More Fillet TIG Welding
Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2017 6:48 pm
Got back to welding today. The results were a bit weird.
I took a couple of pieces of 1/8" steel and cleaned them until they were bright, using a belt grinder. I wiped them down with acetone and went to work on a fillet weld.
The first inch of weld (right to left) was horrible. I had all sorts of porosity, and I could not get the metal to move the way I wanted it to. I can't figure that out. I had to touch the metal with my gloves a number of times to get it set up, so I'm wondering if I contaminated it. I put conditioner on the gloves when I got them, so I'm afraid traces of it got on the steel.
I acetoned the metal again and got back to work. I also wiped down the filler, figuring it could not hurt. Things improved a great deal, but then a little while later, I got porosity again. Then it went away.
I feel like my technique improved a lot today. Apart from the bubbles, a good deal of this work actually looks like a weld. I found I needed to hold the tungsten closer to the joint than I had been, and that made everything go better.
I don't know what the little squiggly bits are.
The heat was frustrating. I was able to weld a little over an inch at a time, and then my right index finger got too hot to continue. I was holding the torch as far back as I could, to get away from the heat.
Feeding the rod is still a problem. It bounces when I feed it, so it's hard to keep the tip from going places where it should not.
This is slow work. After every inch, I stopped, and I gave the torch two minutes to cool. Three or more minutes per inch...over twenty minutes.
I took a couple of pieces of 1/8" steel and cleaned them until they were bright, using a belt grinder. I wiped them down with acetone and went to work on a fillet weld.
The first inch of weld (right to left) was horrible. I had all sorts of porosity, and I could not get the metal to move the way I wanted it to. I can't figure that out. I had to touch the metal with my gloves a number of times to get it set up, so I'm wondering if I contaminated it. I put conditioner on the gloves when I got them, so I'm afraid traces of it got on the steel.
I acetoned the metal again and got back to work. I also wiped down the filler, figuring it could not hurt. Things improved a great deal, but then a little while later, I got porosity again. Then it went away.
I feel like my technique improved a lot today. Apart from the bubbles, a good deal of this work actually looks like a weld. I found I needed to hold the tungsten closer to the joint than I had been, and that made everything go better.
I don't know what the little squiggly bits are.
The heat was frustrating. I was able to weld a little over an inch at a time, and then my right index finger got too hot to continue. I was holding the torch as far back as I could, to get away from the heat.
Feeding the rod is still a problem. It bounces when I feed it, so it's hard to keep the tip from going places where it should not.
This is slow work. After every inch, I stopped, and I gave the torch two minutes to cool. Three or more minutes per inch...over twenty minutes.