TIG and inside corners

I'm no expert, but I believe you can extend the tungsten much further from the cup for corners like that where the walls will help to contain the shielding gas. At least that's worked for me...

Pete C.

On Carbon Steel you NEVER FLOW WELD. Stainless steel is often flow welded, but with carbon steel you will almost always get some form of porosity, even if you can't see it on the surface.

For an inside corner I can assume you are running a standard collet body or you wouldn't be asking this question.

Switch to gas lens collet bodies and you can slide the tungsten twice as far past the edge of the gas cup. This makes inside corner and fillet welds immensely easier. A gas lens also allows you to drop your gas flow down to 10-12 cfh, and still get better shielding. The downside to gas lenses is the exposure of the tungsten to attacks by vagrant filler rod , and base metal that leaps off the table into it's path.

I wanted to respond to this question, but Ernie you covered it! I only use the standard collet body if the size of the gas lens doesn't allow me to get into a tight (confined) space.

Richard

Hi Ernie, everyone -- Little request - what is "flow welding"? -- RS

"Flow welding" is more accurately called Autogenous welding, which means no filler metal added. This is often used for Stainless steel tube and sheetmetal. With tube the ends are simply butted together and the TIG is used to melt the ends together. With sheetmetal the edges of the sheet are bent up a small amount. The 2 flanges are placed against eachother and the edges are flowed together.

Flow welding also works with most nickle based aerospace alloys, many bronze alloys and 5XXX series aluminums ( 5052, 5086...). It can not be used for most other aluminum alloys.

Sometimes it also called "fusion" welding.

Ya cant use this for regular steel?

oops...... guess Ive done a bunch of them wrong. Fortunately nothing important..thank (insert diety of your choice).

Thanks for the heads up!!

Gunner

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I find for inside corners that if I start at the hardest part - the actual joint of the corner - I have better success. Same for the tightest part of an angled tube joint. Sometimes I just put a good tack in there, step back a bit, and then restart from the tack. My theory is that these really hard to get at places tend to overheat a lot before you get the puddle engaged to all of the planes of the metal, so putting in the tack and starting from the tough bit helps keep the heat down.

Brian

What is the downside to a gas lens? I've never used one, but from what I've read, they seem to be much better than the standard issue ceramic piece. Why don't folks use them all the time?

Peter

Larger diameter I think so you can fit a standard into tighter areas. All I've ever used are the gas lens variety.

Pete C.

I never recommend them to new TIG welders because until you have good torch control, they leave the tungsten too vulnerable, and if you hold the tungsten back as you would for a standard collet body, thne the gas cup becomes too large to deal with.

First get good with standard collet bodies. When you can weld for an hour without having to grind you tungsten, you can graduate to gas lenses. After that you will never go back.