tig welding 16ga sheet question

i think i figured it out. i realized the base metal is thinner than the tungsten. I should replace it with red 1/16" tungsten. That's my guess... how'd i do? I dont have any thinner tungsten so i cant try it until Monday. walt

Your real problem will be that you can't have any gap between the pieces. To tack you need a short HOT pulse with the tungsten tip as close as possible. The pieces have to be free of oxides, paint, oil, grease or anything else for it to work well.

For the inside corner, why not use the trick where you melt a little ball of filler into the corner and then hold the arc on it until it melts and flows onto both pieces. Tack!

Outside corners are easier to do without filler--especially when you go vertical down.

Jeff Dantzler

Walt, You CAN do it with 3/32 tungsten. Clean metal, tight joint, NO gap. Sharpen the tungsten to a needle point with a l-o-n-g taper, at least 3/8". Hold it to the grinding wheel so the scratch marks are in line with the length of the tungsten.

Set up, get the tungsten tip really close to the joint, give it a little pedal to start the arc, position it where it needs to be, (experiment on some scrap), then give the pedal a quick whack. If everything is right, the short burst of amperage will form a nice litttle tack weld.

If you contact the metal, or contaminate the needle point in any way, stop and re-sharpen. Once you get it tacked, running the seam has a litle more of a sense of humor as far as the point being perfect.

Once you get the hang of it, 16 ga is easy. Try 24 ga. That's the one that if I know it's coming, I pass on the morning cup of coffee.

Bill

So far, I haven't needed to drop below 18 ga. (and thats rare) so I'll save the 24 ga on another day. (coffee? heck, a friend of mine does pinstriping and he said alot of stripers have a glass -or two- of wine to calm their muscles) Last week, Jim, my welding supply store clerk, was telling me about a guy who welded two razor blades together with flawless results (blade to blade butt weld). I thought, "wow! what skill!... why would i ever need to weld two razor blades together? wouldn't it make them useless?" :)

walt

Razor blades and popcans come under the heading of "stupid welder tricks". Things we do when bored.

Wow, how do you weld together those little bitty razor blades without melting all the plastic around them? I assume this must have been only dual blades, rather than triple blades -- otherwise, how coud you get in to weld the middle blade?

You were talking about the disposable razor blades, weren't you? :)

When I was in college I worked for a paint crew during the summer. One of the painters was an alcoholic. You didn't want to be anywhere near him when he had a spray gun, but if you needed a freehand line painted on something he was the man. It was amazing to watch him.

I have had to weld (repair) stainless body trim for a antique vehicle. It was about the thickness of a razor blade and was not replaceable so I could not afford to mess up. It was the only time I have used a .020 tungston. I used a Linde 250HF that would weld down to 5 amps - nothing fancy. That machine has since bit the dust but it was a good machine for the 20 years that it worked.