Welding Tips and Tricks

Hey there,

I want to buy a tig welder for myself and I'd like to be able to weld 22 gauge steel. I've heard some complaints about the square waves harsh start but I'm wondering if 22 gauge steel is thick enough that it won't be much of an issue. Or if it is going to be an issue, what things I could do in order to get around it.

The lincoln is a nice machine from what I've seen, and very aggressively priced. It has a few drawbacks, and not quite as feature rich as other machines. But at nearly a 1/2 - 1/3 the price of other machines on the market it just makes me wonder if I'm buying way more machine than I need by going with something else.

So I'd like to find out if I can work with this machine, and if there is anything I should know to help get the results I'm looking for. Thanks!

22 gauge should be fine with the harsh starts. The main issue is for really thin stuff like razor blades or soda cans. If a mig welder can weld down to 22-24 gauge it should be just fine.

SirRage wrote:Hey there,
I've heard some complaints about the square waves harsh start but I'm wondering if 22 gauge steel is thick enough that it won't be much of an issue. Or if it is going to be an issue, what things I could do in order to get around it.

I've had mine a few months, and it does have a harsh start. I've found for really thin stuff if I either start the arc slightly away from the edge in a place I'm going to weld anyway, or if I start on a separate piece next to what I'm welding and walk over to the real part, either of those techniques helps minimize the issue. With 22ga you certainly aren't going to burn through, but if you start welding pop cans or razor blades it might be an issue. Jody said on one of the videos that the higher amp start (I think he said 25amp) only lasts a small number of milliseconds, then it drops back to 10A to finish the initialization. So it's not really that high. It took me a little while to get used to a much brighter flash than I'm normally used to seeing when the arc starts, and it also sounds louder when it starts, but once I got used to it it's not a problem. A bigger complaint for me is the long postflow that's set to 15s and can't be changed. That's a lot of gas if you're just doing a bunch of tacks on small material. I did a calculation that gas costs me about $0.13/minute (I'm a home hobbyist/farmer) so it's not the end of the world, but more importantly means I have to haul the tank over to get it refilled more often. I use an 80cf tank to make it easier to roll the whole cart into the bucket on the tractor and take it out to the barn. If I bought a bigger tank it would be a bit too top heavy driving around.