TIG Welding Tips and Arc Length

hey Jody here thanks for watching another video from welding tips and tricks com I've got a TIG welding video for you today with a lot of information I'm covering all the major joints corner joint lap joint edge joint butt joint T joint welding some carbon steel stainless steel and aluminum with a review of walking the cup at the end all as part of my goal to add more value let's do it first up is outside corner joint on 11 gauge steel the basics to get into good weld are clean metal good shielding gas clean filler metal holding a tight arc and good technique we'll talk a little bit about the importance of holding a tight arc and I'll show that and in depth a little bit later so what is a tight arc you know in my opinion it's it's it's basically the diameter of the electrode or less and it depends on the application but generally speaking the tighter the better once you're too tight you'll wind up sputtering and having the clean electrodes a lot so you know that that'll be a little too tight but here I am using a 3/32 electrode so I'm 332 or less with my arc length probably more like about a sixteenth trying to keep the hot tip of that rod shielded with the argon I'm using a number eight clear cup here he's providing really good gas shielding it's got a gas lens on it there are lots of choices when it comes to cups this one helps me film a lot it helps everybody see the arc and see where I'm going and where I've been another thing to talk about is how far to extend the electrode I've got it extended way farther than I need it right here but that's another good thing about a gas lens it helps me to film to extend the electrode so the camera doesn't get blocked by the the edge of the cup and things like that so it also helps when you need to get down in a tight spot so next up is 11 gauge aluminum I'm going to be using this same cup a lot of different options for TIG welding aluminum you don't necessarily need a gas lens all the time I'm using one here again because it seems to really light up the way and it really does help in filming and you saw right there I put a tack weld about a half-inch inboard and then I backed up and weld it over top of the tack and that's just to have it to prevent from melting attack with that might be under strained it might pop loose and then leave a gap not a bad little not a bad little technique to you sometimes same principles on holding a tight arc apply for aluminum except you probably are not going to hold quite as tight in arc as you will for stainless steel and steel but still fairly tight outside corner joints are used a lot for things like tanks and reservoirs in this case this is a manifold so a water cooling manifold that I put together a good while back I've got a lot of threaded nipples that weld on on that one piece it's got all the holes on it but cleanliness is super important for stainless steel as well as grinding off any dross from plasma cutting these were cut on a plasma cam and so they needed to be cleaned a lot you don't want to weld over that plasma dross really does mess up the looks of aluminum weld I'm using a piece of aluminum angle for backing here it's the next best thing to argon and some jobs on stainless you absolutely need argon others you can get by with some aluminum or copper backing I'm also going to be using a gas lens here because I'm using an air-cooled torch I'm gonna use a stubby gas lens kit so that I can use these nice small cups that I just like I prefer to use a stubby gas lens over the big cups for the sake of getting access to small areas and whatnot it just feels better to me this is the setup I'm using I'm gonna go hotter than normal just for tacking like I got the Machine pegged out at 200 amps here and I'm going to prop the cup and then blast it really quickly with attack I don't want to sneak up on it I don't want to heat it up I want to hit it and get it I want to get in and get out and not heat up the stainless for a lot of reasons I don't want to melt all the way through when I'm tacking I don't want to warp it and I want to get finished with the job so propping the cup and just hitting it with a really quick blast helps on 11 gauge and all the way down as thin as you could stand probably I've done this on as thin as say Oh 40 on stainless and you do have to have it tight you can't have a gap if you're going blast it with a lot of amperage and the amount of amperage you got to practice a little bit to generally one and a half times what you had welded at is a good starting point as you get more used to it maybe double what you would weld something at I used this aluminum angle for backing as well as a heatsink on these outside corner joints because the job didn't require 100% argon purged on the backside just no sugaring it wasn't like it was a food service or critical or anything I just didn't want it to sugar that's bad practice so just for the sake of saving argon and saving time I used the the chill bars for the outside corners but then when it came time to tie everything and seal it up I purged it with argon so in addition to the the bars the the angle bar is on the inside also I use them on the outside and made a little trough with some heat sinks clamped everything down good and tight and clamp them up tight to the weld and here I'm just using a standard number eight gas lens Cup moving along at a fairly good clip at about a hundred amps and it's it's getting really good gas shielding where I would get this level of shielding I would need a much larger cup without these chill bears that's the point I'm trying to make here also chill bars just are really good for stainless and pulling the heat out that's always good for stainless and it's always good to prevent warping so next we're going to talk about lap joints and start off with 11 gauge carbon steel but before we even get into the good stuff I want to really really drive home the point of the importance of of a tight arc and not using too much electrode angle I'm using too much angle and a long arc here at a hundred amps on 11 gauge and it just not going good I can't really push that puddle right down where I want it it's swirling around and wandering it's horseshoeing it's not getting down into the root of the joint like it should here I'm still at a hundred amps I've tightened it up just a little bit but still not not enough it's got that horseshoe look it's not getting into the root of the joint it's more like a oxy-fuel weld almost it's just not one to push in there and I'm not really getting all the benefits of a precise TIG weld because I'm not holding a tight arc here all I did was tighten the arc up and change my electrode angle just a little bit and everything's going a whole lot better so let's do a lap joint now with all that in mind here I'm using that clear cup again that's a Furyk 8 pro lap joint 11 gauge steel everything's clean this some of it was hot rolled some of it was cold roll but it's all been cleaned clean bright metal I'm holding a nice tight arc I'm keeping the tip of my filler rod shielded so it doesn't introduce oxide when you introduce oxide into a puddle that's it's otherwise nice and clean it just turns it into a sluggish puddle by keeping that tip of that rod shielded it keeps the puddle clean and keeps it flowing nice so a tight arc don't use excessive electrode angle and keep the hot tip of that rod shielded you got to have a clean metal got to have good shielding gas and coming out of the cup and a good cup that'll do that all these things make a difference on TIG welding up next is some stainless steel we're going down to 16 gauge for this one a very common joint like in foodservice kitchen equipment and things like that would be 16 gauge lap joint and a lot of it would be done without filler metal I'm using a little copper hold down tool here because this just really works well for a little tiny heatsink as well as getting a nice little blast tack if you don't have the copper thing like I've got you can easily make one using silicon bronze and an old crappy screwdriver or a Harbor Freight screwdriver or something like that just put some blobs of silicon bronze on it sand it down you got a hold down tool I've been using these for a lot of years they worked in a lot of cases even for doing some really thin stuff on Oh 20 type lap joints and you really have to have it down good and tight to get a tack on the thinner the metal is also another option is a copper spoon I got this from Harbor Freight and it works really good too for a lot of things for filling in holes as a backer but it works for this too and this there are only like ten bucks so it's one of the best spins at Harbor Freight you can make so with quite a few tacks on there and if you were if this was a big part top of a kitchen table or something like that you would want maybe and more tax but for just a little sample in front of me attack about every inch or two is probably enough I'm doing a little back step technique here but all the same all the same techniques apply tight arc not much electrode angle keep the hot tip of that rod shielded of course you need clean metal but with stainless like this this came with a peel code on it all I really did is give it a quick wipe down with some alcohol or acetone and it's clean enough to weld without doing anything else to it travel speed is also very important with stainless and you've got to get in get your puddle started get moving get going it's not a situation where you want to creep up on it and weld it cold and slow you've got to get the puddle going and outrun the heat here I've got that copper spoon just sort of laying there to hold it from wobbling but it's also serves another purpose it sort of traps the argon makes the makes the shielding come out a little bit better it's got a lot of uses I recommend anybody that that visits Harbor Freight grab you a copper spoon again for if nothing else for filling in miss drilled holes and things on sheet metal it works great for a backer okay next up is a lap joint using 11 gauge aluminum this is just a little business card holder project that we talked about on the welding tips and tricks podcast as a way to solicit work maybe give one of these to a local mom-and-pop machine shop hold your business card hold their business card it's also just a conversation piece that also kind of sets you apart it demonstrates that you can weld if you make it look nice I'm using the 8 Pro clear cup here and you can see me looking through that thing from time to time again it really helps with filming makes it fun to watch but you want to hold a fairly tight arc not you see I don't have much electrode angle you got a lot more forgiveness on aluminum with coming in and out of the argon because the tip of that aluminum cools so quickly you don't tend to get the same level of oxidation dipping in and out unless you really get carried away this is just welding two pieces of those angle together just for some different perspective here I'm just using a regular gas lens a number eight with a 3/32 electrode usually I'll weld something like this at about a hundred Hertz if I have an inverter which that's pretty much all I have these days about a hundred Hertz to 120 Hertz it's a good all-around setting again same things apply fairly tight arc not much rod angle and try to keep the hot tip of the rod shielded edge joints are not that common what's more common at least in my experience as edge buildup it's really common in aerospace so just for the example here I've got two pieces of Oh 50 stainless steel and I'm gonna run a bead joining them together but first I'm gonna get attack or two on here and the same thing I'm just kind of propping lifting back and getting a really quick blast so I don't put a whole lot of heat into this thing I don't really want to melt the corners away I just want to get a few tacks on there like that to keep it from opening up as you watch this arc here you're gonna see basically the same principles as you've seen so far in everything that's been welded in this video fairly tight arc not much rod angle keeping the hot tip of that rod shielded with the argon those things make a lot of difference of course clean metal and a good gas shielding are very important as well all right here's a perfect example of an aerospace part that was do a lot of edge welds not joints just edge welds four dimensional restoration this parts fairly expensive it get it this is an exaggeration it doesn't get nearly that much welding but it gets built up and then re machined and put back in service time and time again now here's a little hack for if you need to run a bead on the edge of a round piece like this it helps to stuff it full of aluminum foil as well as put a little heatsink wrap around it not just for the not just for the heatsink but you know give that argon a place to stop instead of just run on through it so here I'm using a Furyk number 12 ceramic and sometimes on edge welds like this you will find yourself holding just a little bit longer arc if the objective is to really build it up and you hold too tight of an arc then you'll you'll push rod in there and it'll push the puddle right into the tip of the electrode so here you see me holding a little bit longer arc then maybe previously but all the same techniques again apply as far as a not much rod angle keep the hot tip of that rod shielded and when you're welding something like this you got to throw out all the rules about electrode angle basically because you're going round and all of a sudden you're going backwards and feeding the rod from behind the puddle you just have to make it work now having good shielding on a single pass weld like this that's going to get machined off is not absolutely necessary but when you're doing multiple passes each pass is going to go in better if the previous pass was nice and shiny and free from oxidation this is when it really really helps have a good gas shielding this is an edge buildup on a piece of 11 gauge aluminum I like to use a gas lens for this because shielding is really hard to get on a number five cup when you put the rod in there it tends to split the argon a little bit so a little bit bigger cups tends to help here as well as higher frequency settings I believe I was using about 120 Hertz here you can even with the tapered electrode you can see the arc wander a little bit as I feed rod in there for thicker metal like 3/16 and quarter-inch a bald tip on the electrode or a rounded tip might actually work better to help that arc fan out a little bit and get good cleaning action let's look at some butt joints now first up is 16 gauge stainless steel now I'm doing this in a fixture that my friend Adam booth a bomb 79 it made for me in a collaboration video we did he's got a whole series of building this fixture on his channel and this works great this is a very common fixture used in aerospace industries for testing welders and training welders because a lot of the tooling that's done and used for aerospace parts resembles this fixture a lot although a lot of them are round so basically it does two things purge gas holds the part in place and prevents it from warping provides a lot of chill factor a dual flow meter is definitely part of this equation because you need you need gas coming out of the cup and you need gas back up gas on the fixture I'm using a number 12 Furyk number 12 clear cup here for the sake of the video get that electrodes extended way out they're actually a couple like this is very common to use in aerospace alloys like precipitation hardenable steals nickel alloys like inconel and hastelloy and titanium all really love argon and a larger than normal shielding envelope really helps pass those tests and it's also done in in in the repair process these cups are very very useful for repairing aerospace parts here I'm coming up on attack I put bigger tax than I normally would on the very end so it gives me a little dam to not blow it away and to help me know when to back off and taper off and then I do the same thing on a beginning a larger than normal tack gives me an extra half a second to not curl under or blow that into a and then it just it's easy to see when I'm melting and then I just head out and tie into the previous weld when I tie into the previous weld I just keep moving and stop adding filler metal like add less and less as I taper off the amperage and that has worked for me really well for for all kinds of alloys inconel stainless steels everything in preventing leaving a crater crack this fixture is really doing a great job of pulling the heat out holding the pieces flat as well as providing shielding to the backside so they get a nice silver penetration side let's look at a 16 gauge aluminum butt joint now done in a slightly different fixture this fixture is a really crude one that I had to whip out years ago just to start testing welders but it works pretty good it's steel so it pulls less heat out which actually is sometimes a benefit for aluminum tests when aluminum cools too quickly you can have some issues with porosity on the x-ray test so not having quite as much heat sink is sometimes a help so for an aluminum butt joint one of the things it's kind of difficult sometimes is is sort of assessing your penetration and basically it kind of helps to watch the puddle sink a little bit to tell you that you're penetrating here you can kind of if you look close you can see it's sinking and then filling back up with each dip of the rod I'm trying to keep the tip of the rod shielded not always that easy to do with a small cup this fixture provides argon backing but I don't have it hooked up this particular weld not really necessary for aluminum let's check the penetration side now aluminium can really fool you you can have a really pretty bead on the front side of a but well but no penetration or a Skippy penetration that one did okay there's the settings if you're interested right at 72 amps at the peak 100 Hertz 30% cleaning action 1/16 40 43 filler metal with a 330 to 2% lanthanide electrode at 14 cfh with the number 5 cup using advanced square wave alright let's move on to T joints now and first up is 11 gauge carbon steel T joint clean metal metal is clean too bright metal wipe down filler metal is cleaned I've got a little bit of a heat sink here an aluminum backing bar there to kind of pull heat out because sometimes I have to weld quite a few of these to get decent shots on the video so it helps to cool things down in it it helps always if you can if you can fit a backing bar in on a on a fill it weld like this usually it helps not always necessary some people view it as a crutch but I don't always do it I just do it when I want to put my best foot forward when I think it'll make a difference it's usually worth it and just let me repeat two of the keys are clean metal and good argon shielding to almost any TIG welding here's a really thick Filat weld in a 4140 material I'm not really sure if it's technically a lap joint or a tea joint it doesn't really matter I'm using a ladle a wire technique here where I'm leaving the wire in the puddle but I'm also at a 500 degree preheat with about a hundred and eighty amps or so so penetration not a problem there aluminum T joints are really these are kind of difficult sometimes if you're trying to pass a test because getting that metal to flow down all the way into that corner with no lack of fusion at all can be a challenge it definitely requires watching it sometimes just waiting an extra half a second or a second on it or giving giving it a little bit more amperage where it needs it but either way arc length is hugely important here to make it do what you want it to do you want it to flow all the way into that route so that you don't have lack of fusion now certain jobs if you got a little bit of lack of fusion may not make a bit of difference but when you're taking a test usually it makes a really big difference segue into a little bit of a review on walking the cup first off with a another fill it weld this would be similar to a socket weld or a flange weld we're maybe doing multiple passes in the first weld I'm using a number six gas lens here and it's just really really wiggling the cup in a joint like this so it's people get hung up on what's the difference between wiggling and walking it's all walking the cup if you ask me but to split hairs this part is a little bit easier than actually walking the cup where you do it on a sort of a flat surface so stick out the amount of stick out you have that's that's passed the flush into the cup matters a lot on walking the cup and usually a rule of thumb is about the same as the inside diameter of the cup start from there you may have to extend it out a little bit further or stick it back up in there but that's a good good starting place so this is a number six cup I'm extending it about 3/8 of an inch these are some drops that I got from a machine shop and I'm almost a thousand percent sure this is 303 stainless and one way you can tell is if you look at the top toe of that weld you can see some little areas there look like it's some little dots that's sulfur melting out of the grain boundaries and that's 303 is not really recommended for welding but I'm using it here for just this demonstration you can weld it you just have to be very smart about where you weld it you know you don't want to use it for anything structural now coming across with a second pass a lot of times you'll need to increase the size of the cup and the stick out I'm going to number eight here let's do it here it's the same motion I'm just going wider slowing the motion down a little bit leaving the rod in the puddle I think I was probably around 150 amps for this pass right here got pretty good color would have probably been a little bit better how to let it cool a little bit but using a large diameter gas lens like this really helps on multipass stainless steel welds I added this kit to my store a while back walking the cup is akin to walking a 55-gallon drum across the floor like this you're just doing it with a TIG Cup so again having you know having the electrode extended out the right amount really helps it helps to practice and take dry runs on a round piece like this before you try welding here I've just got some really heavy wall tubing with some lines scored in it with a grinder it's sort of like hash marks to resemble edges of a pipe bevel and you're just walking it along in a little figure eight motions and you can see how it just progresses the torch and the arc and everything along at a very even rate now doing it on something slick like this kind of makes you have a little bit of a soft touch you don't want to grip the torch like a gorilla sometimes you have to hold the torch upside down like this in the field when stuff so in your way but typically you'll find a way that works best for you and then you make do when you have to sideways works as well I definitely prefer to hold it something like this now I'm going not at a super slow rate but not at a fast rate either you'll figure that out too as you go you know some guys really move their arm really quickly it just depends on the application depends on the wall thickness of the pipe you're welding depends on a lot of things now you can't always walk the cup it's a great method it's really a way to be really productive but sometimes you can't and when you can't is great to have a prop in your pocket I'm using a TIG finger now on the very edge of that really really hot stainless that I just welded two welds on and so it's cooking pretty good but I can prop right there and camp out for about as long as I want to and make a weld that looks very similar to the same pattern in the same uniformity as I got walking the cup you want to keep just a little bit of pressure on your filler rod so it doesn't come out of the puddle but you want to put a lot of pressure on it got a little jam in there and that's not good so a lot of times for socket welds and things like that were there other pipes in the way and you can't walk the cup you got an option just by having the prop in your pocket there's a tick finger as well as the tick finger XL made in USA thank so much for watching I hope you enjoyed this and I hope you'll visit my online store at weld monger dot-com that is how I support these videos see you next time you

Channel: weldingtipsandtricks

Views: 107,322

Rating: 4.9598317 out of 5

Keywords: gas tungsten arc welding tips, gtaw, tig welding, heliarc, best tig welding video, tig welding steel, tig welding stainless, tig welding aluminum, tig welding corner joints, tig welding lap, tig welding edge, tig welding butt, tig welding tee, welding tips and tricks

Id: UBG1UMpbznE

Length: 24min 55sec (1495 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 10 2019