TIG welder observations

I recently went shopping for a TIG welder, and thought I'd share some of my findings. I know several other GRM people have Tig machines, and if so inclined, I invite any and all contributions.

First off, it seems everything you find on line on the topic is written by people on the payroll. To call these people impartial might be a bit of a stretch. That is not to say they are dishonest, but I myself might be more inclined to give something a more positive review if there were a cash incentive. Caveat emptor!

So, to get on with it, I bought an Everlast 185DV. It got good reviews,had square wave pulse, wasn't too expensive (right at $800), and has Aluminum capability. I ponied up and bought a high quality pedal, as my goal is to be able to weld anything on any machine, and there is a lot of criticism online about some of the cheaper pedal designs.

That said, the torch and ground seem adequate, if somewhat cheap, but should be fine to learn the basics. My local welding shop got me going with a tank of 100% argon, and some collets for the 1/16 tungsten I got online (it came with 3/32 collets, and I foolishly clicked on the "often bought with" on Amazon).

I made myself a little work station in my Mom's garage, as I am currently shopless, and started getting stuff set up. I have been watching TONS of YouTube videos on the subject, and found a guy I like. He goes by WeldMonger, and the videos show up under weldingtipsandtricks.com

Apologies, I still haven't taken the time to figure out how to link stuff.He does have a product line he's advertising, but I don't feel he's too pushy, and the products appear useful. Anyway, it worked, and I bought a video collection, and have been slowly making my way through those while waiting for everything to show up.

Back to the Everlast, the instructions are, ahem, not good at least they gave me a chuckle. The English is broken, there are inconsistencies on diagrams, and I'd have to give them a low mediocre. Luckily, YouTube is a good teacher. Sidenote- in researching this stuff, I found that Everlast is an American Company, but their machines are assembled in China under American supervision. I'm guessing maybe the same with the manual.

So, I finally got the last of what I needed to begin today. I'll post some pictures as I go.

If only TIG could fix erection issues. I'd love to learn TIG but I can barely half ass flux core as it is.

I have a Lincoln 185 that I bought about 10 years ago. Got to be reasonably good with it doing body panels and then I bought a Lincoln 180 MIG...Hardly touched the TIG since then. Welding with TIG is glacial compared to MIG. Unless I need to fusion weld something the MIG rules.

Have done some aluminum, but for reasons that have always eluded me, I cant get aluminum TIG welds to consistently whet out...they just crust over with slag regardless of whatever I try with settings or technique.

The other thing with TIG is that you are going to end up with lots of accessories. I use a fishing tackle box to keep all the different tungstens, collets, gas lenses and shields that seem to be required.

Lean to love sharpening tungstens cause it is a steady job when TIG welding.

When you get really bored, try and TIG the exhaust, (or anything else), while lying under the car. No berkeleying idea how people build roll cages with a TIG welder and the positions you need to get into and still work a pedal.

I set my torch up with a push button and use panel control for power, then you don't need a pedal. But you do need help sometimes someone to twiddle the panel dial occasionally, so you don't have to back out of the contortion you are in to do the weld.

Once you find the sweet spot for the panel knob you can usually vary your speed to control the puddle.

There is a series of TIG Youtube videos by "Mr TIG" that are good.

I have both a Lincoln 175 TIG and a Lincoln 180 MIG. I use both but each has it good and bad points. I have done may aluminum projects, both light and heavy and anything over 1/8 really needs a water cooled torch as that sucker gets "HOT! If I'm welding SS, AL, or CrMoy I'm going to use the TIG.

When I built my roll cage for my current race car I used both MIG and TIG. It depended on access to the joint to be welded. I did end up using my sholder, arm. leg, etc. to push the pedal on the TIG. You just have to get inventive!

We have welders at our hose shop - I have argued with welders for over 20 years - today I told a welder we might lose all our hose business if he can't weld it perfect. Ah yes, another stressful day selling hoses.

I think you need an erection to deal in hose.

Or something like that... those directions are really unclear.

Cactus wrote: ... those directions are really unclear.

Yes, they are. I am trying to simply figure out which port to plug each lead into, and the directions have me confused. Seems like the torch would go in the lug right next to the argon port, as they are right next to one another, but everything on the net says ground+, torch-.

Something I picked up along the way- to wipe down metal, Acetone is good, brake cleaner is BAD, like the fumes could kill you when you strike an arc bad. You folks probably already know that, but it bears repeating.

Edit: Acetone, it seems, is bad for you, and can be absorbed through the skin, so wear gloves!

Positive or negative ground depends on what you are welding, I think. Can't help you with more than that- I'm only 56, and I'm not patient enough yet to TIG. Maybe as I get older, I will develop enough patience.

What voltage does that TIG require?

Streetwiseguy wrote: I'm only 56, and I'm not patient enough yet to TIG. Maybe as I get older, I will develop enough patience.

I keep saying that about golf.

Fitzauto wrote: What voltage does that TIG require?

Dual voltage 110/220 or 115/230, or whatever. It has a short pigtail adapter that goes straight from a household plug to the "dryer plug". Internal magic lets it know what voltage it is seeing. I believe this is a relatively standard feature on machines around this price point. The AHP definitely shares that feature.

bentwrench wrote: I set my torch up with a push button and use panel control for power, then you don't need a pedal. But you do need help sometimes someone to twiddle the panel dial occasionally, so you don't have to back out of the contortion you are in to do the weld. Once you find the sweet spot for the panel knob you can usually vary your speed to control the puddle.

This works just fine for steel - I use the switch for roll cage tubing too there is just a little swirl trick to making nice finishes at the end of the weld without the pedal. But, for aluminum you need to vary the current constantly - it's like trying to weld butter with a match. It melts faster and faster as the temp stays constant so you have to start hot and lift up on it as you go to keep it from blowing thru.

I suck at aluminum. Anything more complicated than a bracket or flange... like welding injector bungs to a fuel rail or sensor bungs to a radiator and I'm calling in a friend. Taking a TIG Aluminum class is on the list. Maybe this winter.

So, today, I got started. Ground +, Torch - seems to work. I started out just doing stringers on 1/8" wall tubing. It went really well (front, not top in picture below).

...at first.The crap on the top is once I started goofing off. I started playing with pulsing. 50hz. made very tall beads, but worked great on thin stuff (later). 1hz. pulse was kind of annoying, but is probably good for something. First impression-WOW, Tig IS clean, quiet, and just different than expected. A lot like soldering, really.

I worked a bit to train myself to modulate the pedal, and hold the lens (cone in Mig speak) over the last of the weld as it cooled.

I got advice from a pro, and he said the thinner the better as far as practice went. I had to try the razors so I'd know just how tough that was. Turns out it's pretty tough.

Got 'em stuck together-barely. I was bound and determined to fill in every hole I created in that 22ga. At least, I think that's what the stuff up top is. It took forever, but that's why they call it practice. I don't plan to bore everybody with every single bead I lay, but will hit the high points here. As is all too obvious, there is plenty of room for improvement. Well, that's the end of day one.

One trick that I like to do when I TIG weld is when I design the part I try to design it so that I need little or no filler rod. Like a 90 deg. outside joint in aluminum, you just heat the two pieces of metal and try to get them to flow into each other.

No pictures this time. Nobody needs to see this amount of ugly. I'm getting better every day, and have gone through 3/4 lbs. of filler wire, and am on my third tungsten. Yes, I am grinding them a lot. Had to get more gloves, too.

I have been poring over videos online, as well as my DVD collection. One of the videos knocked me off course, by saying the torch goes in the positive port. I thought I had this all sorted out, but there you go. I went scrambling to Everlast's website, and they confirmed that I had been doing things correctly. ON THIS WELDER, and I suspect many more, THE TORCH IS NEGATIVE, EVEN WHEN WELDING ALUMINUM (AC).

Don't mean to be a jerk, but there is lots of misinformation on the net. This info was from one of the most often viewed-be careful who you listen to.

Neg vs Positive depends on the processes (tig, stick) and what you are doing. You can weld alum either way and it will behave VERY differently and you need to react accordingly. Its less common to use + on the torch for TIG for what it's worth.

Grind your tungsten early and often if you even suspect you dipped it. Have a bunch sharp and swap until you run out. Then do another sharpening batch all at once. Saves time.

Also, clean, clean, clean. If you haven't cleaned your metal, ss brush and acetone works for most things. Use separate brushes for each metal (ss, alum, mild) so ther's no contamination. If you think it's clean, clean it again to make sure.

Also, fusion welding alum makes it really weak, don't do it! Some steels work OK fusion welded but you are better off using filler properly. You will need to add some more often than not

Seems like a decent machine for the money. My TA was about double with just a few more features. Better instructions though!

wheelsmithy wrote:

The brownish/orange spots are where your shielding gas is insufficient, either not enough flow or it's being blown away by a draft. It's a big deal because the instant the gas is gone, the weld puddle with boil up and get full of bubbles. If that happens it really needs to be ground out and redone.

Just thought I'd mess with you, one of my few pretty welds:

Hmm, that looks like a pretty decent machine to get into it. I found the same thing looking at welders - it's hard to find good information online.

Right now, almost everything I do can be done with my Miller 140 MIG, but every once in awhile I want more power, or want to weld aluminum. Still can't decide if it's worth the money to me, ultimately.

Another data point for you guys looking into TIG: The expense of a quality machine comes in part from the finesse of the unit, its ability to finely control the arc, especially at low current. It's relatively easy to put in a big-ass power supply for the high end, but that's not used as often as the low end. For steel I hardly ever use more than 100 amps. It's only for thick steel and thickish aluminum that I've gone above 150 amps.

kb58 wrote: Just thought I'd mess with you, one of my few pretty welds:

THat looks like about a week's worth of work to me. My scrap pile would be huge

Another thing you guys will find is that it's very rare to have full and open access to a weld, with it on a nicely-lit workbench right in front of you. the other 99% of the time it's somewhere you can's see well, somewhere your helmet won't let you get close enough, somewhere you can't use the pedal well, or somewhere upside down. This applies to all welding BTW!

One thing nice about TIG is that when welding upside down, you don't have to fear the metal dripping, splattering, or popping on you. You know, setting yourself on fire.

kb58 wrote: one of my few pretty welds:

I don't believe that for a second. I own your books. Thank you for your advice.

I believe some of the contamination is burning through from the (rusty) backside of the metal. No doubt, my gap is inconsistent and poor, though and thus getting crappy gas coverage). What I read online says the thickness of a dime from tip of tungsten to work is correct. Does that sound right? Lots of variables in this whole TIG world.

Last Friday, I was fortunate enough to get a tour of the Litespeed bicycle factory in Chattanooga. They do very nice stuff there. Beautiful Titanium welds about 1/8" wide, obviously not done by yours truly. I laid a few beads, and did a few tacks with their Industrial Lincoln machines. They back purge, have fit-ups you can scarcely get a hair into, and jigs that articulate 360 degrees so they can navigate the welds. Impressive, to say the least.

As for me, I've been making these things. As my boss used to say when I started welding in the early 2000s, "moments of brilliance...".

I've gone through my first #2 bottle of argon, and continue to slowly improve. More later.