Harbor Freight Tig

Yea, I was thinking about recommending a bible and Argon. Get an extended warranty if you can. I'm not gonna prejudice the box but if you are new to GTAW I'd look to the guys here for guidance and don't hesitate to ask questions.

Good luck,

Rob

Fraser Competition Engines Chicago, Il.

.223, .308, .50, and a lot of guys laid waste to the piece of shit I had.

you are going to be having an interesting(?) time of welding aluminum with no pedal, on a DC only inverter based T.I.G. machine

Don't they offer a AC/DC unit? If it's DC only I can recommend a good target range. It should go down faster than Monica Lewinski at a Democratic party fundraiser.

Rob

Fraser Competiti>> I just bought a tig welder, what are the correct supplies to use in

I'm not a TIG welder (yet), so I can only give you the basic items you'll need to get up and running. I don't know if you can weld aluminum with that welder because it seems to be a DC-only machine, and you want AC's cleaning action to remove the aluminum oxide coating that covers all bare aluminum. I'll confine my comments to mild steel welding.

1: First you'll need a bottle of Argon shielding gas.

An 80 cubic foot bottle should be about right. Find a local welding supply store and get one there. Inquire about options to rent a bottle, and if you decide to buy a bottle, be sure to keep the receipt; you may need it to get a refill.

2: Then you'll need some electrodes.

There are a confusing number of kinds and diameters. Most popular seems to be %2 Lanthanated. The diameter is related to the thickness of metal you'll be welding. I think in the case of your welder 0.040" and 1/16" diameter would be right. This will be compatible with very thin sheet metal on up to about 1/8" (I don't know the maximum amperage of your welder, but I'll assume 150 amps)

3: You'll also need some filler rod.

Once again, filler rod comes in a vast range of diameters and alloys. Given the thickness of metal that you'll be able to work with with that machine, filler rod from 0.024" to 0.045" diameter would be appropriate.

4: If you don't have one, an auto-dark welding helmet is a must.

I understand that Harbor Freight sells one for $50 or so, and that it is an okay helmet for a hobbyist. (Of course, don't try to weld without a welder's helmet like they do on some TV shows.)

5: You'll need a means of sharpening your electrodes.

A bench grinder will do an adequate job.

No doubt I've missed something in the list above. I'm cribbing from an article that Ernie Leimkuhler has posted here many times. Go to Google Groups and in sci.engr.joining.welding do a search on "Ernie Leimkuhler" to get lots more TIG info.

Randy Zimmerman knows his beans too, so check his posts out as well.

Best of luck; TIG welding has one of the steepest learning curves going, but when you become an accomplished TIG welder you'll know you've REALLY accomplished something.

A few differences of opinion from what Artemia posted. Nothing serious.

You can weld aluminum with a DC welder, but in order to get the cleaning action you will need to be using reverse polarity. This puts more heat in the electrode so you need thicker tungstens and wont't be able to weld too long before the torch gets hot. It also limits the thickness you can weld.

Autodarking helmets must be nice, but lots of welding was done before they were around. With a TIG welder with a control pedal, you can start with a very low current and use that as a flashlight before increasing the current to form a puddle. So less need for a autodark helmet with TIG.

You don't want to contaminate the tungstens, so you want a separate wheel or belt for sharpening tungstens. I use a 1 by 42 belt grinder as it is very easy to change belts to one that has only been used for grinding tungstens. But would use a bench grinder if I did not already have a belt gringer.

I think TIG is one of the easier processes to learn. It is very much like oxy/acet welding except with TIG you usually have a pedal to control the heat. So it is easier than oxy/acet. No smoke like stick so you can see better. I might feel different if TIG was the first welding process I learned. Lots to learn at first, but once you know what you want the puddle to do, TIG is not hard.

The advise to google on Ernie and Randy is excellent. They are professionals. I am just a amateur. You might also google on Harbor Freight TIG. Someone said it looked pretty easy to add a current control to the Harbor Freight TIG welder.

Dan

Artemia Sal>

What kind of time are you getting before you have to let the tungsten cool?

30 sec? 1 min? longer? Jim

I use Lanthanated tungstens, Argon/Helium 75/25 and mostly 4043 filler. Works well.

Ted

Yeah! I know how that re-learning goes. I may not weld for weeks and sometimes even months, then something happens, and I have to repair something (everything) or build something. Like last month, I probably spent

150-175 hours on a project. It seems that all I did was cut, grind, and weld, but I got a good refresher course, no gas welding, some stick, some spot welding, and I went through a big spool of .035 wire on the MIG.

I have had a HF TIG for about 1½ months now but haven't played with it much yet on aluminum. It did a good job repairing a crack on a stainless steel tubing exhaust manifold.