I finally found some success with TIG!

[Janderso]

I have an older 250 syncrowave and was running beads every night for months on stainless ali and mild steel , didn't seem to improve much until I started actually welding real projects mostly out of position, and who new ! Something clicked I can tig and love it!

“Out of position “
That’s quite the challenge.
Holding the tungsten at a proper angle/distance, feathering the pedal and feeding consistency is challenging enough.
Trying to do these steps out of position seems impossible.
But, it’s done and done well.

 

[brino]

Your welds look great Jeff.
I would be so happy to produce ones like that.

Brian

 

[Walt]

“Out of position “
That’s quite the challenge.
Holding the tungsten at a proper angle/distance, feathering the pedal and feeding consistency is challenging enough.
Trying to do these steps out of position seems impossible.
But, it’s done and done well.

Your welds look pretty good to me! Thanks for sharing.

Some recent milestones for me:
-Struggling with longer beads, I decided to go back to basics and try to move a puddle along without adding filler. Without the filler rod in my way, I was able to see where I was going better. I also figured out why I have struggled to slide my torch hand. It seems obvious now, but I didn't realize that you can't rest your arm weight on your torch hand for longer beads. Somehow, I didn't understand that the torch hand pinky is only touching down as a height gauge. My filler technique is still pretty poor, but separating out the problems has at least allowed me to make progress on one issue!

-A totally useless project, at least from a time and money proposition taught me a really useful technique. I have a cutter-mattock head that I wore out. Rebuilding the tool by adding weld along the cutting edges seemed outside my skills, and it sure started out that way. Most of what I initially added on either ran off the sides, or was riddled with pores. I ground off everything I added for the first week or more. A revelation came in the form of realizing that the pores were the result of inadequate shielding gas volume, and I fixed that by going to a larger cup along with higher gas pressure. I was able to get the bead to stay on top of the edge by turning down the amps, and using the foot pedal to establish a minimum puddle, add just enough heat to melt filler, then to taper off as the heat builds along the length of the bead.

Walt

 

[rwm]

The weld beads look great! But I am confused about what is going on here. What is the base metal? Silicon bronze is a brazing metal and ER70S is MIG wire?

 

[Walt]

The weld beads look great! But I am confused about what is going on here. What is the base metal? Silicon bronze is a brazing metal and ER70S is MIG wire?

Bronze is indeed brazing filler. It would typically be used to build instead of join. ER70 S2 is a common filler for TIG.

 

[rwm]

Bronze is indeed brazing filler. It would typically be used to build instead of join. ER70 S2 is a common filler for TIG.

Yep. Sorry, I misread the ER70 in my head. That's actually what all my TIG wire is!
I have never been impressed by TIG brazing. It's just to easy to melt a small amount of the base metal and ruin the joint.

 

[ltlvt]

Looks good Jeff, as others have said practice is a lot of it. And trust me I need pratice. Not only practice, but there sure are a lot of setting that can make it more difficult. I need to practice with pulse.

Anyway, your welds looks really nice!

I just got the foot pedal out and cleaned all the mud dauber nest out of it. Been about 20 years since I used it. got them all cleaned out and verified the pedal is working. But can't seem to get enough amps until I press the pedal all the way down. I've called Miller and went thru all the blah blah blah with their tech rep. Still not performing the way I think it should. Could just be me cause I am old and been a long time since I did a lot of tig work. I made my living tig welding all kinds of metals 50 years ago. Now Tri-focals makes a good welder into a S-itty welder. It's really frustrating when you know how but can't perform. Kind of like getting married at age 72. Might as well skip the Honeymoon. LOL BTW I am using a Miller Econotig machine. Max is 130 amps on TIG Electrode Negative. Just trying to weld 1/8" mild steel.