Basic Tig Tips

[Johnny88]

Hi,

I've recently bought myself a TIG welder and I'm teaching myself to weld. I've done a bit of Mig, Arc and oxy welding in high school (15yrs ago). I've been going ok but thought I would ask some professionals some tips on how i should go about teaching myself.

The main things I'm unsure on is how many amps to I need to make my welds. Is there some kind of matrix I can follow e.g. 5mm mild steel 50amp – 10mm mild steel 100amp.

Eventually i'd like to weld aluminum but will save those questions for another time… too many dials at the moment  🙂

Are there any books you'd recommend or websites that gives this information?

Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!

[Flash]

All good info there Gary
heres a bit more info FYI

https://welding.org.au/Technical%20pages/tigwelding.pdf
R
Flash

[cassgazz]

For welding ferrous steels – use either thoriated or lanthanated tungsten electrodes.
Sharpen the tungsten end to a point, the length of the point being appreximately 5mm long.
Have the point of the tungsten sticking out roughly 10mm past the ceramic shroud.
Turn the welding grade argon on before striking the arc.
The amount of amps required is a bit of trial & error. You want enough amps to form a decent weld pool, but not too many to blow through the parent 
    material.
If you’re right handed, the direction of travel will be right to left.
Add a dab of filler wire and slightly move forward, just enough to leave a nice weld bead. Continue repeating this for the length of the weld. Once again,
    this is a bit of trial & error.

Hope this is of some help.

Regards,
Gary

[Johnny88]

Thanks for the info Gary. Trail and error sounds like the way to go, good basic tips so thanks again.

Looks like i’ve got a bit of reading ahead of me with the link Flash although i just breezed over it, it looks like it has some good info in there… Thanks!

Just to ask another quick couple of questions…. when should I change the ceramic shroud and collet? And do you know of any evening courses in Sydney that specialise in Tig welding. I did an evening course but they only did Mig, Arc and Oxy, I’m yet to find a short Tig course.

[Flash]

Johnny
you replace the ceramic when it is broken, this generally only happens when you drop the hand piece, they should last for ages
you replace the collet when you over tighten the back cap and squash it, or if you have to change electrode size
only ever sharpening on end of the tungsten will help make the collet last longer

as for courses most the TAFEs run the – ask to do Basic TIG competency unit, if you run into problems I can give you a contact by PM that will point you in the right direction

Have fun

[pyro]

if your machine came with a foot controler or can get one thats compatible with your machine this will make learning alot easier as you can control the start / stop and amps  with your foot, freeing up your hand on the tig torch to be in a more comfortable position, also if you need more heat just put your foot down, to hot back it off ect.

[Flash]

Foot control ugh!!!!!
sorry pyro I do not agree *said politely*, I would think that a foot controller would just add something else to worry about
when you are learning set and forget is the way to go I reckon

But Hey thats what the Forum is about, listen to everyone and pick what works for you Johnny

I reckon before you even start learning to weld, learn to feed the wire through your none torch hand (with a glove on)

[costello]

Johnny

[nick561]

i have checked your link.Thanks for share this information.

[mkseogirl]

Its nice info thanks for sharing with us…

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