks my input and advice on things I've NEVER done before, because he trusts my previous experience to guide me, and he knows I'm not afraid to jump in the deep end.

At the other end of the spectrum, though, if you want to learn to weld so you can build your own dune-buggy, or to enter the field and work your way up, a program starting with the basics may be far more comfortable, and aquire more skills only as you need them.

I'd love to hear more input on this, as my opinion is clearly formed by the path I took, and I have little knowledge of how others got to where they are.

Steve S

9 months ago i came to the local tech school completely ignorant to welding and thats to say i thought welding was done with gas and fire and stuff, now keep in mind im the guy that shuts the breaker off to change a light bulb,scared of electricity is an understatement. so i think that starting in the kiddie pool was a good idea for me and being that im no kid by any stretch i have some composure to get me thru it, now the occasional cuss word is known to come from my booth at times. yall should have seen the teachers face when i asked in front of a class full of 20 somethings "is all welding done with electricity?" knowing i just dropped 2k of my own cash on the course i knew at that time i had to make a choice....man up and get over it ,learn to respect electricity or wuss out and go take a nursing class... well now im one of the "class elders" and the class clown all at the same time. they love to gather around outside my booth while im GTAW a T joint overhead on ally for the "cuss word de jour" lesson. i personally think if i were to have been tossed into ally overhead from a 27 year career in every phase of glass work that degree in nursing would have looked like a good idea.... and theres my 2cents

I learned TIG in an adult education class at the local tech high school. The HS day students used up all the steel coupons, about all that was left for the evening classes was aluminum.

Mild is okay, but my stainless welding really needs help. Especially on how to set up a back purge so it actually does something other than waste argon.

I self-taught myself TIG. I started with aluminium, mainly because it was easy to cut, and I had an immediate need. Later I ended up doing more work with mild and stainless steel.
About 2 years after starting TIG welding I enrolled in our local technical college (TAFE) to fill in the gaps. They taught mild steel first, then stainless then aluminium. The idea being that you are proficient in 1G, 1F, 2G, 2F, 3G, etc. positions before moving on to the next metal. After covering the the basics with straight welds, then welding round tube etc. My observation was that most of the new starters had more troubles with the transition in welding position (esp. vertical up 3F) rather than learning a new metal. Ideally I think it's better to learn with steel, but if someone wants to do aluminium first, then no problem, the learning curve is a little bit steeper, but its far from impossible.

I think that the advantages of starting off with mild steel are:
- less variables to worry about (AC balance and AC freq)
- less sensitive to contamination
- no distracting buzzing AC noise
- welding near edges is more predictable.