Thread: Micro Tig. Could I do it myself ?

So I'm pretty handy at precision engineering but I don't do my own micro tig welding and I live 1.5 hours from CHCH.
And I only go to the big smoke fortnightly or less which means sometimes I do a restoration project in a day and then its a month to get a tiny part to town, leave to be tig welded, next trip pick it up and back to finish the project.

How realistic would it be to buy and learn how to use my own micro tig welding unit ?
And what should I be looking for and how much should I be looking to spend ?

This is for small parts, extractors, stubs to barrels, quarter rib tabs and hanger blocks on to double rifles etc
I have one job on the go in the workshop that will need 4 trips to town to tig weld, with machining and set up between every tig weld application.
If the mill or lathe is set up for that part from prepping it and the weld is added it can go straight back in to be tidied up and finished.

I have some great tig and laser welding operators who do work for me in CHCH.
But there is no one in my area and I want to take control of this part of the process to be able to complete these projects without loosing the thread of where I'm at.
I have plenty of junk and off cuts I can practice on

Mainly working with
4140
4340
P20
#1 plate
416
Lots of old unknown steel on vintage rifles

Thoughts and advice appreciated

@veitnamcam might be of help here with knowledge of all things welding

And @MSL is here next week and I will be picking his brains

I’ll bring a machine


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If you can neatly gas weld small items then Tig should be easy enough to pick up.

Originally Posted by akaroa1

And @MSL is here next week and I will be picking his brains

Won't take long!

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Originally Posted by Mathias

@veitnamcam might be of help here with knowledge of all things welding

Micro tig is not something I have experience with.
I have welded some pretty small tricky bits with just a pretty basic Tig tho.
I think a micro Tig is pretty much set up like a spot welder set amps and run time and push go?
Regardless I'm sure it's something a man of @akaroa1 skills would be able to pick up.

@akaroa1 Do you mean Micro Tig with a binocular microscope like is used for tool and die work?

Originally Posted by Shamus_

@akaroa1 Do you mean Micro Tig with a binocular microscope like is used for tool and die work?

Well micro maybe not the correct term

But pretty small parts and wanting to limit the heat transfer
So more correctly tig welding small parts in very small bursts

If you can pat your head and rub your belly at the same time I am sure you would have no trouble ...

Pulse tig setup, get a unit that does AC/DC is my advice - you may not want to do alloy/aluminium but it has a use for some oddball things like some cast iron brazing and the like. Very useful process, I've only done a bit of it but have the setup there for when I can convince the left arm to play nicely with the right arm again. It's a thing...

The thing with AC/DC pulse tig they tend to have all of the nice to have stuff as well like pulse width modulation and rah rah rah. What you do need to look for is the minimum power setting, some tigs only go down as far as 20amps with an upper setting of 200+ (most people wanting to weld thicker stuff at balls out power settings...). Something like the BOC 185 AC/DC pulse machine would probably suit, or the Xcel-Arc Razor machine and pretty much anything of that sort? It doesn't need to have a colour TV on the front knob-based control panels are fine, pulse and AC/DC with HF start are what you are after.

Then it's down the rabbit hole for consumables and tungsten types, I've settled on 2% Lanthanated and use that for everything. Might not be the best at every type of tig welding but it's a damn sight easier!!!

Some people really promote foot peddles, like a weld current accelerator pedal but for pulse settings on tig (it spends a bit of time at 100% of the current you set then drops back to a percentage under that say 70% of setpoint then ramps back up) - I reckon that just makes the foot pedal something else to have to do especially on short weld runs. Which is most of what I do, shoot me for being a lazy tig welder haha, and theres enough to think about keeping a tungsten at the right height in the right place and not smacking anything with something I shouldn't like hitting the tungsten with the filler rod or sending it for a paddle in the pool...

Originally Posted by andyanimal31

Won't take long!

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Took my line. Just an advisory: my welding was crap after a lesson from @MSL.

Originally Posted by Tikka7mm08

Took my line. Just an advisory: my welding was crap after a lesson from @MSL.

Ahhh, what was it like before? Gotta ask that, having been accused of similar in the past haha.

Was first time picking up a welder thing...apparently a skilled profession.

Originally Posted by Tikka7mm08

Was first time picking up a welder thing...apparently a skilled profession.

Nah, they just say that to try and justify a pay rise.

Fugem.