TFS: All About TIG Torches

tig torches we have lots and lots and lots of TIG torches now you might want to take the time at the intro place to grab something to take some notes with because we are going to talk all about TIG torches in this episode you [Music] all right we got a lot of ground to cover on this one but I first must absolutely give a huge shout out to seek a worldwide for generously providing the torches used in today's episode now I do own a lot of welding machines I do own a lot of torches but I do not own this many torches or use this many different variants and variables for you guys to learn on so humongous thank you to seek a world wide for sending these out so we could use them and show you guys everything you need to know about TIG torches now they are also an approved product and I do use CK worldwide here in the shop which means I have links down below because they are recommended and you should definitely check that out once again thank you to CK worldwide second thing is the topics that we cover in this episode including the questions that we are answering are from viewers viewers that subscribed and rung the bell for notifications so when we put up the question what do you guys want to know about TIG torches we're answering all of their questions so if you want to be in on the next episodes future episodes and the exclusive content and the other stuff that we're planning for this season you need to subscribe you need to ring that Bell so that way you don't miss out and you get your questions answered here so moving right along without a doubt one of the most frustrating things to do regarding TIG torches is figuring out which one of them you need I mean we got different sizes we got different attachments we got different capabilities we got different possibilities different amperage ratings different consumables functions forums swivels and heads and flexes and honest it's just like total system overload right because there's so many different options well let's break it down to be as easy as it could possibly be there are two types of torches in this world we're not talking about the families or the sizes or anything like that there are two types of torches only two they are the air and gas cooled and the water cooled here we go let's take a look at a couple of torches here now you notice they look pretty much identical same size shape the whole works until that is we get the handles off of them and you notice there's a big difference hiding underneath those handles now if we're getting close here well notice that one of them has only a single line going in while the other actually has three lines going in now they are the same size and shape and all the rest of that good stuff but those three lines make the world of difference as far as capability is concerned one of these torches on runs on argon or has argon pumping through to keep it cool now some will argue and stipulate that the argon doesn't actually cool the torch but theoretically it's the only thing that pumps through and the welder does not work without it so therefore it actually does have a slight cooling effect though minimal it does actually cool it as you go now they do heat up you do have to take breaks and all the rest of that good stuff but theoretically it would be a lot hotter if you didn't have argon at all so technically it is how they are cooled now below we have our water cooler now the water cooler is a separate rig that pumps a coolant in and out of the torch that's dissipating all of the heat and allowing you to grip it for a lot longer before it heats up now this is all different how much you can actually run a torch and all the rest of that good stuff with and without a cooling unit etc etc and this is all variable it's up to say how long you run your weld how much amperage you have on it etc etc so either the way you slice it one of these accepts water or coolant the other one only accepts argon now the question is which one of these do you need or which one should you get or how do you identify which ones which there's a very very simple answer to that so you need to ask yourself do I have a water-cooled rig if the answer is yes you need a water-cooled torch if the answer is no you need an air-cooled or a gas cooled torch simple as it gets moving right along alright let's talk about the torch families now the torch family is generally identified by a universal number system that most manufacturers use that number dictates the size of the body the general amperage rating and the consumables it uses now this may get a little bit confusing but follow along we got you now we've got lots of different torches to look at tons of different options and accessories and all kinds of stuff but to make this really simple let's say forget about all that and just focus on the main families here now we're gonna exclude things like specialty torches and stuff like that so starting at the top we have a number twenty four nine seventeen twenty six twenty and eighteen these are your major torches or your major families now let's take the handles off and take a look at what each one of them is now a number twenty-four is an air or gas cool torch capable of about 80 amps it's one of the smallest and sighs great for getting into small places directly below that is a number nine which is very common torch which is also gas cooled and capable of about 125 amps directly below that is a very common torch which is the number 17 family it's capable of about 150 amps and is also gas cooled directly below that is number 26 torch this is a very large torch you see it often used in for doing things right around 200 amps or more or at least that's the capability about being only a gas cooled torch now below that we'll move into the water cooled family or the family that is cooled now the 20 which is the same size as the 9 is now capable of 250 amps due to the fact that it's water-cooled it's very small very lightweight very compact but very capable at 250 amps only when it's water-cooled directly below that is a number 18 torch the 18 is a combination of the 17 and the 26 family of course we'll get a little bit further into those in a minute but it is also a water-cooled torch capable of 350 amps now some people often ask if you can interchange a torch where you can take one family off and stick another family on well look carefully at each one of the threads the number 24 is a male threaded torch end so that means that you have to have a female line in order to screw it on but the nine and a 17 both use the same size threat so you can actually remove the number nine and exchange it with a 17 but those are the only two those you can actually swap out because if you look over the 26 that has a much larger female threat because it has to carry more amperage now out of all of those gas school torches the only ones that you can switch out of there on the 17 and the nine everything else has to have a separate line or a line that matches that thread if you look at our number 20 it has a very small male thread whereas our number 18 torch has a very large female thread so the best rule that you can follow here is if it has a similar thread or the same thread you can swap it out if it does not you have to change the entire line with it now generally speaking the torch type the torch family and the amperage rating associated with each family end type is the most difficult thing to figure out it's kind of like a foreign language but once you figure it out you're pretty much set and we've gotten this far but we're still not out of the pond yet we still have the very Rian's you notice that we have only a few different types and families but we have all of these additional options things that you can put on to it now a variant is an option and they're typically known as just only a few of them or a couple mix-and-match of each one of them the first one is our rigid torch rigid meaning it's stationary it doesn't do anything it doesn't flex it doesn't move it doesn't have a valve it has no attachments on it it's only a single line in or three lines if you have a water quilt set up and they are available in every single family it's basically your standard or basic bottom of the line simple torch as easy as a guest next one we have our flex head the flex head is exactly what it does in its name it flexes it moves it shifts it contorts it changes that shape shifts it does everything you can even turn it into a question mark there's a couple of famous welders that actually do just that the benefits the flex header being able to move it into positions where you can get into something like a corner or maybe doing some edge welds or you know on the inside corners or anything like that or just being able to see what you're doing from your point of view with nothing in the way it kind of Met allows you to relax your hand just a little bit more while moving the torch into a different spot very handy to have around there we'll get a little bit further in the Flex heads a minute the other one is a valve now we have two types of torches with valves on them it's rigid valves and flex valves now the valve is for turning the gas on and off manually now if you have a machine that doesn't have an internal solenoid for your gas control that's what the valve is for and we'll get into that a little bit later too but again we have these in rigid mount and we have these in flex mounts you can actually flex a valve head now different variables and variants of each one of them that's important to note on this one but how do you identify which one is which because you obviously don't want to go ahead and grab a hold of a rigid tool and break it off of there so how do you figure out which one is which first grab ahold of a TIG torch and have a look at the side of it right up on the neck this is usually where you find the part number or all of the information about the torch in this case we can see it says CK 9rg now CK is a prefix before the number that which usually is by the manufacturer or what they put on there to identify that it's their torch CK means it's a CK worldwide torch now the number is usually the family identifier in this case it's a number nine so it's a worldwide torch with a number nine family now with CK worldwide they usually put the actual type of torch on the side of it which is kind of cool and eliminates the guessing game so in this case you see RG which stands for rigid now this is a CK worldwide number nine family torch rigid meaning it doesn't flex doesn't have anything else attached to it no other options it's just a straight-up rigid baseline torch now not all of them are going to have rigid next to them or an indicator that it is rigid and of course not all of them are going to have anything before the number or any kind of manufacturer prefix in this case you see it's a CK 9rg but sometimes you'll just see nine sometimes you'll see absolutely nothing at all on some cheap torches it won't even have the number on the other end but let's look at another one now on this torch you can see it says CK 17 F X once again this is a seek a worldwide torch number 17 family FX stands for flex that means that it can do this now not every torch is going to have FX next to it or a lot of them are going to display it differently some of them will just basically say 17 F or some of them will have a F on it and then again of course the cheaper ones will have nothing so once again this is a CK worldwide torch 17 family FX meaning it's flexible or it's a flex head let's take a look at another one CK 26 v RG now following the same structure here this is a CK worldwide 26 torch V stands for valve RG meaning it's rigid or not flexible now if this was a flex head you would see CK a 26 v FX meaning that it is flexible now sometimes you'll see it just says 26 B or you know just has a V on it or sometimes you'll see it says 26 but it doesn't have anything on it but you can still see that there's a valve there's a lot of different ways this is actually written out here but basically speaking 26 V 26 FV or V F either way you slice it you pretty much know how to break them all down by now so let's see who knows their stuff and who's been paying attention if you know this part number and all about this torch go ahead and comment down below the most important thing to note on this one is if you do not see the letter for the designation of the option you might want to actually be very careful with it I've seen this happen a dozen times over the most obvious ones if you don't see a V but you see a knob on the top of it it's equipped with a valve so you don't always see the V the most important thing is the F if you have a rigid torch and it doesn't have an F on the end of it don't try to F it because it's gonna go from F to B which means broken and you're the one who's effed on it so if it doesn't say F don't try to F it there's a couple of things I want to touch on before we wrap it up a torches I answer some your questions and we move on to consumables one of those things is the specialty torches or specific torches that pretty much accomplish specific tasks or one that I really love to use especially in the fabrication world one of those is the seeking worldwide flex lock the flex lock basically means that this head will swivel 360 degrees in any direction lock itself in place and be used as any old regular TIG torch would the beauty of this is that you can position it in virtually any way direction position etc lock it in place and then you know weld it is a little awkward to get used to it first okay at the end of the day it is technically the exact same as any other torch when you line it up straight or if you line it up at an angle or if you do whatever it is that you do in any position that you stick it in it's literally the exact same as pretty much any other torch the only problem is it is visually awkward and when you press it put it into your hand it actually kind of slumps and moves a little bit this takes a little getting used to but for things like roll cages and tight joints and areas where I can't necessarily reach into it with a regular head or even a swivel head or anything like that there are so many different options in so many different ways I can manipulate and move this torch to achieve that welt so this is definitely one that you want to have in your arsenal if you do this one uses all of the seventeen style consumables we'll get into all of that the other one I use a lot is a pencil style torch or a straight torch now these are great for getting into areas like merge collectors inside of headers tight spaces where you can't necessarily see everything and have the space to move when you have something like a flex head so if you put these side-by-side you actually see that this one takes up a little bit less space than this one does so the pencil style torch is a great one to have and since most of what I weld with a pencil style torch is lower amperage or less than 130 amps I get the one with the number 9 series consumables into it or at least it's a number son 9 size pencil torch now they make these in different series different families and all the rest that good stuff but generally speaking for the Flex lock I like the number 17 style because it's higher amperage and for the pencil style I like the number 9 style because it's lower amperage the number 24 is also a good one to have for really tight spaces if you choose to use one of those but it's not very common that I encounter a situation where I need the 24 I usually just use the number 9 so now that we have a pretty good understanding of torches like what their size is how to identify them what they do how they do it what their amperage rating is and so on we can move on to things like consumables I mean after all what good is a torch if you have nothing attached to it if you can't even make a weld if you don't even have the tungsten in the collet so the back caps the cups and all the rest of that good stuff now most of this is actually for a totally different episode because we can get downright dirty and detailed on all of these consumables right but much like the torches themselves all of the consumables that you use have a few different variants in them and they also fit their families we have some that fit the 9 and 20 family we have some that fit the 17 18 26 family and we even have some that cross them over let's get onto that one now just like all the variants and variables and differences in the torches themselves we have quite a few to actually go over when it comes to the consumables so you might want to grab a hold of something do take some notes on and write this stuff down now notice here we only have two torches that are completely assembled that's because these consumables cross over to different families or they work with different families so on the left are assemble torch is the nine and twenty series so all these consumables fit all of the torches between the number nine and the 20 family on the right we have our 17 18 26 consumables that means that all the consumables fit the 17 torch the 18 torch and the 26 torch they're all exactly the same now down below on the immediate left we have what we call the crossover more famously known as the stubby lens that fits the 17 1826 style torches and crosses them over with some number nine moments with a few specific parts but before actually assembling all these and showing you the proper order in which they go and this layout here is pretty much it and I will say that I usually don't use any kind of gas lens other than the stubby kit for the 1718 26 styles because they're kind of outdated once you have the stubby kit on there it's really hard to use any standard consumables however for the 920 family I do have a gas lens and as well as the standard you can see both of them as I put them together so again to make this really easy let's just throw them all together here start by grabbing the torch itself and the collet body screw the collet body into the front end of the torch next to the insulator drop the collet inside of it the call it holds the tungsten choose the back cap small medium and large so either one up on the back of it feed the tungsten but leave enough to stick out so that way you get your cup on there and as soon as you snug down the back cap after setting your your tungsten tight we're good to go same rule applies with the larger torches or the number 17s just the consumables are a little bit larger so start with a collet body drop the collet down in the middle of it throw a back cap on it of your choice stick your tongue to the inside of it leave enough to stick out install your cup pretty simple after you set your stick up good to go now when it comes to switching out the standard lens for the gas lens you can simply remove the cup or you move the collet body after removing the tungsten remove the collet and the only thing we're switching out here is the collet body in the cup itself so the same call it goes back inside of it the same tungsten goes back inside of it a different collet body is attached to the top of it as well as a different Cup this is a cup for a gas lens much larger now on to number 17 stubby first removed the insulator a little screwdriver and pry up on the inside of it we'll pop it right off we'll put on the flat insulator that adapts a different cup to it install the 17 stubby kit as well as the 17 stubby collet and in this case I'm just going to throw a shorty back cap on the on the end of there just to kind of show you the difference between the two of them then we're gonna install our tungsten just the same as we did with any other one leave enough to stick out I'm gonna take a number 9 Cup and install it on the 17 stubby kit which uses the nine cups when you put one side by side you take its 17 stubby and a 17 regular that is a major difference it's a lot easier of a nipple 8 a lot easier to work compared to the number 9 it's pretty much the same size if not only slightly smaller so it's definitely something you want to have on your torch see see it's actually pretty simple once you get the lingo down you understand a little bit of the nomenclature you can pretty much figure out all the TIG torches and figure out which ones you have which ones you need and which ones you pretty much want to have to go through all of that but I do have a couple of questions that I'd like to address before we get out of here they were submitted by pretty much all the viewers very common ones that I've had over the years and all the rest of that good stuff well let's knock some of those out before we get out of here now this first question is actually rather surprising how often I receive it but it's actually is it better to learn on a flex head or a rigid head well let's just face it it's a lot nicer and it's a luxury to have this flex head but if you're first learning how to do it it is great to be comfortable and it's great to have that ability to do that but I do not believe in doing that I actually believe in starting with a rigid torch now this is a little bit cumbersome and it's difficult to learn how to run it into a tight joint like this but if you don't first learn how to manipulate a rigid torch and adjust it and change your grip so that you are comfortable without that flex head you'll be better off in the long run so I usually suggest starting out with a rigid torch before grabbing a hold of the Flex torch and it's just because it teaches you how to work around it or change your grip up when you need it next the most popular question is which torches do I use well here they are 17 flex number nine flex and number 18 flex lock these are the most popular torches are the ones I use the most in that order and then right after that comes which cups do you use well number five regular for aluminum if I want almost no etching line sometimes I'll use a gas lens number eight for just about everything number 12 for stainless steel really great cut by Furyk and also by Furyk and number 16 BTW for titanium those are what I use for tungsten just about always it's 332 or 2.4 millimeter either purple or pink and every great once in a while and I mean very rarely I have to do something super thin which I'll grab ahold of sin 1/16 and finally on the list of very very popular questions is which TIG torch fits my machine well let's break down a full assembly here which you can also usually buy these per machine but on one end you have commonly a dense 3550 connector you have a line that adapts to the machine and then on the business end where the torch is you have whatever torch you're using simply pull the handle off and look what's attached to it or how it it's attached 9 times out of 10 you can always just change the torch out of it but if you have to change the whole line you can either change out the line at the dense connector or find something that fits your machine specifically so that just about wraps it up for everything about TIG torches now if you've got any additional questions you can definitely toss them down in the comments box below you could always hit us up on the fabrication series.com website Instagram at the dot fabricator facebook.com slash the fabricator series and just about any one of our other social media outlets that you check the description down there to get in contact with us now once again thank you so much to CK worldwide for helping put this episode together make sure you check all the description below and everything else like that for the products that we recommend from CK worldwide it's not just take torches there's more so that's gonna wrap it up we'll see you guys on the next episode

Channel: The Fabrication Series

Views: 223,545

Rating: 4.9555202 out of 5

Keywords: TIG Torches, How to assemble a tig torch, everything about tig torches, tig torch differences, what is a tig torch, tig torch types, main tig torches, best tig torches, which tig torch, new tig torch, tig torch choices, pick a tig torch, top tig torches, tig torch comparrison, ck worldwide, ck tig torches, Season 4, The Fabrication Series, #TIGSimple, The Fabricator, #GetStrong

Id: 3KroGM5e1dE

Length: 21min 44sec (1304 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 29 2018