What have I learnt from a 2 day welding course? Well here is a simple bullet list of some of the notes I jotted down over the 2 days.
- TIG welding is a fine craft. Unlike arc-welding, TIG is quiet, clean, fine and gentle. At times a fine weld can feel a bit like jewellery making. Watching Tom lay down a root weld was sometimes difficult to actually see his hand moving at all. Any thoughts of wacking down a couple of yards of half inch fillet weld are a bit mis-lead.
- Keep the tungsten electrode tip clean and sharp. There really is no point carrying on welding when you've burnt the point off. Its certainly a pain to keep stopping and grinding the electrode, but a clean point makes a world of difference. Hopefully as my skill develops, I wont have to make so many trips to the bench-grinder.
- The electrode tip can protrude beyond the gas shroud pretty well as much as you like. Typically 1/4" to 1/2", but as I found out, in tight spaces you might want to extend the tip out quite a way; you just have to invent a smart way to keep the shield gas contained on the arc.
- Although the TIG torch has what seems like a 'handle' - you are not obliged to hold it like that. holding the shroud like a pencil gives far greater control, and often an awkwardly positioned joint might be accessed best with a quite odd upside-down grip. I was surprised that holding the shroud wasnt as hot or dangerous as i'd imagined
- I like to wear thin leather gloves as these give the best possible 'feel' of the objects you are working with. However, I soon learnt that i was better off with a thin glove on the hand with the filler-rod, and a thicker glove on the torch hand (especially when pencil-gripping the shroud)
- Keep the tip perpendicular to the line of weld, though a slight feed in angle is ok.
- Planning a section of weld is critical. how you position your arm, body to ensure a smooth and consistant travel makes for a lovely weld.
- Using a foot-switch helps with ease of welding. ie you dont have to fiddle around reaching for the thumbswitch on the torch handle - particularly if you are pencil gripping the torch. I think I shall have to invest in a foot switch for my own welder.
- It appears that 50A to 90A is going to be quite sufficient to weld my tube.
- For what I'm going to be doing, I dont need to switch on the pulse option (especially useful for aluminium), or 'slope-down' (crater-fill)
- Gas flow of about 4-6 liters/min
- Try different face masks. I used an auto-darkening mask which seemed to work well for me, but TVOR didn't get really going until he'd ditched the auto-darkening mask for a much darker fixed mask.
- practice, practice, practice
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