Welding tips for tig (making welds look good)

[Timberwolf]

Anyone have good tips on making welds look cosmetically nice?

Other than the obvious "JUST Practice"

Practice is easy, but if you are just practicing poor form it's only hammering in the bad habits harder.

Clean, yes

Fit-up, yes, if fit up is poor, the weld is likely to follow suit.

Lay off the coffee and if your already hooked at least get the cafiene levels in balance before starting.

Good equipment and right settings, filler, gas flow, cup, electrode... ect.

But from there what can be done to help improve the look of the beads?


Thicker stuff 0.125 and over I find reasonable to make look decent, but it's sheeet metal that I find a lot harder to make look nice.

Thanks

[Rojodiablo]

Took out the double post for you. Good questions, fair enough. For thin stuff, I use small tungsten. 1/16" and low amps. I find outside corners still tough on thin material, like .030 aluminum.If I can, I like some kind of heat sink in back of my welds on thin stuff, and I either clamp it up where I can, or I put steel blanks on it for weights. I go to the scrap yard, and dig out little ingots of steel that are rems, I have several pieces. They are heavy, but cheap enough. Most are 1""-1-1/2" thick, 6-10" long, and 3-8" wide.When you use them under say a lap joint, and you rest them on top, around the joint, it makes it easier to tack fit your parts together, and the metal will not warp nearly as fast. Also, the heat stays localized, so it does not run off, burning up the metal as it leaves you behind!! This has made it much easier for me to get good beads on thin material. Good luck, Paul.

[6010]

Practice is easy, but if you are just practicing poor form it's only hammering in the bad habits harder.

I agree and my suggestion would be find a good welder and watch him weld to see how it is done right. I wish I could see a video of that guy from overseas that uses the 6013 for pipe. Somebody said his welds look better than a naked woman, and at my age, I would have to agree. :D

[jetenginedoctor]

It all depends on WHICH naked woman. . . . .

[chrispc66]

With the exception of small autogenous stainless steel welds, all tig welds require plenty of filler addition combined with correct welding current / sharp tungsten / and oxide removal , otherwise beads will look poor.

A steady hand and regular repetative filler addiitons to produce a nice rippled appearance come easily with practice.

[Capnbondo]

REMEMBER TO USE THE FOOT PEDAL.

Sounds obvious, but I think with thin material, one of the keys is to be able to study the puddle and be be able to detect EARLY when it is getting too hot or too cold. Now the tricky bit is that filler cools the puddle and travel speed effects it too.

Having the feel for pedaling it + adding filler + travel speed all compensating for each other to kepe the puddle the same is the trick on thin stuff.

On thick stuff you can be 10 or 20 samps too hot or too cold, or move a bit too slowly, etc, and it won't bite you. It doesn't require that you "police" the puddle so carefully.

[Timberwolf]

I will try to keep a better eye on the puddle. Also find it's hard to lay a nice straight bead on thin stuff. Likely the big factor is wandering side to side on a bead 5/16 of an inch wide shows up little compaired to the same amount of wander on a bead 1/8 of an inch wide. Also I find it harder to see the fit up joint when dealing with a tiny arc not much more than 1/16 of an inch long and pieces fit tight together. Wondering might even be a good idea to have a helmet just for tig that does not get messed up with smoke a spatter.

[kbnit]

Timberwolf,

Definitely you need a helmet for just TIG, particularly if you're doing light gage work. I use a shade 9 in my TIG helmet, makes the joints easier to follow. And if you're not cranking in the high amperage ranges, a 9's just fine.

Regards, Kbnit

[Timberwolf]

I have an adjustable helmet 8-13, but end up with pretty messed up outer lens and am overdue for a change.

Here is just a little messing I was doing today 3/32 plate onto 5/8 angle to make a bracket up to put the MIG welder ontop of the TIG.

Looking at the photo blown up, looks like I need to do more work on cleaning, I did not get all the mill scale out of it.

Also I was using RG45 filler and was cleaning the thin coating off with scotch brite, still seemed to have air bubbles floating in the puddle. I have herd that RG45 was no good, but never herd a good explaination of why. Better filler is on order.

[Craig in Denver]

Timberwolf:
If you add just a bit more filler, it will fill in the 'toes' (edges) of your weld.

The reason to use ERxx TIG rod is because it has the deoxidizers necessary for the TIG process. O/A will burn off impurities in the puddle with RG-45; TIG won't. I'm surprised that you didn't get more porosity using RG-45.

[Timberwolf]

Porosity was a problem, but after a bit I was finding I could watch the bubbles in the puddle and kind of push them out. Had to be real careful on the downslope or it would cauliflower up. I would imagin though there are pockets trapped in the bead.

How/why do these dioxidizers work, I thought that the shielding gas did just that exclude oxygen?

RG45 is better than coat hangers LOL, but not by much.

[Craig in Denver]

How/why do these dioxidizers work, I thought that the shielding gas did just that exclude oxygen?I don't know how/why they work. (I read it somewhere, but it was too technical to remember). I'm no longer trying to re-invent the process; I just want good welds.

When I bought my TIG 15 years ago, I was trying to 'cheap out' on the filler and was having problems. I asked the TIG pro at the motorcycle shop about it. He looked 'right through' me and said; "You just spent more than $2500 for a TIG to do 'super welding'; and you don't want to pay $6 for filler!?!?!? :angry:

My truck says use midgrade gas. If I use regular it pings.

[kbnit]

The most common deoxidizers, silicon and manganese, readily form a stable oxide (silica or manganese oxide) by removing the oxygen from the existing iron oxide. These more compatible oxides act to refine the grain structure of the weld.

Regards, Kbnit

[Timberwolf]

Kbnit, that makes sense to the semi disfuntional way my brain works. Thanks

Tried some aluminium tonight, pretty much maxing out the welder to stick 1/4 thick tube to 5/16 plate. Felt it went well, but think I could have cleaned the pieces a bit beter, some times the puddle was resisting wetting down onto the plate. Suppose a little preheat would help too.

Any thoughts? I can take it good or bad.

[kbnit]

Timberwolf,

Sometimes, I think you have to have some kind of disfunctional brain to spend your life melting things and hoping that, when they freeze, it'll all work out all right. :cool2:

Preheat never hurts, the weld looks pretty good except for about the 7:00 position in your picture, the toe isn't tied in very well. Only practice will help that. As far as welding aluminum the same three rules apply as do for stainless steel:

1. Clean it
2. Clean it
3. Clean it again.

Best regards, Kbnit