The machine has alot to do with your success as well. I have only ever used junk tig welders at home.
Build Thread '83 T-top Coupe - Welding Holes in My Rear
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I am far from master, but I'd be leary about trying it upside down. Main reason being is that welding gas is heavier than air and will fall away from the weld if upside down. I cant confirm that is true, but that's my theory.
I’m going to give it a try when I weld the right side chassis support in.
I’ll send texts from the hospital on how it went.
That was me when I tried to hang a ceiling fan once, I concluded I was NOT an electrician!
Never done it myself, but my thoughts would be that the pressurized gas would offset that. I have seen YouTube videos of guys doing it, but can't really say.
Joe
I have never had a problem Tig welding upside down..... just turn the flow up some thats all I do. Also make sure there is no air movement where the action is happening, that will ruin your welds.
Ok, truth be known, here's kind of what I was expecting from my first tig welding experience.
I was very close to that in real life, lol. I have a metal bench that I'm using for a welding bench as I learn to tig. It has a drawer in it that I was sure was empty. Well the neighbor across the street apparently decided to grill today without making sure I was okay with it. I smelled smoke and naturally I figured I lit the Murder House on fire, landlord isn't gonna like that.......
So I'm checking sht out, trying to find the source of the smell. I open the drawer and there's a nice full canister of butane I use for my mini-torches! It was right under where I was welding! Moral of the story, don't be a moron, moron's die in explosions like this.
I went to HF and got a cheap set of tig gloves, I tried with the mig gloves and couldn't manipulate the filler rod at all. $10 with a 20% off coupon. Much easier to work with.
Here's the results of my initial experience. The piece of metal with the holes blown in it was my learning experience that the pedal control completely overrides the amperage control on the welder. When you put your foot down on the pedal, you get full current running to the torch. Notice how long the hole is? That took maybe a millisecond to do, lol!
I dirtied up the tungsten electrode maybe about twelve times before I learned not to dip into the puddle. You see, I already knew not to do that, but I did it anyhow because I'm not your average stupid.
The second piece of metal is where I really just tried to start focusing on moving the torch smoothly and dabbing the filler material. I got better as I went along. Trying to separate what my left hand is doing from my right helped. I kept raising the angle that I dabbed the filler rod in almost like the slight (15*) angle of the torch as I went along, kind of hard to hit the puddle at that angle! lol! Though you can consistently hit the electrode.
I think I like the foot pedal more than the finger switch at the torch. I like being able to control the amount of current in the weld.
Not terribly bad for my first try.
I'm going to practice more over the next couple weeks with different thickness of metal and different sized electrodes and filler rods. I like tig welding A WHOLE LOT MORE than mig. No sparks and mess like that.
I had to go to my storage unit to get my belt sander to clean up the dirty tungsten. While I was there I looked at Booger for awhile. The flared quarters may be out. I'm getting a little melvinized about keeping the original lines of the car now.
The right quarter still has the ugly bodywork issues though that will take work. I do still have the skin from the donor junk door. I can use pieces of it to section the damaged front lower part.
So, no Booger in the garage yet. I'm going to try to get this tig thingy down a bit more first.
I was very close to that in real life, lol. I have a metal bench that I'm using for a welding bench as I learn to tig. It has a drawer in it that I was sure was empty. Well the neighbor across the street apparently decided to grill today without making sure I was okay with it. I smelled smoke and naturally I figured I lit the Murder House on fire, landlord isn't gonna like that.......
So I'm checking sht out, trying to find the source of the smell. I open the drawer and there's a nice full canister of butane I use for my mini-torches! It was right under where I was welding! Moral of the story, don't be a moron, moron's die in explosions like this.
I went to HF and got a cheap set of tig gloves, I tried with the mig gloves and couldn't manipulate the filler rod at all. $10 with a 20% off coupon. Much easier to work with.
Here's the results of my initial experience. The piece of metal with the holes blown in it was my learning experience that the pedal control completely overrides the amperage control on the welder. When you put your foot down on the pedal, you get full current running to the torch. Notice how long the hole is? That took maybe a millisecond to do, lol!
I dirtied up the tungsten electrode maybe about twelve times before I learned not to dip into the puddle. You see, I already knew not to do that, but I did it anyhow because I'm not your average stupid.
The second piece of metal is where I really just tried to start focusing on moving the torch smoothly and dabbing the filler material. I got better as I went along. Trying to separate what my left hand is doing from my right helped. I kept raising the angle that I dabbed the filler rod in almost like the slight (15*) angle of the torch as I went along, kind of hard to hit the puddle at that angle! lol! Though you can consistently hit the electrode.
I think I like the foot pedal more than the finger switch at the torch. I like being able to control the amount of current in the weld.
Not terribly bad for my first try.
I'm going to practice more over the next couple weeks with different thickness of metal and different sized electrodes and filler rods. I like tig welding A WHOLE LOT MORE than mig. No sparks and mess like that.
I had to go to my storage unit to get my belt sander to clean up the dirty tungsten. While I was there I looked at Booger for awhile. The flared quarters may be out. I'm getting a little melvinized about keeping the original lines of the car now.
The right quarter still has the ugly bodywork issues though that will take work. I do still have the skin from the donor junk door. I can use pieces of it to section the damaged front lower part.
So, no Booger in the garage yet. I'm going to try to get this tig thingy down a bit more first.
Honestly just looking at your welds-I would have though you had previous experience running a tig welder. They look pretty good dave
It’s fun Scott.
I’ll spend an hour a night for the next week with steel. Maybe I’ll try aluminum next for things like overflow tanks and such.
It would be pretty neat to make those things to the exact dimensions I want.
having foot pedal control is awesome, I have been doing all of my projects with a stick welder converted to a tig... scratch start with a tig is fun..
So, this is a tig welding thread for a bit. Youtube has been nothing short of being my welding god as of late.
I took that coupon (that's what they call those little pieces of practice metal) that i've been practicing just plane old beads on and cleaned it up at work. I forgot I had these other chunks there as well. More practice coupons!
Here's the lying picture of how my welds started out for fillet welds. I would have these moments that I had a idiot savant talent for tigging.
Mostly though, I was more idiot and quite a bit less savant.
Not to be real harsh on myself though, these fugly welds taught me a bunch. About several things for tig welding; heat control, filler rod size and type, tungsten tip shaping, movement of the torch (speed and distance), etc, etc, yada, yada......
One thing i learned, it's much easier tigging with the proper filler rod size. I only had 1/16 rod, I stopped at HF and picked up some 3/32 today. GEEZ what a difference! Here's the difference between the 1/16 and 3/32.
When I was welding with the 1/16 filler it had a tendency to melt before i could reach the puddle with it. The coupons are so thick that they need a fair amount of heat to develop a nice weld puddle. It was proving too much for the filler.
Here's a picture of the coupon with some 1/16 filler beads and some 3/32 filler beads. Quite a bit of difference.
I took that coupon (that's what they call those little pieces of practice metal) that i've been practicing just plane old beads on and cleaned it up at work. I forgot I had these other chunks there as well. More practice coupons!
Here's the lying picture of how my welds started out for fillet welds. I would have these moments that I had a idiot savant talent for tigging.
Mostly though, I was more idiot and quite a bit less savant.
Not to be real harsh on myself though, these fugly welds taught me a bunch. About several things for tig welding; heat control, filler rod size and type, tungsten tip shaping, movement of the torch (speed and distance), etc, etc, yada, yada......
One thing i learned, it's much easier tigging with the proper filler rod size. I only had 1/16 rod, I stopped at HF and picked up some 3/32 today. GEEZ what a difference! Here's the difference between the 1/16 and 3/32.
When I was welding with the 1/16 filler it had a tendency to melt before i could reach the puddle with it. The coupons are so thick that they need a fair amount of heat to develop a nice weld puddle. It was proving too much for the filler.
Here's a picture of the coupon with some 1/16 filler beads and some 3/32 filler beads. Quite a bit of difference.
So, here's a couple pictures of my "dime stacking" ,lol.
I forgot to take my coupons to work today for their cleaning, so a lot of these welds are just reshaping the previous welds and adding a little filler. The couple picture above I'm trying to show areas that were just regular welds developed with filler.
I'll get better with my welds. I still am practicing everyday.
Here's another one of what I think is called a fillet joint(?).
Not real sexy yet, I'll get there.
I forgot to take my coupons to work today for their cleaning, so a lot of these welds are just reshaping the previous welds and adding a little filler. The couple picture above I'm trying to show areas that were just regular welds developed with filler.
I'll get better with my welds. I still am practicing everyday.
Here's another one of what I think is called a fillet joint(?).
Not real sexy yet, I'll get there.
It’s actually pretty fun Scott.
It does take patience.
The welding videos on YouTube have been invaluable to me. I’ve watched the beginners ones several times.
I’d love to be good enough to weld roll cages and the sort.
The fabrication series channel is pretty good from what I have watched.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcxlBLmujrjTVSSUkzZ2Jlg
Keep up the good work!
Joe
Yeah Joe, I’m already subscribed there. Wonderful source of help.
There’s a young fella called Kid Kane that just has incredible talent welding, look him up.
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