Tig Welding.

[Mazdabater]

So I've been wanting to learn to weld for a while now and finally went and brought myself a pretty basic tig setup yesterday. Its a 170amp inverter with a tig torch on it. Not to fussed about doing ally yet as I'm a total welding noob. Thats the downside to aircraft sheetmetal at my work, you don't get to learn any welding.

Anyway one of the old guys from work has been pretty helpfull he's a really good tig welder and has done most of the stuff ive needed for me, gave me 3 books and a heap of 316 filler wire and I'm pretty sure I knew what I was doing until I went to give it a go.

It keeps chewing up my tungsten electrode. What on earth makes it do that, I've sharpened it to a point and I'm running the #6 cermaic sleve thing on the handle, Ive tried sticking it out a little further, putting it in a bit more, different angles, more gas, less gas, more amps, less amps. WTF is going on lol. Can't get it to pool up for the life of me.

I've been trying to weld some 1/4 hard 301 0.090 stainless from work (yes I know annealed is better but we dont use it at work) and it's not working for me, tried switching to a bit of scrap 304 2mm thick i had leftover from my exhuast and it didn't seem any easier.

Will probably get my mate over tomorrow for a bit of a lesson, but I'm keen to get some more practice in tonight anyone got some advice for me?

[vex]

Could be a few possibilities.

First things first; your electrode should not come to a point (at least not a stabby one). You should sharpen it to a point then take the point off by grinding off the tip so you have a very small/dull area at the tip.

Next you might need to adjust the amps, however I'm not sure what you're using so I can't tell you one way or another.

For stainless; remember that the electrode needs to be extremely close (for a tig, closer is almost always better). a 1/4 in is too far away from the metal. You'll also want to get the puddle forming to which you should notice that a stainless puddle is much smaller than the mild puddles--but a picture is worth a 1000 words. Post some pictures of your welds you've attempted (maybe include your electrode too) and we can tell a lot more that way.

[C. Ludwig]

You running AC or DC?

[chibikougan]

Using the proper tungsten?

[Mazdabater]

Yeah was just using straight DC and yes it was 2% thoriated tungsten. Sorted the problem out today, workmate came round. It's funny I was looking for a bit on the net last night asked him and he said it sounds like your running - DC the welder was hooked up with the torch to the + and the earth to the - reversed it and she works like a treat.