Any experienced TIG alu-welders out there ?

[Gwillard]

Hmm, is Lincoln Electric the company that makes Lincoln welders?  Lincoln used to sponsor the USFRA event (I've got t-shirts to prove it), and maybe with your experience on the Salt and their past connection -- maybe they'll send you out there to represent them.  As I remember, Lincoln went to the event and would weld for competitors when something needed doing.  It was great having that resource there.  It's be greater still to have you there for them (and to get your Salt fix, too).

Yep, that's the one.
I will most certainly see what I can do to convince them to "make" me work a week or two on the salt. It's a tough job but somebody has to do it. 

[octane]

A couple of hours more of practicing and I can now
actually take two pieces and weld them together without much ado,
no hole-burning, no 'bubbling' through to the back-side of the material, no black spots etc ( OK:...a little )
and do a 'long' continuous bead , adjust the amps down as I go along and the heat accumulates.

It's not perfect...FAR from it, but to me this is progress
and I enjoy it !





BTW; this is NOT cheap;
I'm almost through my second bottle of argon @ $100 a refill.
Uaarfgh !

[Gwillard]

Argon sure is expensive over there.
What size bottle do you have?

[WhizzbangK.C.]

A couple of hours more of practicing and I can now
actually take two pieces and weld them together without much ado,
no hole-burning, no 'bubbling' through to the back-side of the material, no black spots etc ( OK:...a little )
and do a 'long' continuous bead , adjust the amps down as I go along and the heat accumulates.

It's not perfect...FAR from it, but to me this is progress
and I enjoy it !





BTW; this is NOT cheap;
I'm almost through my second bottle of argon @ $100 a refill.
Uaarfgh !

That's looking better than I was doing after the first couple of weeks. It took me a long while to develop the knack of not dipping the electrode in the pool and having to stop and grind.

Have you cut through a weld yet and looked at it? Or beat on one to see what happens? There's a lot to be learned from that.

What size bottle do you have? I realize that you're in Europe, but that seems awfully high for a bottle that you can use up in a week. I pay about $75 to exchange an empty K bottle (49.9 Liters) at my local welding supply, and even when I'm using it relatively heavily it lasts a couple of months. I can usually get 2 bike frames and several smaller projects done on one bottle. Maybe you need to shop around for a different source.  

[WhizzbangK.C.]

Sooner or later you'll start to get bored with just running beads. When that happens, and before you weld anything important, set your argon flow to about double what you are running now. Have a buddy slowly reduce the flow rate while you are welding until you notice it not welding worth a crap. This will give you a good idea of what happens when your sheilding is insufficient from either too drafty an area, running out of gas, etc. Then do the same thing but start at your normal flow rate and have your buddy turn it up while you weld. You'll find that there is a range of flow rates that work best and how to tell when it is too high or too low. You'll learn these eventually, might as well learn it now and in a controlled environment.
These guys are giving you some good advice. I think they've run a bead or two before.

Excellent advice, I had to learn that the hard way. Learned real quick what happens when you forget to open the valve on the bottle too.  It isn't pretty.

Congrats on the degree George, as well as the new job. Lincoln looks like a good outfit to work for.

I've been trying to give Lars some help from a beginners point of view, and what's worked for me. I'd sure be interested in anything that you have to add. I'm basically self taught from reading on web sites and books, and any shred of info I can get to add to what I've learned so far would certainly be appreciated. I think this is an excellent place for it, since I'm sure anyone else on the site looking for welding info will eventually read this thread and find it also.

[Gwillard]

Thanks  
I was taught to weld by my grandfather before he passed in '71. I had to stand on a bucket to see the top of the bench.  Then came 30 years of learning on the job before I ever stepped foot in a college classroom. One very important thing I learned was that what works in a sterile lab environment doesn't always translate to practical use in the field. While welding can be studied and implemented from a scientific viewpoint, there always has been and always will be the other half that is an art form. The only way to learn it is to do it. Though i studied under some brilliant minds at Ohio State, people with PhD's from MIT, etc., and some with years of work in national laboratories, I still learn just as much from guys like you who have been there-done that.
When people ask me to teach them to weld, I just tell them I can show them how it's done but only experience will teach them the rest.

[bbarn]

Geo, to your point about the art side of welding, if I ever was able to lay a weld like this, I would cut it off and frame it for hanging on my wall!

Turn the sound down, the video is much better without all the noise in the background.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Be3msl9X_sw

With the welding he is doing, is there something attached to the torch to keep it at a proper distance (can't tell from the quality of the video), or is that just pure skill?

[Peter Jack]

When you do it all day every day you develop some skills. Some guys seem to have exceptional skills. He's one.

Pete

[octane]

Argon sure is expensive over there.
What size bottle do you have?

Mmmmm; don't know. I do not understand what's written on the invoice.
Looks like this:



Concerning yours (and Wizz's) comment on the price;
it doesn't really make a lot of sense to compare,
as the currency exchange rate is so odd at the moment,
and when I 'translate' to $ it get's a little weird.
The good part is that my local currency ( Danish Kroner ( Crowns))
will get me a long way when going to the US of A.

That's looking better than I was doing after the first couple of weeks. It took me a long while to develop the knack of not dipping the electrode in the pool and having to stop and grind.

Now that's one of the few things I have down pretty well right now.

One thing I do NOT have down pretty well rigth now
is to remember to botton up my shirt when welding.
A friend just dropped by and asked me why I have
a red-hot triangle where my shirt is open.....aaaauch!

Have you cut through a weld yet and looked at it? Or beat on one to see what happens? There's a lot to be learned from that.

Nope, but I certainly will

What size bottle do you have? I realize that you're in Europe, but that seems awfully high for a bottle that you can use up in a week. I pay about $75 to exchange an empty K bottle (49.9 Liters) at my local welding supply, and even when I'm using it relatively heavily it lasts a couple of months. I can usually get 2 bike frames and several smaller projects done on one bottle. Maybe you need to shop around for a different source.  

Yeah, but while you make bike frames ,
 I make something much bigger:

LARGE PILES OF CRAP !

.-)




Must have made my way through 100 feet of bead.


Here's the last one made today.
Much like the one above.



I'll do some cutting and hammering during the weekend ( as I'm running out of argon )
and see how the welding actually worked
and I also da have a bike to finish, don't I !!?
( Well, more than one, but I'm thinking about the Indian )

Hopefully get a few of the last parts today so I can
make cables for the throttle and for the ignition timing ( manually operated in left handle )

[Gwillard]

"With the welding he is doing, is there something attached to the torch to keep it at a proper distance ?"

Yep...his hand!  Some of these guys are amazing. I watched a fella weld a lap joint on 1/8 stainless steel a couple years ago and the result was every bit as smooth and consistent as anything you would get from a robot, maybe even better.

[donpearsall]

$100 of argon for practice is bad enough, but I see about $500 of aluminum extrusions all over the floor!
Don

[Geo]

Rex,

Great thread as I am learning Tig welding too.

That red spot is a UV burn.  About 10 times as bad as a sunburn.  And it will take about 10 times as long to go away.  Mine on my knee was 10 months to getting back to normal skin.

Cover everything, every bit of skin.  You do not want to let the arc light shine on your body.

Geo

[octane]

Oops. Double post.

[octane]

$100 of argon for practice is bad enough, but I see about $500 of aluminum extrusions all over the floor!
Don

Yeah BUT those are scrap-pieces from this place I cooperate with.
I pick them from their scrap-heap, weld away and return it back there
after which they sell it to be re-cycled.


Just for the fun of it I took to a different type of aluminum.
Cast-aluminum. Quite un-clean and full of air-'pockets'.



Those are the bits cut off ( as I wanted it narrower ) from the two halves in which my gas-tank came
( turned around and put together above )



It went quite well.
Different 'feeling' to it. A different red'ish glow from the heated aluminum.

Cranked up the "Base current" ( valley current ) and turned on the "Pulse", to get a bit more 'cleaning' action.
Didn't make much , if any , difference.







Back when the welding was done to the tank ( NOT by me )
it was done like this, after grinding a V-shaped grove into the two halves.
The V went down halfway into the thickness of the material:

[octane]

That red spot is a UV burn.

Jep. I'm embaressed to say that I did get a similar but milder one on the first day of welding.
It was just about to go away....well; now it won't