Tig Welders

[MiniDave]

OK, spent some time with the new welder - I think once I get the setup nailed it should be terrific.

To that end today I got the gas plumbed up and installed the 10lb spool of .23 wire, then I tried to run it thru the torch and it would not drive. spent some time scratching my head, then I pulled the drive wheel out and saw that the grooves in it were either for flux core or .35 wire. I dug around for a while till I found the alternate drive wheel that came with it and could see that not only were the grooves not as deep, they were knurled! so, fitted that wheel and it moved smoothly once I got the tension set right and sure enough, it drove the wire smoothly till it came out the end of the torch. I switched over to the .23 tip and set up to run my first welds.

I started by just making some dots, since most of what I'll do will be plug welds.

But first - I watched some more "You Tube Welding Academy" videos on setup - this thing is wildly different that anything I've used before in the variety of setup options there are besides just wire speed and amp - in fact once you set the thickness of metal you're welding and the size of wire it will automatically set the wire speed and amps for you. The issue for me was learning what the metric equivalent was to the thickness of the metal I'm using, so I could pick the right numbers. I'll make a small chart to tape to the inside of the door with those baseline numbers on it to save some time on setup in the future.

So I did about 5 or 6 dots on the factory setting, then I added a little more power just to see the results, then I added some inductance to see if I could see any difference there....I think I'm going to have to burn a lot of wire before I can see the subtle differences these adjustments make, but for now I think I'm ready to melt some metal together.

More as it happens. One thing I've learned, I built my little welding cart so it would fit under my bench, but I have to get clear down on the ground to see the buttons and dials on this welder so I can set it and that is hard for me to do. So I may wind up buying a more modern cart that moves the welder up to like waist height....we'll see. The problem there is where the heck do I put it?

A pic of my efforts today.

[94touring]

Looking good 

[MiniDave]

Getting there. I think now that I've been using it a bit I'll probably go ahead and sell the old one, just so I have more room in the shop. It's worked extremely well for all these years, the only issue I've had is finding consumables for it but I'm well stocked up now.

It's the perfect welder for someone who wants to learn to weld as it will run flux core or gas as long as you buy the gauges and rent a bottle of gas - worth it IMHO for the cleaner welds.

It won't bring much money as there are scads of welders on FB and Craigslist for really cheap, most of those are small stick welders or flux core only and most of them are so dirty - I mean, you couldn't take a shop rag and wipe it down once in a while?

Edit: found silicon bronze wire - from the local welding shop it's only available in 10lb spools for $200, online I found a 2lb spool for $42 but I think I'll leave that be for now. I also need to see about getting the tig torch set up and I'll need to buy some welding rod for that, plus I'll have to change out the gas bottle for straight argon. I still have a lot of mig mix left in my bottle so maybe that can wait too.