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couple of Tig questions

I read this group regularly and have found it most informative. I seen a number of welding problems answered here that I've have myself. This place is great...

Anyway enough of the flattery..

Most of my TIG welding is standard 1018 steel but I occasionally need to weld aluminium and 4130. While the choice for on welding rod for aluminum is pretty straight forward, what is good to use for the 4130? I was in a race shop the other night and the welder told me that he uses stainless steel rod, something like 308?

Also instead of having to figure out the color code on the tungstens, what is a good tungsten that can weld all of the above well? 1% Lanthanated?

Most of the welding is done in the 16 guage to

1/4 inch range if that helps.

TIA,

Bruce

Reply to
bwoltz
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ER80S-B2 You can buy it here.

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Great stuff, I also use it for welding bandsaw blades.

It does work, but there are problems with using 308L SS filler on 4130.

308 is basically 304 after welding, and 304 is a pretty weak SS alloy. 309, and 312 have been used for 4130, and are both stronger and better at dealing with carbon steel.

Low strength SS alloys have a problem with repeated flexing, in that they tend to stress fracture much sooner than carbon steel alloys. As long as the frame joints aren't flexing much it should be OK, but use 309 or 312.

ER80S-B2 is the best, but I have used nickle base alloys in the past like Hastelloy W and Inconel 625 with great success.

1% Lanthanated (black) and 1.5% Lanthanated (gold) are both fine. 2% Lanthanted (blue) is better, but harder to find. 1% Ceriated (orange) is also OK on AC and DC, but Ceriated is better on low amperage and Lanthanated is better on high amperage

Get yourself a box of 3/32" 1.5% Lanthanted tungstens.

Reply to
Ernie Leimkuhler

Ernie Leimkuhler wrote in news:071220040049514103% snipped-for-privacy@stagesmith.com:

I've used these exclusively for all of my TIG welding so far on the advice of the guy who has been teaching me. Although it was noted above that these have a gold band, mine are actually grey (Sylvania brand I think).

So far I've used these for mild steel (1018), stainless sheetmetal, and aluminum (5052 and 6061), all

Reply to
MHill

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