mig v tig welding - a simple question

What brand of bike carrier would that be? I want to be sure that I never buy one if they're being welded by idiots like that!

Bob

Naaah. You had it right.

TIG is Civilized Welding. It is quiet, very easy to control and quite easy to learn, esp. if you've ever soldered. J.C. Classes are available so that you don't have to unlearn 'that which is not so'.

TIG and stick do use the same sort of "constant current" supply but as you know, the similarities end about there.

--Winston

No. Not even close. The best quick description would be that TIG is like oxy, only instead of using a torch you use a tungsten electrode for heat. Unlike arc, the tungsten electrode isn't consumed; you use a filler similar to that in oxy.

Your subject line also mentions MIG, which is yet another process. MIG is like arc, except that instead of having a the rod in a clamp there's a mechanism that feeds it off a spool.

TIG---

Tungsten inert gas.

I fail to see either tungsten or inert gas when using stick. The best you can hope for is the shield created by the flux on the rod.

This guy needs to bone up on his terminology.

Harold

The "T" in TIG stands for Tungsten...

MikeB

Gunner Asch wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

I've been wanting to take a welding class & get a small rig for a LONG time. That is a really nice summary of the systems.

The stuff I would work on would be small and almost exclusively aluminum or stainless. For example, would 1/4" thick aluminum or SS require a "BIG" machine? I only have single phase 220V to play with.

What are the pros & cons of TIG & MIG for those two metals?

Thanks!

Doug White

I have welded upto 3/8 aluminum with my 220V MIG Miller 212. It's a little much for my skills with the machine. I have also welded down as thin as .043 with it. That is really way beyond my skills, and also below the rating for the machine. 1/4 aluminum welds easier than steel with it. My dad welds stainless occasionally with his MIG. I can't speak for TIG as I have never used it. If you have the money I have heard that a pulser setup is the way to go for aluminum welding for long beads.

Nope! With TIG (also called GTAW -- "Gas Tungsten Arc Welding"), you strike an arc from the Tungsten electrode, and draw an arc which produces the heat. You then feed in the filler stick with your *other* hand. The arc is flooded with an inert gas or gas mix (The 'G' of "GTAW"), so the workpiece does not oxidize when hot. You can weld aluminum with this.

MIG (GMIW -- Gas Metal Arc Welding) has the arc drawn from a wire fed from a gun, again usually in a shielding gas (though there are cheap setups which use a cored wire which provides both the welding metal and the shielding gas from the decomposition of the core.

This all my impression -- who only has done bandsaw blade welding, and spot welding so far -- but I read and try to remember.

Enjoy, DoN.

The way I think of it is welding need 2 things: a arc for the heat source, and a supply of metal to add to the work piece. (Lots of other things too, but..)

Stick welding uses the rod for both; you strike the arc and then use up the rod.

TIG strikes the arc with an electrode, and you push the rod into arc as needed.

MIG uses a spool of wire to do both; think of it as a power-fed stick welder.

Everybody so far hasn't mentioned the "Inert Gas" part of the processes. Stick generates it's own shield from heating the flux coating as the stick is consumed. The other two processes require use of additional equipment in the form of gas, gas bottles and flowmeters. So not the choice for a windy outdoors jobsite, Gas can be argon, helium, CO2 or a mixture of same.

I find TIG to be a lot like gas welding, a lot of the same skills transfer.

For the guy wanting to do aluminum, you'll need a machine that has additional circuitry to provide an AC waveform to clean the oxides off, straight DC won't cut it. Also takes a watercooled torch for anything but the smallest jobs. Aluminum sucks heat out of the weld area so fast that you need a large machine. Stainless needs extra equipment for maintaining a gas blanket on the backside of the weld. So both not as simple as just welding up steel.

Stan

And if you are going to an AC TIG machine, you may as well go square-wave inverter - with adjustable duty cycle. This allows you to bias the AC towards "scrubbing" or depositing. And you DEFINITELY want a high frequency start. You will also want a foot penal "throttle" so you do not need to adjust the power from either the torch or the machine while welding. The pedal lets you soft start to avoid blowing away the edges, and "pour on the coals" to get the heat into the work

Flame works for that. Oxy acetylene, for instance, or coal.

If you just heat the adjoining pieces to puddle together, that works... without any filler rod. In blacksmith welding, you don't need exotic gasses at all. Heat to softness at the forge, pound together with a hammer.

Agreed - for HEAVY aluminum welding stick is still king. But don't try stick welding .090" 6061!!!

Okay. Mig sounds like what I learned was "shielded arc" - wire feed with inert gas. So easy I could do it. (Word to the wise, do not use it in a luggage bay of a bus, like a spot welder. Or if you do, don't just turn your head, close your eyes and "point and click". Dave did that - "beautiful" sunburn by the end of the day.) Stick welding I found more difficult, and have even less experience doing.

I've used oxy-acetylene to cut up stuff, but not to weld.

I've seen black smith welding done, and that look like fun (for some values of fun.)

"Harold & Susan Vordos" on Sat, 18 Jun 2011 08:24:48 GMT typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

Among other things ...

I'll be charitable and say "It was late, he'd just got home, he may have miss heard me, and may not have known the difference."

Steve Ackman on Sun, 19 Jun 2011

"Pounded on it like a blacksmith working out 'issues'."

Gunner Asch on Fri, 17 Jun 2011 22:17:46 -0700 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

We was kind of busy with other fun thing. Like learning there are two sets of marks on a Ford camshaft ...

It's on line a Baptist's V-chip. But it is going to have to wait for my rich uncle Louie to get out of the poor house.

Very good therapy!

First way I ever learned to weld, patching mufflers with a clothes hanger.