Welding Tips and Tricks

so where are these supposed inexpensive diamond bench grinder wheels? I can't seem to find any, the only diamond grinder wheels I've found are specific to certain special tungsten grinders that cost a bazillion dollars... I've got your basic Harbor Fright (misspelling intentional) 5" table grinder, which I've been using with your standard grinding wheels, but they get eaten up by the tungsten pretty quickly and I just can't get a nice point on them... Anyone know of any that would fit my basic bench grinder that don't cost more than my TIG machine? thanks!

mcmaster carr. About $130

There are also the little 4.5 or 5" diamond edge wheels available at the Chinese toy/tool store for about $10, as I've seen mentioned it one of the threads here.

Definitely not as nice a solution as the wheel from McMaster, but serviceable on the cheap.

Diamond bench grinder wheel sound nice.

I'm currently sharpening tungstens using an inverted $40 belt sander...


Kym

^^^^^^ Belt sander is your friend! Screw those expensive wheels, I bought a belt sander and never looked back. Sharpen knives with it too. There are those who will say you will impregnate your tungsten with other metals and ruin your weld. Partly true but unless you are welding for NASA, the tiny bit of contamination you MIGHT get is not going to affect much. I will probably get heat for saying that but really, how much contamination can you really get from that tiny pice of ground tungsten? The guys here are great at teaching the right way to do things and you should follow those teachings but you will find as time passes, that you will be less and less obsessed with world -class purity, and start to live in the day to day world.

exnailpounder wrote:^^^^^^ Belt sander is your friend! Screw those expensive wheels, I bought a belt sander and never looked back. Sharpen knives with it too. There are those who will say you will impregnate your tungsten with other metals and ruin your weld. Partly true but unless you are welding for NASA, the tiny bit of contamination you MIGHT get is not going to affect much. I will probably get heat for saying that but really, how much contamination can you really get from that tiny pice of ground tungsten? The guys here are great at teaching the right way to do things and you should follow those teachings but you will find as time passes, that you will be less and less obsessed with world -class purity, and start to live in the day to day world.

Really interesting to see this point of view. For me...well, just buying my TIG and some gas literally used every spare cent I had. so I found myself walking into my shed before my first ever TIG session and looking at my sharpening options. My bench grinder wheels are shot to hell and contaminated. Angle grinder? Maybe not. Hold on...if I turn my belt sander upside down it sits flat really nicely....skrsshhhhh.....

Bottom line? I am not yet, and might never be, a good enough welder to tell the difference in performance between a belt sander sharpened electrode and one caressed by a diamond wheel. Doesn't stop me being jealous of those with diamond sharpeners, but until I come into some extra cash it looks like my beaten up old belt sander will just have to do.

Kym

exnailpounder wrote:^^^^^^ Belt sander is your friend! Screw those expensive wheels, I bought a belt sander and never looked back. Sharpen knives with it too. There are those who will say you will impregnate your tungsten with other metals and ruin your weld. Partly true but unless you are welding for NASA, the tiny bit of contamination you MIGHT get is not going to affect much. I will probably get heat for saying that but really, how much contamination can you really get from that tiny pice of ground tungsten? The guys here are great at teaching the right way to do things and you should follow those teachings but you will find as time passes, that you will be less and less obsessed with world -class purity, and start to live in the day to day world.

job to do
tools available
DONE

beat,bend ,bolt,weld,
DONE

Kym... youll be fine with that sander. I have a friend who is an amazing welder in fact he just left my house and we were just talking about this very subject. Hes the guy they call out for mirror welds and real tight spots at the refinery near here and he told me that he sharpens tungsten with whatever is available on the site...bench grinder, tungsten sharpener, OA torch etc...he doesnt worry about that microscopic bit of metal contamination that might be there and hasnt failed a weld test in 20 years. Im just happy if the part ihave to repair isnt encrusted in dry grass and dogshit. Have some fun!

If you decide you wana make one, here's
a video mine grinding some tungstens .

https://youtu.be/q17ua8IMiSA

Rocket, cannot say that that's not a quick and impressive arrangement. Nicely done.

Impressive for sure.

So, when are Harbor Freight coming to Oz?


Kym

ups , fedex ? Only thing u need from harbor freight is the wheel, which is $10. I recently had to mail some triple clamps to a guy in AU ...shipping was a fortune . Guy had me put some other bike parts in the box , guess everything is expensive down there too

Thanks for all the replies, some great info there... I'm at Harbor Freight quite often, was just there this past weekend but I didn't see the diamond wheels, but I guess the reason why is because I was looking for bench grinder wheels, the 1" wide (I think it's 1" wide, too lazy to go downstairs in my basement and measure my grinder) solid stone variety. The online welding places I get a lot of my stuff from (like Baker's Gas) have the angle grinder diamond cut-off disks, but I like my fairly-quiet bench grinder (it was only like $30), that I can just fire up and not have to put my ear protection on like I have to with my angle grinder (my ears are shot so an angle grinder is very painful for me) and piss the wife off when I use my angle grinder (and I'm constantly screwing up my tungsten so I'm sharpening them a lot)... and a bench grinder is easy to sharpen on, just lay the tungsten straight up onto the wide flat stone wheel and easy to see and handle, where an angle grinder is a beast (and a pretty dangerous beast...).

Was just watching one of Jody's videos that I just found on the subject, good vid....

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfKjIZijsP0[/youtube]

I am liking how the belt sander puts a nicer smoother finish on the tip, especially if you use a finer grit paper...

Now if I can just win the lottery I'd definitely buy one of those dedicated super expensive tungsten grinders, the tips come out so nice on those..


Oh on another note, what do you guys use to cut your tungsten with (to shorten it for short torches or to cut the blobbed out contaminated tip off)... I've been using my tin snips, but it takes more muscle than I'd like to use and sometimes cracks the tunsgten lengthwise for about a 1/4 of an inch...

raticus wrote: Oh on another note, what do you guys use to cut your tungsten with (to shorten it for short torches or to cut the blobbed out contaminated tip off)... I've been using my tin snips, but it takes more muscle than I'd like to use and sometimes cracks the tunsgten lengthwise for about a 1/4 of an inch...

Yeah the tin snips are not a good option as you already know, we have a bench grinder with a rough and fine grinding wheels, I use the rough to grind thru when I need a length for my short back cap.

Richard

Here's the diamond wheels from Mcmastercarr 180 grit on the left and 320 grit on the right.

holy crap! forget the diamond wheels, I'm overwhelmed by your grinder... or rather, the grinder's guards! i've never seen guards that elaborate before.... they're huge... and not just the lexan guards themselves, but even the mount holding the lexan... and of course the grinder itself is obviously top notch stuff right there..... this is like grinder porn... ha

LOL yeah those are metal lathe chuck guards...no more ER visits for me to get bits of metal out of my eye! I'm going to buy a Baldor polishing unit I can swap onto this setup hence the over engineering.

Harbor Freight] $10 small bushing extension
use at your own risk
I do

Cheap grinder, juggled the disks and washers, works perfectly, the edge has enough diamonds to cut / notch the tungsten. I grind to shape using the (90 deg to the tungsten) rest, and finish with the tungsten held near vertical.

Here is a link to one I built some time ago using Lapidary wheels. Works well for Tungsten & Carbide lathe tools.

http://www.akpilot.net/Diamond%20Grinde ... inder.html

Jerry in Delaware