Thread: Micro Tig. Could I do it myself ?

I'm told if you can use a glue gun or poo up a window you can weld, dunno if that helps (or if it's true haha).

Originally Posted by Tikka7mm08

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

Ah but I've seen your hole tapping !

now THAT right there is a dodgy statement if ever Ive read one....

Originally Posted by No.3

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...

+1 to the above.
DO NOT overlook the need for low current control. Go for a lower amp machine and make sure that the supplier proves that it is controllable and can sustain an arc at the bottom end. Definitely go for a pulse machine.
Then you need to size your consumables accordingly - electrode dia and filler wire dia. All need to be in proportion to the weld current.
Very light gauge filler rod may be an issue to source, so you might have to look at a suitable solid MIG wire and cut your own.

Tig welding is a really satisfying art .Very neat and not hard to pick up. Machines are well priced now, the gas not so much. BOC have some reasonable gas plans.
Go for it Practice x3 plus you tube & you'll have it mastered in no time. Don't expect a perfect finish after a nite on the piss :-)

Foot pedals come into their own when welding aluminium. The high heat conductivity means that as the work heats up less heat input is needed. which means weld faster or lower the amps. It's a lot easier to back off the foot pedal.

Originally Posted by Tikka7mm08

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

I was teaching you how not to weld, and man were you good at it!


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Originally Posted by Got-ya

Foot pedals come into their own when welding aluminium. The high heat conductivity means that as the work heats up less heat input is needed. which means weld faster or lower the amps. It's a lot easier to back off the foot pedal.

If buying a foot peddle make sure its a throttle type like the boc ones not just a on /off switch like the one my mate bought .

Originally Posted by hotbarrels

+1 to the above.
DO NOT overlook the need for low current control. Go for a lower amp machine and make sure that the supplier proves that it is controllable and can sustain an arc at the bottom end. Definitely go for a pulse machine.
Then you need to size your consumables accordingly - electrode dia and filler wire dia. All need to be in proportion to the weld current.
Very light gauge filler rod may be an issue to source, so you might have to look at a suitable solid MIG wire and cut your own.

Yeah, good points. That's something I struggle with a bit, I run pretty much one size of everything with a couple of filler wire sizes as it's just easier and make do at the extremes. For a 'hobby' guy it's bloody expensive feeding the thing the right bits if you're going to get the 'right' bit for each different job and you bloody near need an entire shed just for bits. It's a bit rougher and not as nice running one size fits all but it works for me. With the low current control, it's something the decent AC/DC machines seem to be better at from what I can tell. Some of them are rated to go low on the minimum amps but as he says are pretty ragged on the minimums. I have the manual Xcel-Arc 200A AC/DC welder, the manual one that pre-dated the current model Razor machine and it is rated I think for 10a minimum but actually does that and with the pulse it will weld craft knife blades together autogenous-mode (no filler wire). That's pretty much as thin as I need to do!

One thing I did do, is get some cheap diamond cut off discs in 40mm size off Aliexpress. They were supposed to come with a mandrel but didn't the buggers... I mounted them up on a cheap dremel type tool, make a housing out of box section steel with an adapter on the end to screw the box section onto the rotary tool's end thread and then set up holes at the right angle and various sizes for each tungsten diameter to be able to slide the tungsten in and turn it by hand until it is pointed and sharp. A lid keeps the dust in as well. That's a seriously cheap and feral quick way to sharpen tungstens, works mean and it's one of the hard bits to get sorted out quick - getting a repeatable sharp point on your tungstens with the grind lines aligned the 'right' way. Seems stupid, but having a tungsten grinder really helps with the repeatability and controlled arc and buying something off the shelf is brutal expensive for what they do.

Originally Posted by MSL

I was teaching you how not to weld, and man were you good at it!


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Now correct me if I'm wrong but I recall @MSL was also teaching you whisky appreciation
Was he a crap teacher on that

Now on whisky he is definitely the student...but seems to enjoy lessons involving my whisky!

Originally Posted by Tikka7mm08

Now on whisky he is definitely the student...but seems to enjoy lessons involving my whisky!

Ok
That was a while ago and I got the teacher and pupil mixed up

He can teach me tig welding and I will see it there is something I can teach him in return

I can show you a picture of Bob ‘teaching me about whiskey’


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And vice versa!

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Originally Posted by MSL

I can show you a picture of Bob ‘teaching me about whiskey’


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Ive got those sort of pics filed away someplace too ....