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I took a TIG welding class for aluminum. I learned the basics and then some. Then I got a side job at home welding up aluminum carts for a guy using a Miller syncrowave 200. I beat my head against the table for a while. In the end I got a decent weld but had big learning curve issues as follows:
A) My biggest and most persistent gremlin is getting a CLEAN tungsten. I have tried many methods and they all work sometimes for me. My bootleg fall-back method which works very well but is risky is to turn the power up and heat the tungsten up on a copper plate. When the tungsten ball melts and starts to quiver, I flick the molten ball off and watch that hot ball of tungsten go somewhere and smoke. Now I have a clean tungsten and can weld very well. I must learn to solve this one!
B) After a long run of frustration, I finally changed the cup for the first time. That made a world of difference and my contamination issues dropped by half. The old cup was solid black inside and contributed to my problems.
C) I got a bad tank of gas. I used the whole tank and got very good at slugging it through contamination. At the very end of the tank I came to the conclusion it might be bad gas and a new tank confirmed that. The sheer amount of effort that I expended on that bad tank made my work look darn near professional once I had good gas again.
I still have a problem getting a good tungsten. I tried snapping them off using several techniques. They worked maybe most of the time but the other times I got an invisible longitudinal crack up the tungsten and that screws the arc up. I now use a dedicated grinder and wheel but that doesn't always get me going. I still resort to the copper plate and flick off the molten ball method but that is an accident waiting to happen. That HOT ball is HOT. I would hate to have it in my boot or burn down the shop. Getting a clean tungsten is by far my biggest problem. Fortunately I know if my arc is good or bad before I lay filler to it now.
A) My biggest and most persistent gremlin is getting a CLEAN tungsten. I have tried many methods and they all work sometimes for me. My bootleg fall-back method which works very well but is risky is to turn the power up and heat the tungsten up on a copper plate. When the tungsten ball melts and starts to quiver, I flick the molten ball off and watch that hot ball of tungsten go somewhere and smoke. Now I have a clean tungsten and can weld very well. I must learn to solve this one!
B) After a long run of frustration, I finally changed the cup for the first time. That made a world of difference and my contamination issues dropped by half. The old cup was solid black inside and contributed to my problems.
C) I got a bad tank of gas. I used the whole tank and got very good at slugging it through contamination. At the very end of the tank I came to the conclusion it might be bad gas and a new tank confirmed that. The sheer amount of effort that I expended on that bad tank made my work look darn near professional once I had good gas again.
I still have a problem getting a good tungsten. I tried snapping them off using several techniques. They worked maybe most of the time but the other times I got an invisible longitudinal crack up the tungsten and that screws the arc up. I now use a dedicated grinder and wheel but that doesn't always get me going. I still resort to the copper plate and flick off the molten ball method but that is an accident waiting to happen. That HOT ball is HOT. I would hate to have it in my boot or burn down the shop. Getting a clean tungsten is by far my biggest problem. Fortunately I know if my arc is good or bad before I lay filler to it now.
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