71K5 - BP71K5's Just for fun build

[Greg72]

That may be one of my issues! I can get real bad hand shakes so I do tend to keep longer electrode distance. I also found my ground strap has over-heated and I wonder if that’s why. I’ve watched all of Dusty’s (Pacific Arc TIG) tutorials on hand placement and I have a hard time not using my wrist as a pivot, even though I know it’s not ideal. Maybe I need to reset my thinking and start from scratch. Id really like to get better.

I’ll have to do some experiments. Thanks for the tip!

I try to do more of a slide than a wrist pivot but normal leather TIG gloves don’t slide smoothly enough for me and it gets choppy. You can buy a Kevlar knitted glove from Amazon ($10 or less) that is basically like the TIG-finger that Jody at Weldmonger sells… it slides SUPER smooth so you can rest your hand on a riser block and be super comfy. It will let you focus your attention on the weld pool instead of other stuff.

The hardest part of TIG is that so many things are happening simultaneously and you need quick adjustments to filler or travel speed or pedal. If you can remove shaky hands from the equation you will have a better shot at dialing in the other variables

-G

 

[bp71k5]

Did some practice today with some 1/16” steel. I can definitely say it works much better if I can keep the tungsten closer to the weld pool. The other thing I found was that I needed to angle the torch more forward to keep the puddle in front of the tip instead of under the tip. The third thing I realized is my gas pressure was too low, even with a gas lens. If I turn it lower than ~22cfh the tip starts getting contaminated and balling.

But I did get to do one small project cube.


And I also did a lot of coupon butt joint welding. I got better joint penetration with the 1/16” filler rod vs the 0.30 MIG wire. Still seem to be getting too much heat into the part. I did try some pulse welding as well and it does keep it cooler, but feels like cheating. But I may have to cheat like that as my foot also starts shaking on the pedal and so it’s harder to control the current. Planning to order some more project cubes and other more fun practice parts.

 

[ktmoutfront]

Looking like progress. If you want to pick up some material, you can shear practice cubes at my shop.

 

[Greg72]

What thickness is the steel on the practice cube? 1/16”?

What size filler rod? What are your amps set at?

 

[bp71k5]

What thickness is the steel on the practice cube? 1/16”?

What size filler rod? What are your amps set at?

Yep, 1/16” mild steel cube. Using .03 filler rod with the amps at ~65 max. Some of my blank coupon butt welding was with the 1/16 filler.

Most of the cube edges were just fusion welded, but a few were the .03 wire.

 

[Greg72]

What thickness is the steel on the practice cube?

Yep, 1/16” mild steel cube. Using .03 filler rod with the amps at ~65 max. Some of my blank coupon butt welding was with the 1/16 filler.

Most of the cube edges were just fusion welded, but a few were the .03 wire.

Continuous welding on 1/16” seems like its going to be impossible. Feels like you will need to pulse the pedal to keep excess heat out of those passes…

-G

 

[bp71k5]

What thickness is the steel on the practice cube?


Continuous welding on 1/16” seems like its going to be impossible. Feels like you will need to pulse the pedal to keep excess heat out of those passes…

-G

Definitely needed to pulse the pedal. The fenders are a little thinner at 18g/20g. At least now I’m not burning through tungsten so much.

 

[Greg72]

Definitely needed to pulse the pedal. The fenders are a little thinner at 18g/20g. At least now I’m not burning through tungsten so much.

Did you buy a cheater lens yet? The weld pool holds all the answers but you need to see it clearly to understand what adjustments to make….

Edit: Travel speed required might also be beyond your current comfort zone. As a new TIG welder you might be tempted to try to go REALLY slow to feel like you have time to observe everything and adjust in real-time. Unfortunately you don’t get to choose your travel speed… once the pool is established you have to MOVE along or the heat is going to keep soaking into the part and will cook it. The only solution is practice… so keep at it.




-G

 

[bp71k5]

I realized one problem (without realizing it) I’ve been having is that my welding helmet darkness knob broke at the 12 setting and so everything was always dark. I picked up a new ESAB helmet and a cheater lens. It’s only a 1.5 and feels like I could go up a bit more magnification. I can actually see the puddle now. Feels like that’s one step forward.



Next problem seems to be I’m still burning up tungsten’s at amperage that doesn’t make sense. I saw a reference online that the manufacturing quality of my “yes welder” lanthanated blue tungsten may not be regulated very well so I’m going to try some green “Lazer” tungsten that is supposed to be a known good quality and see if there’s any difference. I actually need to upgrade my breaker panel to be able to run more amps but if I’m burning through these with only 5 min of welding at only 120A, I’d like to figure out why first.

 

[mrk5]

I recently learned the benefit of the cheater lens for my welding helmet. I'm using 1.5x too.

 

[kgblazerfive]

I recently learned the benefit of the cheater lens for my welding helmet. I'm using 1.5x too

Never knew they had those.

 

[bp71k5]

Did another trial today with the Lazer green CK tungsten’s and its night and day difference. I was able to weld up one of my YouTube tools and the thing stays 95% sharp when the blue stuff would ball up within a couple minutes. I don’t have any CK 3/32 blue so I can’t compare directly but these Yeswelder blue ones cannot handle much more than 60A reliably.



And got the cheater lens with my new hood. The air gas place didn’t have the special adapter to fit “normal” lenses so I had to lean on Amazon for that. But the hood came with a nice protective bag, and a little sweat band thing. So much easier to see compared to my old hood.

 

[bp71k5]

Been practicing and working at the same time. I patched the rear end of the quarter panel that got crunched by the bumper way back in 2009? In Moab. If you can’t see where the patch is, that’s great! It’s kinda right in the center of the picture.



And I’ve been practicing some more cubes. This time with 1/8” steel which is a lot easier. I’m just trying out different filler rod sizes and tungsten grind angles. One issue I discovered is that using excess gas causes problems just like not enough gas. Once I found a good balance my tungsten isn’t wearing as fast. I’ve found that once my tank gets to ~600psi the torch starts acting like there’s no gas, get black soot, burn the tip of the tungsten. All the welding forums say they can run their tanks down to zero psi and sometimes even keep welding for a bit. I’m wondering if the airgas place is purging the tanks before refilling or not. My regulator says it’s got 15CFH coming out but the weld quality says that’s wrong.

 

[Greg72]

Brian,

Are you using an Argon-specific regulator or just the one that came off your MIG machine? Sounds like a bad regulator or blockage in the torch diffuser or something. I can run my argon tanks almost all the way to 0psi with minimal change in flow until the very end.

It’s worth figuring that out. Learning TIG is challenging enough when your tools are setup perfectly. If you also have a major issue in the setup it is going to increase your frustration substantially…

-G

 

[bp71k5]

Brian,

Are you using an Argon-specific regulator or just the one that came off your MIG machine? Sounds like a bad regulator or blockage in the torch diffuser or something. I can run my argon tanks almost all the way to 0psi with minimal change in flow until the very end.

It’s worth figuring that out. Learning TIG is challenging enough when your tools are setup perfectly. If you also have a major issue in the setup it is going to increase your frustration substantially…

-G

It’s a combo flow regulator with pressure gauge that came with the machine. I’ve done the check where I release pressure from the gauge so it goes to zero, then repressurize it and the pressure goes back up to 600psi. When I step on the pedal, I can hear gas coming out as expected. It just doesn’t seem to be argon anymore. Someone on a weld forum said when you run out of gas, it’ll look like you’re trying to weld with a spark plug from a 2 cycle motor, which is kinda what it looks like. Wondering if the gas is contaminated, but also worth checking the regulator.

 

[bp71k5]

I found another welding gas supplier that’s half the price of Airgas so I got a bottle of that stuff and we’ll see how long it lasts. The guy said I should be able to get pretty close to zero psi on the tank before it starts getting funky.

 

[Fastereddie]

I found another welding gas supplier that’s half the price of Airgas so I got a bottle of that stuff and we’ll see how long it lasts. The guy said I should be able to get pretty close to zero psi on the tank before it starts getting funky.

Here in Vegas, the airgas guys are douchebags. I found a place way on the other side of town that is great. It’s called California welding supply I think? Way cheaper and friendly old boys. They used to be open on Saturdays too which was great, but since the damn cobid b.s. they haven’t been.

 

[bp71k5]

Here in Vegas, the airgas guys are douchebags. I found a place way on the other side of town that is great. It’s called California welding supply I think? Way cheaper and friendly old boys. They used to be open on Saturdays too which was great, but since the damn cobid b.s. they haven’t been.

Maybe that’s a problem with corporate suppliers. The guys at both places were nice, but I knew Airgas was expensive. This new place sounds really similar to yours …really friendly old guys that know a lot about what they’re selling. The guy even has a buddy building custom frames for old Broncos, They even tested and purged my flow gauge, which seemed to indicate no problem with the gauge.

 

[imiceman44]

Here in Vegas, the airgas guys are douchebags. I found a place way on the other side of town that is great. It’s called California welding supply I think? Way cheaper and friendly old boys. They used to be open on Saturdays too which was great, but since the damn cobid b.s. they haven’t been.

Looks like some pissed off California guys who moved to Nevada

 

[bp71k5]

Bead on the left is with the new tank, on the right is the old tank at 600psi. No change to anything else. So I’m pretty convinced the gas was at fault. The tanks have only been lasting a week or two of practice so I’ll have to see how long this new tank lasts.