Req: advise for tig welding video/help or good tig book

Yes I have had one for about a year. Excellent machine. Make sure to get the pulser. I recommend getting the sequencer as well, but it is another $300 so only if you can spare the cash.

Well I am working on that.

Yes you can buy it by the pound from

I will attach my normal lengthy response below

Just buy 1.5% or 2% Lanthanated and use them for everything AC or DC. Maybe some Zirconiated tungstens for high amperage AC.

Sequencers allow very consistent beads on repetitive welds. I am a complete sequencer junkie.

I bought mine from Central Welding Base machine $1900 Pulser $200 Sequencer $300

If you get the TIGrunner package it is more like $2700.

Oh we have our moments.

Here are some quotes from my past answers to your question about basics:

A basic selection of TIG Rod should include Steel, Stainless steel, aluminum, and bronze.

Steel ER70S-2 The basic TIG filler for steel. It comes copper plated to prevent rust, but keep it in a tube or bag anyway. Sizes:

0.045", 1/16", 3/32", 1/8"

Stainless steel

308L is the standard filler for 304 SS which is the most common type. 309L is a better filler for joining any kind of stainless to steel. 316L is the best for marine work. Sizes: 0.045", 1/16", 3/32"

Aluminum

4043 is the most common aluminum filler rod. It works well for most situations, but... 5356 is stronger, better corrosion resistance and better color match for polishing or anodizing. 4047 is my favorite for welding castings, but it is kind of hard to find. Sizes: 1/16", 3/32", 1/8"

Bronze Silicon Bronze is excellent for joing other copper alloys such as copper, brass and most bronzes. It can also be used to TIG Braze Weld steel and stainless steel. TIG Braze Welding is very useful for stianless steel since it doesn't actually melt the base metal so there is no chromium oxides formed on the back face of the metal. Sizes Sizes:

0.045", 1/16", 3/32"

An advanced selection would include: Some aerospace alloys like Inconel, Hastelloy, or Haynes alloys. They are my favorite alloys for joining odd things and are extremeley strong. Pure Nickel is excellent for joining cast iron.. Pure Copper is good for TIG welding copper where it will be seen. ER80S-B2 is the current top choice for TIG welding Chrome-Moly tube for planes, cars, motorcycles and bikes.

As to a vendor. The only guys I know that even list TIG rod on the Web are:

Great outfit, they carry all things TIG.

You can also mail order from Central Welding at :

Just call them and they will ship it to you.

Here is an exercise to practice when not welding.

Level 1

Take a 3/8" steel washer. Place it on a piece of white paper. Take a nice sharp pencil. Place the tip of the pencil against the paper inside the washer. Now start swirling the pencil tip around the inside of the washer to draw a circle on the paper. Keep circling the inside of the washer, while nudging the washer across the paper. Try to end up with the washer traveling in a straight line across the paper. You should end up with a long swirl pattern acrosss the page. Keep parcticing until the swirl pattern is even and in a straight line.

Level 2

Same setup, with one change. Once again slide the washer across the page while swirling the pencil tip around the inside of the washer, but now DON"T touch the paper with the pencil tip. This means being able to hold the tip of the pencil within a 1/16" of the paper without touching it and without lifting out of the washer.

Level 3

Do Level 2 while standing next to the table without any part of your arm resting on the table.

Level 4

Move to a 1/4" washer.

This exercise comes from a welding textbook from 1929, and it still works quite nicely to train your muscles for floating the torch.

Normally I do not swirl the torch while TIG welding, but this still works as an exercise to build up muscle control.

A pulser is a device used to interupt a welding arc. Mostly used on TIG, but can also be used for MIG. The idea is to cycle the arc from high amperage to low amperage. The metal melts at the high amperage and solidifies at the low amperage.

There are 3 settings for a pulser.

1. Background amperage This sets the low amperage and is usually set as a percentage of the main amperage. So if you main amperage is 100 amps, and the Background Amperage is set for 50%, then you Background Amperage is 50 amps.

1. Percentage of On time. This sets how much of each pulse cycle is spent at the high amperage and how much a the low level, once again by percentage. A setting of 50% evenly splits the cycle betwen low and high amperages. Less than 50% on On time gives a Spike Pulse. Greater than 50% gives a Soft Pulse.

2. Cycles per second. This is the really confusing one, because it has the most profound effects. Older TIG pulsers only allow up to a maximum of 5, or less, Cycles Per Second (Hertz - Hz), but the newer Inverter TIGs allow much higher frequencies. My Maxstar 200DX goes up to 200hz.

The lower pulse frequencies are for traditional pulser use, where you run between 1 and 2 hz on the pulse. adding filler metal on each pulse or every other pulse as you progress across the weld.

The higher frequencies have a much different efect, in that they tend to make the metal super-liquid, allowing it to flow and wet out much smoother. These higher settings work very well with autogenous welds where no filler metal is added at all. These are also caled Fusion or Flow welds. I also found these higher frequencies worked well for vertical welds in heavy Silicon Bronze.

Now the reason for all this pulsing is rather simple. Lets start with a piece of 16 ga steel. At 0.062" thick the proper amperage would be 1 amp per 0.001" of thickness or 62 amps . You could easily TIG weld a seam in 16 ga Steel using a continuous 62 amps. However a spike of high amperage will melt the metal much faster than a low amperage, so you could weld faster at 80 amps than 62 amps, but at that heat you risk overheating the metal and causing undue warpage or burning of the steel, so you mix an interval of 80 amps with an interval at 40 amps. The low amperage interval allows the puddle to congeal back into steel, without allowing the arc to break. By pulsing the weld acoss the bead you get a very orderly row of rings, that give that distinct stack-of-dimes look to the weld bead. You adjust the exact pulse frequency to suit your style and speed of welding as well as the thickness of the metal. The other benefit is that over all, you have put less heat into the metal, so you have less distortion.

A more smaller, consistent weld bead is often stronger than a larger inconsistent weld bead.

The more consistent a weld is the more the stresses apply along it's entire length. Any peak or valley in a weld becomes a stress point for failure to occur.

Whether you choose to add filler metal on every pulse, every other pulse, or not at all is dependant upon your own welding style and the circumstances of the weld.

Where pulsers become bewildering is when you start messing with the percentage settings for the Background Amperage and percentage of On Time. The number of possible combinations is huge, and there is little or no guidance given in the welding world as to application.

Pro-Fusion has an excellent series of webpges with online calculators that allow you to punch in the overall required amperage you want and how fast you want to weld and it will generate pulser settings for you.

It still gives no guidance as to when you want a Spike pulse, or a Soft pulse, but it gives you something to play with.

50%, 50% and 1.4hz, is a setting that works for most sheet metal.

All I can say is that until somebody puts out some really authoritative research showing what pulser settings are best for what combination of weld and materiel, we will all be out there experimtenting on our own.

I have searched for such a book for 5 years, and given up. Hopefully some day soon the welding engineers will decide to enlighten us lowly welders.

Sequencer Description

Subject: Re: New Maxstar 200 DX ... Setup? From: Ernie Leimkuhler Newsgroups: sci.engr.jo> What's the sequencer do?

What does a sequencer do? Well pretty much everything except make your coffee.

A sequencer is gods gift to repeitive welding jobs.

Most machines with sequencers have this series of events that are controlled by it.

This sequence is initiated by one button tap.

1. Preflow gas - This will purge air from the line and torch before the arc initiates.

1. Arc initiation via high frequency.

2. Initial Amperage - This is the amperage the machine starts at once the arc is initiated.

1. Up Slope - this is the amount of time the machine takes to ramp up from the initial amperage to the working amperage.

2. Working amperage - the amperage needed to weld the materiel.

or

1. Pulsed weld amperage.

Then a second button tap when the weld bead is complete.

6 Down Slope - the time it takes to get from the working amperage to the final amperage. A longer down slope prevents a pit from forming in the end of the weld bead.

1. Final amperage - what the machine slopes down to before terminating the arc.

2. Post flow gas - This shields the tungsten and weld area as both cool.

So all that with just 2 button taps.

To give you an idea of settings, my machine is currently set up for tack welding together stainless steel picket railings.

1/2 second preflow gas, 2 amps initial amperage, 1 second up slope, 80 amps working amperage, pulser is set to 40% on time, 50% background amperage and 1.8 pulses per second, 3 seconds of downslope to a final amperage of 3 amps and 10 seconds or postflow. I adjust the working amperage a little up or down depending on how the welds are going.

(some aluminum with a spool gun) is something that I commonly work with. Tig is something that I would like to work with as I am trying to broaden my working knowledge using aluminum and chromoly.. ?. I will be picking up a sycrowave 250 dx with tig runner shortly as it appears this is the best choice of machine for overall use. I am looking for a good demonstrational video on tig welding or a good book demonstrating techniques for various types of metals. Any help or direction would be appreciated.

Please do a search on Ernie Leimkuhler's post in this newsgroup... better than a book (and even a video link!). The url should be:

varying from .035-.120. From what I've gathered here, the best filler rod choice would be ER80S-B2 . What type of flow settings should I be working with?

About 15-20 cubic feet per hour, maybe less with a gas lens.

Lanthanated.

which I will be working with once I "master" the tig welding techniques.

Sequencers do the start and end of a weld automatically: press button once = gas starts to flow, HF ignition, Amps ramp up, then you weld. press button an other time: Amps ramp down (for crater filling), arc stops, gas stops after postflow time (cooling). Sequencers are built in modern inverters.

recommendations would be great.

As a beginner, I find aluminium surprisingly more difficult than steel. Because of its hich thermal conductivity, nothing happens before your whole workpiece gets very hot, and then the whole thing melts on you. I find that a foot pedal is a great help (to reduce the amps when things start to get hot), but maybe I should just weld faster.

Instant advice for aluminium: get it very clean and well fitted.

Thanks for both of you posting your comments!! I appretiate any advise that was given. I will be checking out the company central welding. At cyberweld.com's price for the sync 250 with runner is about 3400.00 which is more then what was mentioned "If you get the TIGrunner package it is more like $2700."

For anyone interested, I did find a post made that pointed to downloadable videos which are informative for differnt welding, cutting, forming procedures. The link is

If you get the TIGrunner package it is more like $2700.

Thanks for everyones help! I appreciate all advice. I found an interesteing link that has some i nformative videos... This is reposted from a few minutes ago as I messed the post up...lol at any event, the link is: