Miller Electric

Poor condition of your tungsten can be compared to putting bad gas in your car; it’s that simple. TIG or GTAW is a precision process that requires attention to all areas in the system, but the tungsten is the last piece that the electrons flow from, and if it is not maintained in a sharp or clean condition, it will affect the arc. Two of the most important areas are arc staring and directional control, which can have an effect on increased heat input when it is critical to keep this as low as possible. Whatever you do, take the time to recondition your tungsten if you touch it to the work of the fill material.

Mark Kadlec, Welding Technician
TIG Product Development

Ben Romenesko, Miller MIG product manager, walks through the process for replacing your MIG gun liner in the video below. For more welding tips from Miller, visit the Racing, Customizing, Restoring page on MillerWelds.com.

Paint, rust and mill scale are your enemy. Clean the joint area before welding with a grinder/sander, wire brush or other metal cleaner. Keep wire in a clean, dry place when you’re not welding. Contaminants on your wire lead to poor welds.

Establish a good ground connection and always check your cable condition. Loose or bad connections, or poor cables, will cause heat. That heat is a loss of welding current you should be using at the arc. You can’t jump start a car with a lamp cord, so don’t weld with one either. A welder needs heavy cables in good condition to weld effectively. Also, don’t forget to change contact tips. They are NOT made of gold and they DO wear out. Also keep them tight and check them often as they will naturally loosen up from heating and cooling.

Until next time,
Andy Weyenberg
Motorsports Marketing Manager

Many people ask…why or when should I use a gas lens? The main reason is to allow you to flood the area you are welding with the best possible gas coverage to ensure you are reducing the possibility of oxygen contamination. Another great use of the gas lens is reaching difficult areas that need to be welded. A good example of this is a tight cluster of tubing that you may encounter on many of today’s sport utility and race vehicles. By this, I mean that it allows you to stick out the tungsten much farther while still maintaining gas coverage to access these hard-to-reach areas (see photos).

When MIG welding steel – you can push or pull, just stay consistent. Changing from a push to a pull during a weld will affect weld penetration and appearance. This is because it normally takes a slight change in wire speed when changing from pushing the gun to pulling it. Also, the angle of the gun determines if the weld wire is hitting the colder edge of the puddle (as in a push angle) or pointing to the hotter part of the puddle (pulling). The pull will give you deeper penetration, so if you are welding thinner material, use the push method to prevent burn through.

When you’re TIG welding, push the torch at a 10- to 15-degree angle, whenever possible. And never pull a TIG torch. This makes sure you have proper gas coverage and cleaning of the weld zone. If you pull the torch, it will cause the weld bead to appear black and contaminated.

Until next time,
Andy WeyenbergMotorsports Marketing Manager

If the plasma arc extinguishes while trying to cut, it could be that the arc has not transferred and the plasma cutter still thinks it is in pilot mode. While in pilot mode the plasma cutter will limit how long the machine is on for safety reasons.

In order to ensure that the arc transfers to the workpiece and into cut mode, make sure that there is a good connection from the work clamp to the workpiece. Grind off any rust or paint in a small area, and hook up the work clamp to that spot. The plasma arc can cut through paint and rust, but the work clamp needs to have contact with bare metal.

Also remember that electricity is lazy and takes the path of least resistance. Make sure that the torch is close to the workpiece. All Miller plasma cutters come standard with a drag shield on the torch, so go ahead and drag the shield on the piece you are cutting. The drag shield provides the optimized standoff height for cutting.

Brian Brown
Engineering Technician, Plasma Products

Already made your New Year’s resolutions? Why not add one more…

Give your welder a “once over” checkup.  This is something you should be doing on a regular basis, but usually gets overlooked.  While you have a little time before the race season starts up, these are the most common and easiest things to look at to keep your welder happy.

• Inspect and tighten all cables including the ground clamp.
• Inspect gas hoses and connections.
• A good blow out will keep your machine running cool and prevent conductive metal dust from messing with internal connections.
• Check the condition of the gun cable on your MIG welder for cuts in the rubber casing.
• Check and tighten the contact tip and adapter.
• Check the gun liner by making sure the wire pulls through the gun freely when the drive roll tension arm is released.
• Check the drive rolls for wear and alignment with the wire/groove.
• Inspect the torch cables and back cap on your TIG welder for cracks, and check the o-ring.
• Check, add or change your TIG coolant if you’re gun is water-cooled.
• Stock up on all your consumables now instead of when it’s too late and you need them.

Until next time,

Andy Weyenberg
Motorsports Marketing Manager

When TIG welding steel, grind your tungsten to a point using a fine grit grinding wheel dedicated ONLY to tungsten. Grinding anything else on that wheel can cause the tungsten to become contaminated. Make sure that both the weld joint area and the filler metal are clean, since dirt can cause arc instability and contaminated welds.

You have a variety of TIG tungsten types to choose from, each color-coded for easy identification. You can find a more detailed description of tungsten types and their uses here, but it’s important to remember that Ceriated tungsten can withstand higher temperatures. A 2 percent thoriated (red band) is ideal for use with steels and pure (green band) is ideal for aluminum. This is true UNLESS you have an Inverter type TIG machine. Most Inverter-type TIG units can run a sharpened two percent Thoriated or Ceriated (orange band) for EVERYTHING.

Until next time,

Andy Weyenberg
Motorsports Marketing Manager

TIG welding is considered a bit more difficult than MIG welding but with a few tips, like the ones below, you’ll be making some good looking beads in no time at all!

With the Miller Diversion™ 180 TIG welder, you must first set the machine for the material to be welded. Check the thickness by color code and set the amperage for that material size.

Common mistakes include attempting to begin the weld before you have a puddle, the filler rod is too large for the material being welded and failure to use the correct tungsten size and type for the material.  Last but not least is the improper joint fit up of the base material.

Check out the TIG welding calculator available at MillerWelds.com/mobile for suggested settings. Note that all suggested settings will be approximate. Welds should be tested to comply to user specifications.

Brad Hemmert
TIG Weld Engineer

Sometimes when TIG welding, the tungsten will draw some contaimination which causes hard starting. Here, we show you one easy way to fix the problem and get a better arc start!

Watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2_kWSG0RBg

Thanks,

Andy Weyenberg
Motorsports Marketing Manager