Welding Tips and Tricks

should the lead to my flex head and the handle get to hot to touch?

It can get hot if you are close to maxing out its capabilities. The gun should have an amp rating. Even if you are welding with less amps than its rated for if you weld for lots at a time or if you have a loose connection in the gun or at the welder it can get hot then too.

if it is air-cooled, yes it can get hot if you are near the duty cycle of the torch. Be very careful with that because excessive heat in the power lead can deteriorate the rubber hose over time, and then you have a leak. If it is water-cooled, it should not get even warm unless your water cooler is smaller than optimum.

Yeah, if it is air cooled, that will happen. Not so much on a water cooled torch. When I bought my first scratch start TIG set up it was a cheapie from Amazon. But it worked pretty well and I could go about 30 minutes at 125-150 amps before it became uncomfortable to handle. When I got my AHP alphatig, I could only go about 15 minutes before that one would get too hot. Now I have a CK 20 water cooled torch, and it only gets hot if I forget to turn on the water cooler (actually did that once, now I have a NEW ck 20....LOL)

I don't remem the lead getting hot, but my CK17 torch gets hot in my hand, especially on AC welding aluminum...fingers can get too hot and have to taper off and stop . Had enough of that and went to a CK20 water cooled. You can weld long as you want, and after terminating the arc, you can pull off your glove and grab the rubber torch head bare handed and it's cool . The pink alumina cup will of course be hot . It's still nice to have the 17 around if I need it though . FYI, If you ever go water cooled, have a strict procedure of "water cooler on first" ALWAYS . It's just like running a car with a bad water pump or no coolant ...it only takes a few seconds to overheat, then seize the engine ....or burn up the torch, cable or both .

I'm building a cooler to drive the CK-20 torch that I bought, and plan to hook my foot pedal/torch switch wiring through my pump assembly that I'm building, using a relay to disconnect it until the pump is on.
Quick and easy way to keep from cooking a torch by forgetting the coolant.

I just put together a tig cooler. I can post what I did, shurflo 8000 , 10 gal stainless pot , bleeder line ...cost was about $180 , it's very quiet and cools well .