TIG Welding Carbon Steel

this video is about tig welding carbon steel and i hope it helps one of the very first things you do when you're learning to tig weld when you're first learning is just bead on plate first without filler metal then with filler metal but early on you need to start paying attention to a few things one of which is arc length there are also a couple of other things that make a difference and we'll get into them here in just a second now i've showed this several times in other videos but it bears repeating here's what happens when you do the three things wrong too much arc length too much torch angle and not keeping the hot tip of that filler rod shielded right now the filler metal is balling up before it gets into the puddle that's because the arc plume is too big i can't stick the filler rod in there quickly enough before it just wads up and balls in the puddle i've tightened the arc up here just a little bit still at 100 amps still not changing anything but you see that boomerang that horseshoe looking area it's not getting into the root of the joint you're not getting the benefit of the precise action of a tig arc by holding a long arc all you need to do is tighten that arc up still only 100 amps tighten that arc length up and things go so much better okay with with a tight arc length in mind let's do a little padding of beads here on plate and notice the arc length right here arc length rule of thumb should be equal to or less than your electrode diameter that's a really good place to start for aluminum you might hold a slightly longer arc but not much for steel you definitely want a tight arc after you've run beads until you get a uniform bead the next step in learning how to tig weld is usually padding beads or at least i think it should be that's what gives you the most practice the most bang for the buck without burning through a whole lot of metal if you can't run a uniform bead there's no point in trying to weld two pieces together on a lap joint or a t-joint or anything like that it doesn't have to be a flat piece of plate either i grabbed a piece of round stock here and was making one of those one of those logs you see on instagram and other places i was just kind of playing around running beads stacking beads on a on a piece of round stock and uh i found it to be just as good a practice as if i'd have used the flat plate and then i had a you know a keepsake at the end that maybe one of the grandkids will put on their desk one day when they're ceo of who knows what and while you're learning to tig weld after you've got plenty of hood time under your belt of running beads and stacking beads one of the next first joints you might do is an outside corner joint you definitely want to get into the habit of cleaning your metal even if it's cold rolled steel even it doesn't have any mill scale on it it's going to weld better if it's good and clean down to clean bright metal an outside corner joint probably one of the most common joints there is for tig welding if you're building a tank of reservoir a box anything like that this particular outside corner joint has got a piece of aluminum angle used for backing and backing is great you can't always use it i use it whenever i can i keep pieces of aluminum scrap in a bucket you know so i can use for things like this i've got blocks of aluminum aluminum angle aluminum bar stock and it comes in really handy it prevents distortion it pulls a lot of heat out of the metal so i will go to quite a bit of trouble to put chill blocks and chill bars on the back side of a weld and on either side of it when i can but sometimes you just can't sometimes it's not practical we'll show another joint done with that here in just a minute now if you're welding something like 18 or 20 gauge chill bars and backing make a huge difference in in not so much pulling the heat out for discoloration but really makes a difference on distortion now notice my arc length here i'm still maintaining that that equal to or less than electrode diameter arc length makes all the difference when you're tig welding and then i back off taper off the foot pedal back into the weld to prevent leaving a crater crack well let's do that very same weld now same metal same thickness just not using any chill bars no backing on the back side and automatically it takes a little bit less amperage to weld the same joint when you don't have a big block of aluminum on the backside so this is about 105 amps again still trying to keep that tight arc length about the electrode diameter or a little bit less i'm trying to keep that rod shielded with the argon the hot tip of the filler rod shielded with the argon and then we'll show this going right up to the very end here backing off the foot pedal leave the rod in for just a little bit longer and back into the weld as i taper amperage to avoid leaving a crater hole or crack let's take a look at some pulse settings for an outside corner joint on 11 gauge cold rolled steel you need more amperage when you're using pulse settings so i'm going to go ahead and jack it up to about 142 amps two pulses per second and thirty percent background current the pulse frequency is fixed at fifty percent on this machine i went ahead and jumped up to a 332 filler wire and i'm just leaving it in the puddle just using the lay wire technique it looks okay i'm just not really sold on this technique as far as my go-to technique i'm just experimenting here i like to be able to watch the front of that puddle and see that it's wetting all the way down into the root of the joint but i have done some cutting edge tests on corner joints like this using this very technique it gets in there pretty good now the same exact pulse settings that i use right here on this outside corner joint will also work for tick braising with silicone bronze the two pulses a second seems to be a real good spot for silicon bronze if i jump up on the filler wire size so for this joint right here i just jumped up to a 332 silicon bronze filler wire and again two pulses a second and just leaving the wire in the puddle for the most part and it kind of helps the puddle from overheating all the welds so far you've been seeing have been done with this machine this t-joint coming up is the only weld in this little compilation here done with a different welder it was done with a dynasty 280 but arc length is super important on t joints and lap joints so take a look here my amperage is reading out about 128 129 and that's largely because i've got some aluminum backing on this thing so it requires again about probably 10 to 20 percent more amperage than if i didn't have backing but the main things on a t-joint making sure you have clean metal and hold a tight arc don't use too much torch angle and keep the hot tip of that filler rod shielded with argon things will go a lot better this is a big chunk of 4130 that's been preheated but i'm using a furic number 12 cup so i'm still able to get it to come out relatively silver coming up next is a lap joint on 11 gauge cold rolled again very important to hold a nice tight arc don't use excessive torch angle keep the hot tip of that filler rod shielded i know this is carbon steel but it's a good rule of thumb anyway to get your puddle moving within three seconds or for stainless steel probably more like two seconds is a good rule of thumb i'm taking this lap joint toe of the weld all the way up to the edge there and that'll be dictated by the drawing or the weld symbol if you're welding per a drawing if you're just fabricating something on your own it's kind of like dealer's choice but i kind of like to take it all the way up to the edge just to get a nice strong weld on there i mentioned earlier about using chill bars for welding thinner steels like 18 gauge this is some 18 gauge coil rolled i've got one big aluminum block clamped and then i just laid the other one on the top to create kind of an argon trough to trap the argon and pull some heat out and it's doing a really good job carbon steel welds just tend to come out you know dull and gray when you don't have any chill blocks especially 18 gauge but this makes a lot of difference again you can't always do it but when you can it's worth the trouble hey my online store is at worldmonger.com that is how i support these videos all the stuff you see there has been vetted it's been tried out and it's stuff i would recommend you

Channel: weldingtipsandtricks

Views: 131,540

Keywords: tig welding, tig welding carbon, tig tips, tig welding fillet welds, gtaw, gas tungsten arc welding, dcen, furick cups

Id: b79fS4kkztY

Length: 10min 45sec (645 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 23 2022