Welding Tips and Tricks

I have two main questions, I've been stick welding to 3 years but now I'm learning tig this was my second day and my horizontal 5/8 was looking passable by the end of my shift, but I have two questions. First what is a good way to hold/feed the filler in, if I go barehanded I can feed it really well pinching between my middle and pointer and using my thumb, but if I'm wearing my tig glove I can't get any traction to push it in, is this one of those things that get better with time and practice? My second question is how come in all tig videos and even all the welders I work around it seems like they're flying when they are tig welding, it's like there moving super fast. Now when I'm doing it I'm going at a snails pace (I would ask my instructor but I don't wanna piss him off) once again is this another thing that you learn over time or is tig really an incredible slow process, and I'm just figuring it out. Well any feed back would be awesome.

Both of those get better with practice. No one starts out making bad-ass beads at lightning speed. It's all about heat control via learning how to read the puddle. Control the heat input into the puddle, and it will surrender-eventually. But you actually have to go out there and do it, in order to forge the muscle memory that goes into those things such as feeding the filler wire and moving the torch and manipulating the amperage pedal controls.

For gloves, what tig gloves are you wearing? Make sure they are snug fitting gloves so you can retain as much finger dexterity as possible. Speaking of dexterity, you have to develop it, as stick welding does not reinforce it.

Oh yea I had no delusions of striking an arc and laying some killer beads, as my instructor says "you'll only get better with time" which is already showing honestly my beads tonight look like beads instead of metal puddles on a t-bar. I also wear a thick glove on my torch (I was really surprised how hot an air cooled torch can get) and on my filler hand I wear a thin leather glove with a long cuff. It's tight fitting but it's like I don't have enough grip to feed it through, without pushing the rod on my shoulder.

What I do is pinch the wire between my index and middle finger. I use the v of my hand to support the wire. Curl your fingers in like you are making a loose fist. Clamp the wire between your fingers. Now, slowly make a gun out of your hand. The wire should get pulled by your fingers. Loosen the grip, wash, rinse, repeat. After a bit of practice, you can even pull the wire back in if you "overfeed" it.

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Joe,
I agree that both will get better with hood time. I did find something alarming in your post. You stated that you didn't want to ask your instructor a question because he would get mad. Remember that you are paying them to teach and a good teacher will in fact teach, not get mad at every question. I realize that we all become short tempered with to many questions but if he knows a answer to one of your questions, ask!!
On the glove, I agree use the thinnest glove with the best feel. There are a few from Tillman that I like (don't know models off hand)
-Jonathan

Here's a good video from the master....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rVqWeS4rbA

Yea my company is paying me to take welding school, it's a perk of working in a shipyard I guess getting a 20k welding course and get paid to take it, I'm not so much worried about pissing him off as him thinking I'm trying to question him (he's a really cool guy also).

Definitely ask questions. Sometimes it's a question that we need to find the answer to so we all learn something. Also what you sometimes see on the videos is a piece that is heated up or preheated. This will increase the welding speed along with some techniques. I usually see my students slowing down because they are using way too much filler metal. This might be something to look at too.