Im pretty new to tig welding so I cant personally give suggetions but you tube has some interesting videos on tigging.

 

Weldingtipsandtricks.com has the best videos and easy to follow printed information that you can find, and its all free.

 

To answer your three direct questions;
Torch angle should be 75 degrees to the work piece; with filler (when you do add it to the equation,) at ~15 degrees to the work piece; being 90 degrees to the torch.
Keep the tungsten within 1/8" of work piece.
Gas flow between 15 & 20 cfh is good for most applications.
As for resting the arm; floating freehand is tough, if you can succeed at it, you will be pretty much limitless with positions.

 

http://www.lincolnelectric.com/knowledge/articles/list.asp
http://www.millerwelds.com/education...les_search.php Drill down to find this: http://www.millerwelds.com/pdf/gtawbook.pdf
http://www.esab.com/global/en/education/processes.cfm
http://www.hobartwelders.com/elearning/

Lincoln sells an extensive but inexpensive line of hardback and paperback welding instruction and reference books at their website. https://ssl.lincolnelectric.com/lincoln/apdirect/store.asp?PID=16&cat=8

 

Most the basics are covered. As for moving in a straight line or running some sort of weave, thats all going to depend on what you're welding. With a little experience it should become obvious weather you want to run a weave or not. As for learning to weld without any arm support, that is an excelent idea. I recomend learning to do it standing on one foot (other foot is operating the pedal), overhead with nothing around you to lean against. If you can learn to do that, anything else will be a cake walk.

 

Thanks everyone for the info, this is a huge help - i`ll devour this for the foreseeable future.



lol, sounds funny but that is kinda what I was thinking - i`d hate to learn to weld extremely well on a bench with my arms carefully supported on scrap tubing, etc then be a complete mess when it comes to climbing under my Jeep and welding on a shock mount.

For the most part I learned to MIG with support & comfort in mind, but can stick weld pretty much anywhere anytime.

 

I suggest learning without using foot control as it takes one variable out of the guesswork. It's a must-have for aluminum but not mild. As for hand position, the pic without gloves is for clarification only. Note fingers gently rest on workpiece. May have to stretch further as workpiece heats up.

 

just learning how to TIG ... only have a lift off TIG without foot control for now.
power supply is an old tomstone Idealarc 250.

keeping a lookout for a HF ... hope an affordable one pops up soon.

thanks for sharing....

 

The short answer is get as comfortable as possible when learning to weld until you have the confidence that all is well. You probably got that part with SMAW etc.

After you learn the settings, look, feel, sound, etc, the "little man in your head" will help you adjust to difficult positions and torch angles.

Many used to insist that a person learn to gas weld first before tig. That was no fun if the torch was a Victor 300 series with the long 000 tip....

Still some folks doing bike frames that way (not with the sledge sized torch though).:dizzy:

Matt

 

Some great advice already, I would add;

1. Grip the torch in your hand as lightly as you can without it falling out, this stops your arm cramping up, thus giving you more freedom of movement.

2. When welding free hand, use a slight weave or circular motion even if you don't really need to, as it is far easier to control the torch this way.

3. Learn how to walk the cup, as sometimes it's just easier, say you're welding a horizontal tube to the side of a post, like on a hand rail or something. Not saying that you should reley on this method, but it's another string to your bow.

4. Learn how to feed the filler wire with your fingers, then learn to do it without resting your arm/hand on anything.

5. Learn how to use the "lay wire" technique as well, as sometimes dipping the filler will just make an out of position weld harder than it needs to be, When you're doing it right you should feel a slight resistance, kind of like you're pushing a stick into the sand.

Hope this helps!

 

Thanks everyone for the tips, I tried everything except walking the cup and in my opinion I was able to produce some decent dime shaped welds - however not very consistent since i`m so new to this method.

I found that resting on the bench became the most sloppy because I was unable to slide my hand along for a longer weld - once I started hovering above the weld it was much cleaner.

And my other big issue was my tendency to feed the filler metal in constantly and produce some TIG like MIG welds, lol. But once I figured out how to maintain a puddle and make a quick clean dab every second or so the welds began to look more like my high end bicycle frame.

Now I just need to work on consistency and maintaining a very equal sized weld throughout the process.

I do have new questions though:

Most important - I only tried one T-joint and it was terrible, it seemed the tungsten was too far from the metal - so does this mean my cup size is too big? (lol) or the tungsten is not out far enough?

Thanks again everyone, i`ll add some photos later.

 

How far is your tungsten "stick-out"?
If you are using a gas-lens, you can stick-out about 1/4" without having any lack of coverage problem. That should be enough to put the tip of your tungsten plenty close to the joint.

 

Stickout was about 1/8 to 3/16". Good idea with the gas lens, i`m going to look for one this week when I go to the welding shop.

 

just think the whole time..."I will not lose my job to a robot". get conmfy hold that speedway like a pencil and move your arm like a chicken wing when you feed that rod. Try pulse and **** lift arc.

 

I just learned to TIG weld a few monthes ago, so I'm far from a pro like a lot of these guys. But it's fresh in my mind still, so I'm going to offer my thoughts anyhow.

First off whenever I learn a new skill with my hands (tig welding or whatever) I go through a procedure. 1) what end result do I want 2) what factors will achieve that 3) how do I make those factors happen. Since TIG welding is a lot of tapping your head/rubbing your stomach type action, I concentrated on one element at a time and then moved onto another factor. Proper setup, moving comfortably, puddle control and heat, torch distance, torch speed and finally dipping robotically. After (3) hours of constinous TIG welding I was doing pretty well (as long as it was thick gauge, stainless steel coupons on my welding bench:laugh But this procedure has helped me to learn and preform a lot of trades pretty well, pretty quickly.

To answer your questions:
I hold the torch like a pencil with my thumb middle and pointer finger and use my ring and pinky to steady and keep distance. In some positions I'll hold like a hammer. I always try to drape the cord over my lap or shoulder to keep the weight off my hand. That cord bundle isn't all that heavy until you're trying to maintain an 1/8" or shorter gap for a weld bead. I like to hold the rod like I was dangling of piece of string and sort of lay it across my palm and tap with wrist action, though that's just how I feel comfortable and comfort is the difference between an okay weld and great weld sometimes.

Short answer hold the gun as close as you can without sticking the tip in or having the molten melt draw to it. This was actually the hardest thing for me to learn. Just make sure you grind that tip, never ever even try to run a bead with a contaminated tip. It' useless.
I run gas at about 15. Works fine for me.
Quite the contrary. Your eye/ hand coordination and sense of fine movement should be better from doing mig and stick then someone who never was behind a shield before. It just takes time, but TIG is the caddillac of welding my friend. Once you make your first stack of dimes . . . well it's a good feeling.
Practice straight lines. I've only had to weave once (because our new guy doesn't know how to tack things properly yet).
Wouldn't spend too much time behind a book, get behind a torch and practice. I've been TIG welding a few times a week at the shop since learning and I'm still just a novice by some of these guys standards. But I wont get any better by reading about it. It takes a day or two to learn and a decade to master I'm told.