Tig bead good or bad

[tigman250]

forgot are you running a pulse?

[3faze]

Ya its hot rolled because when I weld on one side of it you can flip it over and you can see where the scale has come off, no I am not using pulse. I think that I have some heavier steel around and I might try and lay a few beads on it. Thanks again for your help

[tigman250]

Ya its hot rolled because when I weld on one side of it you can flip it over and you can see where the scale has come off, no I am not using pulse. I think that I have some heavier steel around and I might try and lay a few beads on it. Thanks again for your help

are you removing the scale from where you are welding?

[3faze]

When I prep the metal i take a wire brush (manual) then I use some scotchbrite on it and then I wipe it down with a clean cloth so I don't think that this removes the scale? After a weld I only see where the scale has peeled off on he back of the weld not on the front so I am a bit confused.

[wb5jhy]

I don't think your removing the mill scale. Use a coarse grit sanding pad or flapper on a 4-1/2" grinder and get down to shiny metal. Then degrease the bead area. You'll find the puddle forms easier and the bead will wet in nicer with less trash in the bead.
I think the main problem is you either have too much heat (amps) or your dwelling too long over the puddle or taking too long to add filler. I'll bet most of the bead is glowing orange after you finish the bead run. Also ramp down the amperage as you approach the end of the workpiece to avoid burning back the base metal at the finish end of the bead.

Tom

[3faze]

All your advice has definatly paid off and I ground the piece of steel down to bare metal and I set my amperage a bit on the low side to make sure that I didn't overheat the weld. I cleaned everything as best I could and the weld I made was pretty (no pictures right now). The bead was straight and the puddle was the same size during the whole weld. I didn't space the dips as far apart as I wanted to but all the ripples are pretty uniform so I think that it will be fairly easy to simply space the ripples furthur apart. I also think that I need to make the movement between each dip as smooth and steady as possible to reduce any small ripples between the dips. Overall I am very happy and your input and help has been awsome. My argon regulator is currently reading 0 but I am still getting adequate flow so there must still be some argon left in the tank. I am considering geting a gas lense and wanted to know what you think about them and what difference they will make in the weld.

Although I am only 15 I might try and get some sort of a job where so some work ie cleaning cutting grinding what ever needs to be done in return for someone helping me to fine tune my tig welding. I think that the only chance (if any) of this working out would be if I got something going in a smaller 2 or 3 man shop because I doubt that a larger shop would go for this idea (underage liability issues). Anyway what do you guys think of this idea and how should I got about finding if a shop is a small or large one? Do I just phone them up and ask them is they are a large or small shop of how many employes do they have? Any input would be great Thanks

[Bmxin^Bjorn]

hey 3 phase....how long have you been tig welding? What machine do u have? and does it work well? I am looking into getting myself a tig of my own.

[tigman250]

The bead was straight and the puddle was the same size during the whole weld. I didn't space the dips as far apart as I wanted to but all the ripples are pretty uniform so I think that it will be fairly easy to simply space the ripples furthur apart. I also think that I need to make the movement between each dip as smooth and steady as possible to reduce any small ripples between the dips. Overall I am very happy and your input and help has been awsome. My argon regulator is currently reading 0 but I am still getting adequate flow so there must still be some argon left in the tank. I am considering geting a gas lense and wanted to know what you think about them and what difference they will make in the weld.

you just said it all right there, i wouldn't worry about trading labor for lessons at this point. don't get me wrong live lessons are the best hands down but with your progress and what you said in the above statement i think you would benifit just as much by getting your argon refilled and spend some hours under your hood! you know what you want it to look like now you just need the experiment time to find out how to get where you want to go. as far as the gas lens i have never used one, i would like to pick a few up just to try them though, mabey my next trip to the LWS i will grab some.

oh yeah, i said i would throw down some welds if i rembered....well i did believe it or not! so here they are.

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/1531/hpim09510av.jpg
this one is on a piece of 16 ga square tube (couldn't find any sheet scrap) used 1/16" filler
http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/5748/hpim09605ot.jpg
this one is on a piece of 14 ga sheet
http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/539/hpim09575sf.jpg
last but not least a fillet connecting the 16 ga to the 14 ga

these aren't perfect by any means the fillet was a bit undercut and the 16 ga flat weld has some crows feet but just something for you to look at i guess

[3faze]

Tigman250 thanks a ton for the pictures you are an awsome tig welder I was just wondering approximatly how much amps were you using on the 16 guage weld? Any also approximatly how wide is that weld? Once again thanks for your help I will try and get some pics off before I head off to florida

Federal I took a tig course in grade 8 at the local community college, I failed because I had to leave to go on vacation and missed the final test. I retook the course in grade 9 and got an A+ . I then bought a cheap oxyacet set up for the garage because it is very similar to tig welding and helped me to make sure that I didn't forget how to tig weld I am currently in grade 10 and convinced my parents to bu me a tig machine. I got a dynasty 200dx about 1 month ago, awsome machine I had used the 300dx at the local college so I knew that the dynasty line up had amazing arc quality and stability.

You will probibly want to go with an inverter because it has low amp draw( my dynasty 200dx draws aout 30 amps 230volt at full power compared to the syncrowave 200 whick draws 58 at full power) cheack out ta185 , dynasty 200dx and htp 201 and cheack out some past posts

Welcome to the forum and make sure you post some pictures

[tigman250]

Tigman250 thanks a ton for the pictures you are an awsome tig welder I was just wondering approximatly how much amps were you using on the 16 guage weld? Any also approximatly how wide is that weld? Once again thanks for your help I will try and get some pics off before I head off to florida

how many amps....lets see..... LOL i don't know i set it at 250 and used the foot pedal to get the desired heat. the flat weld is a bit less than 1/8" the fillet is about 1/8" or a bit more and the flat weld on the thicker material is 3/16" wide. you lucky dog i wish i was going to Fla! good luck and have a safe trip!