Pure Tungesten

[jfk92]

Last night I had to change my tungsten and grabbed what I though was the same rod - found out rather quickly it wasn't. After looking at the packaging seems it was a pure tungsten rod and not the lanthenated I was/do use. Mind you - I'm a hobby hack - so I have a much larger collection than needed of various sizes/types (apparently) - in researching see it's basically mostly used for Aluminum? or AC - at least in the material online I've found - which made a lot of sense in what happened hitting the pedal. So - I'll be putting that package of 10 options in the back corner of my supply drawer - when I've done aluminum I've used lanthenated and been happy - again - a hobby guy anyway.

Is there any other use for these pure tungsten rods? I believe I bought them years ago in a flurry of hastily consumables ordering....

[G-ManBart]

Pure tungsten is generally only used for AC aluminum with transformer machines. It's not well suited to almost anything else...even AC on an inverter. You can use 2% lanthanated on anything a hobby welder (like me) is going to do, but 2% thoriated (red) are very nice on steel and are often inexpensive, and easy to find.

[vwguy3]

Any pure tungsten I gather goes in a box to go to the scrap yard. Pure had it's place 25+ yrs ago but times change, there are much better tungsten choices now.

[shovelon]

Well you could use it up. Only thing that happens is it will ball back rather quickly. Sharpen one end and keep rotating until used up. Also depends on your equipment. I have some green and used it with "Zank's Krazee" program entered in my Dynasty350s and 700. The DCEP cycle is so short it keeps the point sharp.

[Kevin Morin]

jfk92,
i use green/pure tungsten pretty much exclusively on AC, in aluminum on a Dynasty 300DX and it works great.

My method is to use the 'next size up' electrode so the end domes instead of getting a full light bulb sphere with sides larger than the diameter of the electrode.

The finer/narrower/smaller arc cone wetting area, in AC, comes from a blunter shaped tungsten end. Conversely, a sharpened point will have a pretty wide arc cone than ( counter-intuitively IMO) a domed tungsten; add lots of hi-freq pulse (not variable amplitude timing pulses) and it makes for a very narrow bead with great control.

You're welcome to send me all that 'junk yard scrap' tungsten and I'll put it to good use?

Seriously though, it works fine on AC in aluminum. I'm about the only guy at our LWS that orders/buys/uses 5/32" pure tungsten? That runs 300Amps of AC just fine but it will spherically ball a 1/8" electrode at the same settings in the same materials.

Just a little bit more info about tungsten alloys' uses and applications.

cheers,
Kevin

[Kelvin]

Well you could use it up. Only thing that happens is it will ball back rather quickly. Sharpen one end and keep rotating until used up.

Or put a sharp point on them and use them as scribes.

[Barclay]

These electrodes form a clean, balled tip when heated and provide great arc stability for AC welding with a balanced wave. Pure tungsten also provides good arc stability for AC sine wave welding, especially on aluminum and magnesium.