TIG Welding Basics: Lap Joints

hey guys welcome back to well comm so today we're gonna do a continuation of a video we did while back called gas tungsten arc welding 101 so in that video we explained you know what type of equipment to use different consumables for the torch dimmer things you want to consider when you're gonna go ahead and make a weld some bead on plate feed-in the filler metal today we're going to take it one step further and we're gonna do some lab joints so we're gonna do it Hajin this joint which is just a fancy word for fusion welding and then we're gonna do one with filler metal we're gonna use some eighth inch thick carbon steel plates we're gonna show you some little do's don'ts different tricks nuances techniques how to get comfortable and proficient with this process so the first thing we want to talk about is PPE so we obviously because the UV rays that are present with gas tungsten arc welding or any arc welding process we want to cover up any exposed skin so arms hands all that stuff if you're short haired fellow fellow like me you're gonna want a welding cap if you're a bald haired fellow like the are bald-headed fellow like the cameraman you're definitely gonna want to cap just cover you're great you know you want some protection up here you'd only get sunburned on top of your head the next thing gloves right we want to cover up our hands I prefer leather gloves I don't like to wear you know like the form-fitting synthetic fiber gloves that you can find at your auto parts stores just for the simple fact although this doesn't produce any sparks we're still gonna deal with hot metal so if you bump into a hot piece or on the table anything like that those synthetic fibers can melt and when they melt they're gonna go to they're gonna melt your skin you just want to avoid that so get some you know good good fitting leather gloves those are gonna help out a lot next thing I want to talk about is the whelming hood okay they're many like it but this one is mine yeah so if you refer back to the AWS document z 49.1 there's a lens shade chart in there and it's going to tell you what shade they recommend for the process you're gonna be using and amperes you're gonna be working with so today we're gonna be using gas tungsten arc welding process I'm gonna be running about 130 amps so between 50 to 150 amps they recommended 12 however the minimum you can get away with is an 8 I prefer to run with a shade 9 that's just me it's my personal preference the best rule of thumb is to start off with their shade that they recommend which would be the darkest setting and work your way back down that and just find out what's comfortable for you it's like I said shade 9 is pretty comfortable for me in addition to that we want to cover up our eyeballs right there's only two of them so we want to keep those as protected as possible so make sure you have approved safety glasses these are z87 point one rated safety glasses they fit the criteria they're polycarbonate so they also deflect UV rays make sure you got pants on your work boots you know you're gonna be in a shop don't be welded and uh board shorts and a t-shirt you can get away with weld sleeves as long as you have a thick enough cotton t-shirt behind there I have gotten you know UV burns or like a sunburn from wearing a white shirt while I was welding with weld sleeves on so I don't recommend that you know you live you learn you get over it so let's go ahead and we're gonna start off with we'll cover some of the consumables that are in here and then we'll get into the autonomy as well alright so the first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna build our torch so I have a 3/32 gas lens right here these things are great you can I mean you can get by with a standard collar body if that's what you have practice on those they're great but you know I mean if you're gonna start getting into more stuff I prefer gas lens get better shielding next thing we have a 3/32 call it okay this piece is gonna go in here in the back end and then what I prefer to do is go ahead and put my back cap on loosely at first and then I will put on my cup I have a number 7 right now you can get away you're going to use the number 6 as well but I have a 7 in my disposal the next thing is my tungsten I have a 3/32 III tungsten that I'm gonna be using I have a 30 degree grind i angle on here and I like to keep the grind angle a little bit lower for like thinner materials small edges for the simple fact that I have a smaller arc width on there you know if I wanted a wider arc width if I was doing some pipe or open route you know a wider bead I would go ahead and crank that out to a 60 degree angle gas lenses are great because I can have a much longer stick out however I prefer about the same diameter as my cup so I have a number 7 cup so I can stick out to about 7/16 I'll put that on there like I said you can get away with a much much more or much larger stick out this is just what I prefer to work with especially for this joint right here alright so one thing a lot of people don't consider especially when you're starting out the torch does have like a natural lay in them and you can you can fix that just by loosening up the the nutless in here loosening that up and just kind of rotating the torsion and tightening it in place you want it to sit relatively neutral so if I'm holding it you know relaxed that's roughly how I'm gonna hold in my hand it's gonna face straight up okay if it's pointing this way that means I have to grab it with my wrist and kind of fight that and you're gonna develop fatigue whether you realize it or not I mean you're not really holding much but if you're doing this for long periods of time you got to fight that torch to get it into that that work angle that you want or that travel angle that you want you don't have to fight it the whole time so just kind of loosen your torch up get it to work you've got like a neutral lay in there towards standing straight up if you're holding it in your hand like this okay it's just gonna help you out okay so what I'm gonna do now is I'm just gonna put four tacks on here I'm going to put two tacks on this side I'm gonna flip it over to the backside put two tacks on that and the reason is because if I just start welding down this seam of the joint right here it's gonna start to pull these these pieces apart and then I've got a big gap to fill in on the other side then we work with I don't want that so I'm gonna put tacks on each side because what's heat due to metal it's gonna move it right soon as I apply heat over here it's gonna start pulling so to tacks on this side to tacks on the back and then we'll get into it so the first of all we're gonna do is call them at ah Janice weld this is a very good weld for people that are just starting out to to practice and master this it's also called a fusion weld essentially what we're gonna be doing is we're gonna weld without filler metal just get used to manipulating that puddle how does that puddle gonna react right I tell my students all the time your puddle is like your master card right you don't want to leave home without it so you want to get that puddle established before you start moving down the joint what's really common is for people to get in here they get the torch fire it up they've got heat going to it and they just start adding filler metal to it and moving down the line and it's not getting any penetration it's not fusing into the sidewall of the the top plates not fusing it into the base of the bottom plate you kind of end up with like some ugly-looking catapillar on top of there you want to get that puddle established first keep that filler metal in there and then deposit that we're gonna go over that right after we do this to toss this weld we'll put this one in first just to cover the basics of travel angle work angle and watching that puddle identifying that puddle and learning how to manipulate it and work it through that joint one thing I do recommend get something soft it's not gonna catch on your table so you can use a backhand for MIG welding put that on your table to where you can go kind of go down nice and easy and smooth where you're not gonna catch anything another great thing is these particular auto parts store you can use exhaust wrap just to get in there anything this smooth that's not gonna catch on anything right that way I can go through here and keep my travel speed work angle everything consistent and just go down that joint and just once you start to learn how to identify how that puddle maneuvers and operates and things you can do to manipulate it you know you won't need things like this they're just nice to have it's an added benefit it's not really a requirement so when you're TIG welding keep all of your weight on your on your rear end okay what's that mean I want to keep all the weight on my butt my hands are just gonna be resting on the table what's very common for people to do is they lean into it and then that's when you start developing friction catching on things you can't move as fluid subconsciously you don't you realize it you're putting pressure on your hands okay try to keep all the weight on your rear put your hands on the table lightly just rest them up there and just glide across the surface that you're working on so let's go ahead and get into it I've got a flex head so I'm going to bend this back a little bit just my preference I want to maintain a 45 degree angle to where I have equal heat on the bottom plate as well as on this top plate so right up in that joint now because the material is an eighth inch I don't want my puddle with to exceed an eighth of an inch so I don't want to go any higher than the top edge of this plate I want to keep the same leg length on the bottom of the plate so I should be an eighth inch up and an eighth inch out so this well should basically form you know a triangle and they're a perfect triangle a right angle triangle equal leg links on both sides alright so this turned out pretty good we we didn't melt away or a road that top layer too much I got a couple little spots in order to get a little bit of rosin here towards the end but for the most part that top edge is maintained good fusion into the joint the welds gonna be concave because you don't have any filler metal so it's gonna have that nice little washed in effect is really good really effective for thin gauge sheet metal where you don't have to put filler metal in there we're gonna go ahead and flip it over we'll do a joint with filler metal and show you guys exactly how to do that alright so let's talk filler metal first segment here I have an 8 inch piece right here this is not what I'm gonna use to weld on this material but if you're just starting out TIG welding you got your machine all pick down everything you got your consumables all that you need you need to start practicing on how to run your filler metal what I recommend is just grab an eighth inch piece doesn't have to be steel you can use aluminum stainless doesn't matter let's go ahead and Bend you a little hook on both ends here we're not gonna be welding with this I'm just gonna show you a little trick so I teach all my students to run their filler metal learn how to run their filler metal so when you're sitting at home watching your Netflix or Game of Thrones whatever you know go ahead and grab your your piece of filler metal with the hooks bent on both ends so you don't stab anybody's eye out and just practice feeding the filler metal okay whatever technique you decide to use this is predominantly for the most part this is the technique that I use right here I just grasp it with my two two fingers up here index and middle feed it with that and then once you get all the way to one end run it the opposite way okay just get used to manipulating your hand it's gonna be strange for some of you in the beginning that's gonna take a while to get used to you could do the cane kid with these two fingers you know you're gonna find out what works for you what's what's easy for you to manipulate whatever it is you want to be comfortable when you're doing it okay you can use the little this method here whatever's gonna keep the tip of your wire the most stable whatever is gonna be the most comfortable for you use whichever method you prefer practice all of them once you get good with your non-dominant hand go ahead and switch to your dominant hand because sometimes you're gonna have to weld left-handed it's just gonna happen or if you're a left-handed individual you're going to learn to weld right-handed so you have to you're gonna have to learn how to do it with both hands so get you a piece and just practice while you're watching TV and you know it's just going to help you when you get in to actual welding being able to feed and keep the filler metal controlled the next thing when I do steel and stainless I like to cut my filler wire in half okay so I get into about the 18 inch point I always bend a hook on the end just for safety and then it kind of gives me an indication if I if I catch up right here on my glove gives me an indication I'm running out of my filler metal when I feel the end of that hook coming but um you can see that if I hold this you know just a little bit of movement down here causes a lot of movement up here so if this thing starts swinging around its gonna move this tip quite a bit so if I can shorten that duration up it's just gonna keep the end of this rod a lot more stable now I don't do this with aluminum just because I'm feeding the rod so fast that you know it's it's just easier to run a 36-inch filler metal than it is with 18 but for steel stainless any of those I go ahead I cut them down because I'm welding eighth inch material I want an eighth inch weld when I get done with this so just food for thought usually one and a half times the diameter of the filler metal all right so we'll go ahead get into this same technique I put my little tick finger up here get in position 45 degree travel angle right so right into the joint equal heat on both parts and I'm gonna have about a 10 degree push angle now that we're adding filler metal in here angle my filler metal is just important as the angle of my torch I want to make sure that these maintain a 90 degree angle or perpendicular to one another so if I start to rotate this way which I shouldn't on this joint I'm gonna rotate that filler metal as well so wherever that is I want to maintain that that 90 degree angle so if I have a 10 degree angle here I'm gonna bring this up to about 10 degrees to where they're perpendicular one another I want to keep the tip of my filler wire right up underneath the the column of this shielding gas right up underneath the nozzle because it's gonna do two things for me it's going to keep the end of my shield or my filler metal shielded from oxide so I'm not depositing oxides into my weld metal and it's also going to preheat the tip of the electrode or the the filler metal that way when I touch the leading edge of that puddle it's gonna melt off very uniformly very nice if I get my travel angle too far apart right if I exceed that I go to an obtuse angle or greater than 90 when I try to deposit that filler metal it's gonna melt off okay it's gonna melt off before I can get it into the puddle I don't want that likewise if I get into an acute angle and I'm feeding it in like this you know less than 90 what that's gonna do is that that filler metal is going to stick to my puddle right you ever get that feeling that you know something's pulling on the end of your filler metal when you're trying to pull away it's because your angles not correct so go ahead and open that angle up a little bit try to maintain that 90 degrees so we'll go ahead and we'll just weld right down this joint remember I'm shooting for eight inch weld which would be right up to the the top edge of this plate here okay they've joined together and now I'm gonna start adding that filler metal just watching that weld sighs make sure I don't go up over that top edge there okay one other thing you want to do before you get into this I always recommend to do a dry run so just take your torch getting your your work hang when you're traveling early you're gonna be utilizing and just kind of just just move through the joint make sure you have enough range of motion to get all the way through without having to do a start and stop okay other materials yeah you're gonna do a start and stop but always plan those out don't be surprised by your hose catching up on something or your hand getting you know caught up on a tack on the table anything that's gonna prohibit you from getting from A to B in a nice smooth uniform fashion right so always do always do a dry run you know whatever the process is gonna be make sure you have enough range of motion to get from where you plan to start where you plan to stop you could give at the end we're gonna fill that crater in taper off slowly and then hold right there at the pause let that post load do its job so we got even bead profile even leg length on both sides the vertical and the horizontal part of the leg good penetration because I watch that as it went in nice uniform bead focus on the principles focus on the basics of your technique learn your technique inside now practice practice practice you know I close that every video was saying make every well better than your last what you should be doing as you go through is analyze your weld analyze every weld and say okay what went wrong with that pass what could I fix and then say what went right with that pass you know I nailed the travel angle but you know my my travel speed was a little off so make those adjustments I always say you know make two to three passes before you make any adjustments that way you can kind of really pin down exactly you know what you need to improve on or what you need to change or manipulate you know to be any different if you got any questions comments concerns go ahead drop them down in the comment section I'll be happy to jump in there and join you guys and answer any questions you may have and until next time make every well better than your last

Channel: Weld.com

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Keywords: welding, weld.com, mig monday, tig time, how to weld, learn how to weld, tig welding, tig welding tips, how to tig weld, tig welding techniques, tig welding steel, gas tungsten arc welding, tips for tig welding, welding tips and tricks, lap joint, how to tig, how to tig weld steel, welding for beginners, weld.com tig

Id: 0AxiCSe-dCQ

Length: 16min 4sec (964 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 16 2019