Greetings from Northern California!

[TheDiabolicaL1]

I purchased a used Lincoln Precision 185 off craigslist earlier this year and am just getting around to try and figure out how it works. I think I'm in a bit over my head with this machine as, well, I know jack about welding. I've got some ideas for things I want to make for sure, and some prototype things I'd like to possibly build as well. TIG offered the most versatility for these types of things so, I guess TIG it is!

Burning metal is something I always wanted to learn how to do, so, I am here.

[GWD]

As good as the guys on here are for helping others they can't replace a weldor standing next to you and giving hands-on advice.

This can be accomplished by:

>enrolling in a community college or high school extension course

>finding a friend or neighbor who is willing to give some beginning instruction

>go to a local welding store or shop and offer to pay someone to teach you to weld

Be sure to state the welding processes that you want to learn.

[grumpycricket]

Welcome 2 the forum. I like ur user name. Good luck on ur quest!

[TheDiabolicaL1]

Thanks for the warm welcome!

Fired up the TIG today on some 1/8th aluminum plate trying to get the feel for it. Ran with a puddle for a minute, then tried adding some filler. I get about 3" before I have to reposition..



Still have to figure out the heat thing. I'm a little slow on the foot pedal for one. Any other pointers?

Sorry, I don't know why the pic comes up twice. I edit the post and I only see where its attached once.

Sent from my unlocked Galaxy S3! We win, Verizon!

[DSW]

If you want help, you need to post up all the pertinent info. We can't read minds. We need machine, settings, gas, material thickness, filler size, tungsten size and type and so on.


My guess from working with students, is that your amps are too low and you are taking way too long to get the puddle to from from what I see. Alum needs to be welded hot and fast. You will be better off starting to learn with steel rather than alum. Alum requires that you have heat control down very well to do a decent job. With steel, if things get a bit out of control, you can back off the pedal and slow things down and regroup. It's the opposite with alum. You need to add heat and go faster most times, this means you really don't have time to think, all your adjustments need to be instinctive at that point. Learn to use the pedal with steel 1st.


Also it looks like you might also be just running bead after bead non stop. That's a very bad habit. Alum will soak up tons of heat, and act as if you have the machine set much hotter than you actually do. You need to work with cold to cool material. If you can hold it in your bare hands, it's cool enough to weld another bead. I generally don't recommend quenching coupons, but many times that's the easiest way to cool things down so you can keep practicing. Alum doesn't take well to lots of heat. doing this sort of thing with a real project will cause you to do irreparable damage to the base material. That's one reason alum is welded hot and fast. Even though it sounds counter intuitive, more amps equals less heat total put into the material.

It takes most students at the tech school who already can do a decent job on steel, about 20-30 hours to start to just run decent beads on flat plate and do lap joints. Most starting out trying to do alum with zero experience, might get a few decent beads on flat plate by the time the semester is over.

I'll second trying to find a night class at a tech school or community college. When you sit down and add up what materials, gas, wire, electric and so on would cost you, not to mention instruction, a class is usually stupid cheap.

[TheDiabolicaL1]

You really nailed it. You're correct in every aspect.

I'm an hour and a half from the closest JC. An hour from the closest high school who I don't even think offers a metal shop. I could look into going to a crash course kind of school like Lincoln offers. Expensive though. Guess you've gotta pay to play though!

Sent from my unlocked Galaxy S3! We win, Verizon!

[DSW]

If going it on your own, here's what I would suggest from what we do at the tech school.

Get yourself a bunch of flat steel 1/8" thick, roughly 2-3" wide and cut it into a bunch of 6" lengths. You will want to grind all the scale off both sides of the material with a sanding wheel or grinding wheel.

Set the machine at 150 amps DC, 3/32" red tungsten ground like a pencil point, 1/16" E70 filler, set the argon at roughly 15cfh. A gas lens with a #8 cup will help you see what is going on and allow you to keep the tungsten out farther, but it's not needed. The school does almost all it's instruction with standard #8 cups ( too expensive the way the kids destroy stuff to use gas lenses FT)

Start out running puddles on flat plate, this exercise is to get you to understand what happens when you use the pedal. Try and keep your travel speed as uniform as possible and try and maintain a consistent distance between the work and the tungsten, 1/8" to 3/16" is usually good. If you dip the tungsten, stop and regrind the point. Play a bit. Up the amps and see how it changes. Then up the speed of you travel as well as your amps and try to see if you can maintain a medium size puddle by speeding up. Drop the amps and see what happens, then slow down while dropping the amps and watch. Go back and increase your distance of the tungsten to say 1/4" and run the exercises again. Note that when you hold the tungsten out farther, you get more heat and a larger puddle, and if you tighten up, you get less heat and a smaller puddle using the same amps. You need to control all three of these at the same time later, but right now, just try and play a bit so you understand what is happening when you change just one variable at a time.

Now we'll add filler. Run straight beads adding filler. I usually suggest new students start by using the lay wire technique at 1st. To do this you simply start a puddle and move it to the rod. Note that you are melting the filler with the puddle, NOT the arc, a typical newbie tig issue. When you can run 5 or 6 nice consistent beads in a straight line across the plate, then we'll move on to what you were doing, witch is overlapping the beads by 1/2. You can also use a tapping or "stabbing" motion, but most students at the begging constantly foul the tungstens doing it these ways. After you get the coordination of moving your hands in the same direction, you can start playing with adding filler where you move your hands in two different motions. It's a lot like patting your head and rubbing you belly. Your hands want to move in the same way at 1st. Remember you need to cool the plate between every 2 or 3 beads to keep the plate cool enough to handle with your bare hands. I recommend students keep at least 4-6 coupons to work on and swap out after dunking to let them cool.

Once you can get decent results with plain beads, now we move on to joints. Not at this point you will start burning up material fast, so plan a bit and try to maximize the material. Remember at 1st try and keep things as simple as possible. try and maintain a constant tungsten to work distance and travel spped, and use your pedal to control the heat. Once you get more experience, you can start adding in the other variables. Until then you will have a very difficult time trying to determine just what you are doing wrong if you constantly change everything at once.

1st joint is a flat lap. Usually we suggest students stack these like a set of steps so they get the most out of the material. Clamp the pieces to the table when they start to get to top heavy and be sure to tack both sides before welding or the back will open up and make it hard to impossible to get a good bead. When you can do 4-5 consistently good beads, then you move on to T joints, followed by outside corners and finally but joints. ( You will grind a small bevel on the but joint, usually leaving 1/16" - 1/32" land and no gap).

After this you go thru the whole procedure starting with plain beads on flat plate in the horizontal position, then vertical and finally overhead. The go all the way back to step one and do it all over again with thinner steel, say 1/16"- 16 ga... Then maybe move on to 1/8" alum, thinner steel or round steel tube sections ( tube being the hardest since you must constantly change the torch angle in relationship to the tube as you proceed around the joint.)

Post up picts with all the info possible and we can help walk you thru a lot of this, but there still is no substitute for someone watching over your shoulder as you weld. Good luck.

[rabidchimp]

DSW, your dedication into helping people out here is amazing. I applaud your efforts! Diabolical, welcome from WA State.
-Aaron

[GWD]

Originally Posted by rabidchimp

DSW, your dedication into helping people out here is amazing. I applaud your efforts! Diabolical, welcome from WA State.
-Aaron

Second that evaluation. DSW writes straight to the point, is not judgmental, and is constantly encouraging. All fine traits of an excellent instructor.

[Machine_Punk]

Howdy! I'm in NorCal too, but in the North Bay area. Did a quick Google map search and looks like you live in beautiful country with a lot of forest around you.

Good luck on learning TIG. I would recommend a week-long course somewhere, if you cannot make it to a traditional school. I learned TIG at Contour Autocraft in Peterborough, England (I lived there at the time), as a part of their week-long basic metal crafting course. A lot of knowledge in one week...to go back and practice on my own.

There are a LOT of YouTube videos out there too (although you have to pick carefully...some of them are more knowledgeable about making a video than whatever they are trying to teach). All the major welding equipment builders have decent learning sites too.

What sorts of things are you planning to fabricate with aluminum? I work primarily in aluminum, but I mostly rivet things together with solid rivets.

Kev

[SWells]

Originally Posted by GWD

Second that evaluation. DSW writes straight to the point, is not judgmental, and is constantly encouraging. All fine traits of an excellent instructor.

X3 on that one!

[84JSD]

Ron Covell has an excellent video "TIG Welding Basics" that can help you get started if attending school is impractical. http://www.covell.biz/