3 BAD HABITS of tig welding FIXED

okay do you want to learn to get flying with TIG welding properly today here we're gonna get you some great results there's three major things that we want to avoid with what we're doing because these three bad habits are sneaky and they are hard to get rid of so we're gonna go over those so you know what they are how to avoid them so you can get some crazy results with your welding and believe me tip number three is a doozy stick around for that one all right the first bad habit here today that we need to avoid this is a term that I teach my students called standoff drifting this is not the cool kind of drifting take a look at this example here you can see that as I am setting up for a pass here look at the distance from the tip of my tungsten to the work piece this is a term that I teach my students called standoff distance it can also be called Arc Length Arc distance all kinds of stuff whatever you get the idea tip of the tungsten to the work piece now what is very common when somebody is starting to get going with TIG welding is they will get comfortable and ready for the beginning of a pass we can see right here the amount of standoff distance is perfect for what they're set up to do but what happens is when they start welding and and they start advancing their past they begin to slowly Drift Away steadily increasing the standoff distance now this is something that is super common when I'm teaching people to First learn how to TIG weld as you start to drift away this is going to cause your gas flow to start to become insufficient and more importantly we're going to lose the focus and quality of your Arc we want the arc to be in focused nice and tight on the area that we are aiming at this is what's going to give you the best stability with your Arc and it's going to help to focus your heat perfectly into the base material so we get better penetration as we start to drift away we can actually see the arc start to flicker you see that right there this is the arc losing the focus that we wanted to keep on the area that we are aiming at the arc flickering like this away from the target this is a term that is called Arc deflection obviously we can see a ton of bad things that are going to happen if we start to drift away from the work piece so alright how do we fix it now teaching the students in my online TIG welding program this is something that we take care of early in the program with specific exercises geared to get rid of this problem now you usually the number one cause of this problem happening is bad Comfort or bad posture typically what happens is somebody gets set up nice and comfortable for the beginning of each pass and as they light up start their pass and then begin to move as they start to move they become more and more uncomfortable and eventually start drifting away now in my program I teach my students how to set up and get comfortable properly and they're going to find a way that works with whatever they are doing and it's also going to help them to find a way so they can see clearly no matter what exercise they are doing as they Advance through a past they're not going to experience any change in Comfort at all so as we are traveling we can maintain a good standoff distance good technique and good visibility the entire time now typically what I teach my students is to avoid a term that we go over in the program called restrictive hand posture take a look at this clip here we can see that my hand is now anchored to the table I may be comfortable here but as I start to travel I only have a couple of inches where I can comfortably move at this point where I become comfortable my hand May begin to shake or whatever or I will be forced to fly my hand slide my hand cool or I will be forced to slide my hand personally I hate sliding my hand even after over 20 years of production TIG welding and all the schooling I could get for it no matter how much I get set up to slide my hand along something my hand always gets caught on something stupid or I may run into a little bump or something my hand becomes a little bit shaky or unstable I do not want that so here's what I teach my students instead we're gonna move the work piece a little further from the edge of the table a little bit and what we are going to do is we're going to position with about mid forearm making contact with the edge of the table instead of our hand now that you can see as I am pivoting on this spot instead of my hand here this spot here allows me much more range of comfort so as I'm traveling I'm going to be able to see much more clearly and maintain comfort what I typically recommend my students do is take a video of themselves welding from the side when they're welding and they're not thinking about it they can see how their body is is being positioned when you look at what you're doing you should look comfortable you should see something that looks like this here this dude looks super comfortable but we do not want to see is something like this here what the heck is going on here do not be crunched up with terrible posture back is gonna get sore sit with good posture and make sure that as you advance through a pass you can travel comfortably this tip is a super important one but this next tip tip number two here is super super annoying honestly simply because it is something that can be taken care of so easily if you catch it early and this is avoiding practicing passes that are too long when somebody has a joint that's set up perfectly and they set up to run the bead a lot of times people will have a nice consistent start everything will be flowing real good and they decide since everything's going so well let's just keep going through the whole thing now what happens is trying to get to the end of a weld tons of things like we've already talked about with comfort and being able to see clearly are going to start to diminish and what typically happens is somebody starts to reach the end of a pass things are going to look completely different by the end than they did at the big beginning of the pass now what I teach in my program is to break things down into smaller passes I would rather a student run a past that's like a third as long as that but when they set up to do it they're able to do a perfectly 10 out of 10 times obviously doing stuff in one super long perfect looking past is totally awesome but please cut yourself some slack make things manageable for yourself while you are learning break your passes into smaller runs like we just talked about something like this here we can bust into three separate passes instead of one and here's one of the other most important things that we're learning by doing this one of the most important things that we practice in the program is perfecting your starts we have a ton of really important things that we have to establish well at the beginning this is absolutely the most important part of every weld by breaking things down into smaller passes like this here we get more chances at perfecting your starts this is going to make the most out of your practice time and it's going to save you a ton of practice material now this is something that all of my students learn early in the program they get everything established perfectly at the start they're able to maintain perfect posture and perfect Comfort the entire time and then what happens is they start to get more and more comfortable and more confident with their welding after a few different exercises this is when we can start to increase the distance makes a heck of a lot more sense at this point right cut yourself some slack get the most out of your practice material and time all right I would say for everybody that I have trained and taught to TIG weld this is probably the most common thing that I see people deal with and this is feeding your filler material incorrectly when somebody is practicing they spend so much time focusing and trying to learn how to manipulate the torch but let me ask you what about the other hand that poor filler material hand needs some attention too so here's what we need to pay attention to typically what is going to happen is somebody is going to get set up to start running a pass like you see here but then what happens is somebody starts to advance the welding pass this sneaky hand is going to start to get closer and closer now what's gonna happen is this is going to either get in the way so you can't see properly or even worse it's gonna start to burn your fingertips I would argue that this is probably the most important thing somebody should get comfortable with when they first start to learn like I said everybody focuses on the torch hand not a lot of focus goes into the filler hand so let's take care of it right now so this is something that people can learn without even putting the welding helmet on on this is something we go over a lot more in depth in my program but this is definitely one of the most effective ways to learn how to properly handle and feed the filler material first of all you need to decide what grip works best for you typically this is the type of grip that I prefer to use I find it gives me the less amount of hand fatigue after welding for long hours but tons of people use different grips find whatever is comfortable for you so one of the most effective ways to properly feed the filler material is to get anchored to your workstation in the exact posture you're going to beat while you're welding we already talked about kind of trying to do this with the torch hand but look at the filler hand here now it will be out of the way so I can see clearly right around that thing and I'm going to hold the filler material with a somewhat loose and comfortable grip whatever grip you prefer just make sure you're not squeezing it with a death grip should be loose and comfy I highly recommend somebody learns how to feed the filler material all the way out and then feed it all the way back in remaining in a stable and comfortable posture learning to do this in both directions is going to help you to memorize this motion much more quickly being able to feed the filler material is absolutely imperative seriously this would absolutely be one of the first things that I teach somebody so if you are not comfortable doing this for yourself this is absolutely one of the most important things I would work on personally I find a lot of people have a little more trouble learning with a filler Rod when the diameter of the rod is a little thinner I usually find that the filler material is a little bit more flimsy this is why when working with aluminum I prefer to work with 1 8 of an inch or 3.2 millimeters it's going to feel a little bit more solid in your hand I give a bunch of reasons in episodes before where I actually talk about why I prefer to do this but it's actually one of the most simple things is basically saying you're gonna feel it in your hand more when you're learning you definitely want the best dexterity you can get good gloves but using a diameter with a little bit more weight to it you're going to be able to feel it in your hand a little better even if you're just using a bigger diameter just to learn how to feed it properly that's totally cool I just really really recommend learning this first so if you are getting set up to run a joint and you are running the torch over it with dry passes like this here and you can't effectively Chase it with your filler material like I am here you should probably get set up and a little more comfortable with this before you start running any longer passes these are going to be things that are certainly the most important things that you should focus on when you start learning make sure these bad habits do not start to happen now figuring out your TIG welding machine is another huge thing that holds a lot of people back so this episode here is going to teach you exactly what to pay attention to on your machine and nothing else that's going to get you set up and running some really nice and clean stuff very quickly do random act of kindness for a stranger today my name is Dusty Phil and show we will talk soon peace

Channel: Pacific Arc Tig Welding

Views: 32,317

Keywords: tig welding, tig, welding, tigwelding, tig welding aluminum, tig welding stainless steel, tig welding steel, tig welding stainless, tig welding aluminium

Id: d5pQTGq-OTk

Length: 10min 3sec (603 seconds)

Published: Fri May 05 2023