Burning Up Tungsten: Why?

you should switch polatity(+ go to workpeace - to torch)DC(-)

you are using pure argon for your shielding gas right? and you did open the valve on the bottle before welding? correct?
I normally like to start off a good welding session by first forgetting to open the valve on my agon bottle and frying my tungsten, then once i get that cleaned up and the valve open, i promptly weld my filler rod to my freshly ground tungsten.
then things generally go smooth for a while. :>

HAWke !!
see my other post I made to your first post about this , even beter ... I will copy it here
___________________________________________________________ I think the reason you are burning up the tungsten because your machine is set on STICK welding, you have arc but gas solonoid is not suplying gas to the torch, in normal TIG welding your tungsten will get bright yellow HOT . do you hear gas flowing ? use DC for all steel only use AC on aluminum. gas flow should be 15-20 CF standard torch set up with gas lens 10 CF
switch your machine to lift arc, it is the lowest LED light on the process selecting section of you panel , make sure your ground lead is connected where it say WORK + and your tig torch is where it say TORCH - step on the remote foot pedal and feel with your hand to see if gas is coming out of the torch /gas cup don't worry in LIFT arc mode there will be no arc until you touch it to METAL if you have gas flowing, ground your work get your welding helmet on push your remote foot pedal and hold it down. touch the tunsten to the metal for 1 second, slowly lift up the torch and hold it only 1/16- 1/8 inch from your work. you should see progress let me know how it works
WHAT TYPE OF GAS ARE YOU USING ????? should be pure ARGON !!!

I found that I did have one thing wrong. I was using AC instead of DC and I definitely have it set for Tig, not stick. I have not heard gas flowing but I did set the preflow and postflow. I now have the torch plugged into the -Torch terminal and the work lead into the +Work terminal so I believe that should have me in DC electrode neg mode. One other question I had is how would you set the maching for DC pos? I haven't seen any way to do this, and is there any reason I would want to? I know that you can use DCEN or DCEP for stick depending on what you are doing and I was wondering if you ever use the DCEP for Tig.
At first I only had the argon gas flow set at 7CFH and now have reset it at 20. Got gas lens today so I will adjust the gas flow accordingly.
I will try this tomorrow. My main worry is that for some reason I'm not getting any gas, which would explain why the tungsten is getting red hot, and I can't think of any other reason for it. I think I have everything set up properly now for mild steel. My fear is that there is a problem with the machine and for some reason it isn't putting the shielding gas out like it should, like you said, maybe the gas solenoid isn't working. Everything else seems to be working fine though. I've used the stick and haven't had any problem with it.
Sounds good, I'll give it a try tomorrow.
It is. Unless of course the welding supply made a mistake and gave me something else by mistake. How would I know if I got a tank of something else. I don't recall seeing any label on it and I specifically asked for argon.
Yep, opened the valve but I am not sure if any gas is coming out. How hard a flow should be coming out. Should it be a hard flow or should I just barely be able to feel it? And should I be able to hear it coming out?
I'm looking forward to following in your footsteps.
I hope I can say the same in the near future.
Thanks for the help.
Hawke

I can hear my gas start up as soon as I depress the foot pedal, I cant really say i can feel the flow(but if your at 20CFM, i would imagine you should be able to feel it), but I can definatly hear it. Just tap your pedal without trying to weld, you should hear a slight woosh as the gas starts flowing. if you hold the pedal down and have HF start enabled, the sound of the HF will drown out the gas. (I have the same unit as you do BTW)

Well, I finally figured out why I was burning up tungsten. No gas. Once I got the gas flowing the problem was solved. So thanks to everyone who helped me figure out how to get my new welder up and running.
Now that my Thermal Arc 185 is up and running I've had a chance to see if I can Tig weld or not. Not! I'm a total novice to Tig welding so everything is pretty new to me but I do know how to O/A weld so it's not terribly different. Actually it seems that once I get the hang of it it may even be easier.
I had a couple of questions though. First, the beads that I've done so far don't look like what I expected Tig beads to look like-- a stack of dimes, right? What I've done so far, when they look okay, my beads look a lot more like an O/A bead than a Tig bead. Any ideas why my beads look like O/A welds? The other question is whether you Tig weld the same direction as you do with gas, in other words pushing the puddle from right to left. That's how I've been doing it but I had a though that maybe you do it like stick, dragging from left to right. Which is it?
So far I like Tig welding better than any of the other processes. I can see that when you can do it well it has a lot of advantages. I like that it's really clean and the penetration is great. Any ideas on what the learning curve is on Tig welding? Or, about what kind of time frame does it take an average person to be decent, then good, then very good? Can you get pretty good at it fairly quickly if you practice a lot or does it take years to get real good no matter what? Thanks.
Hawke

No gas ? what did you for get to turn on or hook up ?
TIG welding travels in the same direction as AO,like you said you are pushing the puddle.
don't let the arc melt the filler rod , rather DIP the rod into the molten puddle, how ever hold the filer rod under the shielding gas stream , and close to arc it will pre heat the rod.
you also use DIFFERENT filler rod for AO and for TIG.
your weld bead appearance will be affected by how frequently you dip the filer rod , how much of it. torch positioning , how fast you move, you need to develope a rythm. also once you get to use the pulse feature it will effect how the bead wil look.
one thing is that you need to keep the tungsten fairly close to the metal/puddle about 1/16 inch , there for it is very easy to contaminate the tungsten (metal getting glued to your tungsten?
in my oppinion TIG is the hardest to master. you have 3 things going at once torch control filler rod manipulation foot control (remote) , which should only needed when starting and ending the weld. machine set up is also critical.
I really reccomend to take a TIG welding class , even if you already know how to use AO. you will learn a lot.

Afraid to admit it but it was the knob on the torch that I didn't know to turn on. Feel pretty stupid but it ain't the first time.
I bought some Tig rod but in my welding book it says that when Tig welding there's a chart that shows a choice of using either O/A rod or Tig rod.
Is the pulse used on mild steel too or just for aluminum? I didn't think you could use that for regular steel. What exactly is the advantage to using pulse and when do you use it?
I have already managed to do that. Fortunately I haven't done it much. Tig does seem very similar to O/A but when you Tig you don't use a pattern of any kind, right? You just move in a straight line with the torch.
I don't think there is any doubt Tig is the toughest to learn with all the things going on at once. But I have to admit what I learned in O/A welding class is making it a lot easier. But like I said, so far when I get a decent looking bead it looks just like one of my O/A beads. Do you think that means I'm dipping the filler rod in the puddle too quickly or too frequently, and this is causing too much build up of material?
That would be nice but where I live there isn't anything available for me to just learn Tig. I took a community college class and there isn't anything else available around here. I got the basics and now I have to do the rest on my own. Which is okay. I've had my share of classes of any kind and I'm at the point that what I need more than anything else right now is simply putting in the time practicing.
Best of all is that if I have any more problems or questions this newsgroup is a great source of help and information. And thanks for your help too.
Hawke

Gas rod has more silicon in it, which can cause problems with TIG. TIG rod tends to stick to the puddle if used for gas.
A pulser helps even out the weld, by reducing the overall heat put into the metal. It also acts as a metronome to help time your addition of filler metal.
Correct, torch slides forward in a straight line, with the back cap tilted away from the direction of travel. You want the torch at a 70 - 80 degree angle and the filler rod at a 20 - 30 degree angle.