Evening,

I am hoping there are still a few of you on here that are tig welders that could offer up some advice for a newbie welder.

What I am looking for is initial drills, repetitive tasks I can do to try and improve my technique.

Thanks,

Rusty.

Practise. Just grab some random scraps and try doing various joints. Overlapping joints are the easiest, so start there, then progress to butt joints and corner joints.

Also, check out youtube, as no doubt there are plenty good tutorial vids over there.
I learnt to gas weld at college, before buying a TIG welder and just diving in, so can’t recommend any specific videos to watch.

Do lots of welding. You need to get through a big bottle of gas before you get the hang of it. Prepare to spend money at boc 🙂

Weldingtips and tricks .com

Theres a British version I cannae remember the name mig welding or something

Both have videos to show you what should be happening and its easier once you have seen it to translate what your doing

Honestly if you can find someone local to show you the ropes , that’s another route ,or bring shortbread to Yorkshire and ill go with it for an afternoon with you

What pj says make it 2 – 3 bottles and a bucket of mitred up coupons

Running beads on flat 1.6 sheet then getting to a fillet weld is a quick route for tubes start thick and work towards thin stuff

Practise. Muscle memory.. There is no short cut im afraid..

Practice and experience is all its about, if your near Wrexham i can give you some lessons for free if you want!

Practice, I’m expecting to do lots of that, I just want to make sure I am practicing the right things.

Gas wise I have a hobbyweld rent free bottle just now to see how quickly I get through it. After speaking to one of the local BOC reps I have calculated if I get through this one in less than 4 months I am cheaper on contract.

After yesterday’s practice I have figured out there are a few more tools I need in the garage to make things a little more efficient.
Air die grinder for cleaning up the scrap metal I have.
More clamps/vice grips.
Proper welding table.

Yesterday was fun but I was thinking to try and help with control of the weld pool I could draw a couple of parallel lines on the sheet 5mm or so apart to give me something to try and keep within. I thought this may help with my speed of weld as I found I kinda got bogged down at times yesterday at which point the weld went wayward.

I have a friend up here who showed me some basics briefly yesterday while checking over my setup to see I hadn’t done anything stupid but he is expecting his first born in 6 weeks or so so hasn’t got much free time.

You welding Alloys or steel atm?

Whichever though the joint should be as clean as possible, any contaminants get into weld pool and **** it up!

Gas lenses and big ceramic cups.

Cleanliness, separate wire brush and scotch brite for each material.

When I was taught we did not use the pedal at first as it was one more thing to worry about.

Don’t be afraid to burn through material, turn the amps up, penetration is more important than appearance.

play with the frequency and AC balance

@ Christian

Welding steel.It is just a DC plant that I have.

Rust is not good to weld on, tried it in frustration yesterday. Also found out what happens when the gas flow rate is to low as well.

Ok, Good that youve seen diference in flow rate and rust, they are the main problems. Should have the current set so it pools up pretty quick but doesnt blow through the plate your working on, faster the better in the weld really as if you concentrate too much heat your gonna alter the properties of the material!
Pre flow and after flow settings are more important with alloys than steel imo!

I’ve been thinking about this too. I’ve a couple of projects that I’d like to build up and being able to weld satisfactorily would make them a lot more practical.

The local tech college run a welding evening course. It’s 3 hours a week for twenty weeks for a tad under £170. Was thinking of doing that as it seems a reasonably cheap way of getting a lot of practise time with minimal outlay. Is that a fair assumption or would I just be better of jumping in buying some gear and cracking on?

Just posting nothing so this stays on my thread list. Keep thinking about learning so want to see how it develops. Pictures and lessons learned please

@ muppetWrangler I couldn’t find a local course so have gone down the get the kit and give it a blast route.

So far i have spent a fair chunk more than £170.

WCA,

since you have been so generous in your picture threads here are a couple from yesterday.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/tdLLbN]Ramshackle first welding setup[/url] by RussellMacnamara, on Flickr

[url=https://flic.kr/p/tv5Prh]Ramshackle first welding setup[/url] by RussellMacnamara, on Flickr

So far i have spent a fair chunk more than £170.

I thought that might be the case.

There were two courses local to me but the other one was more expensive and was an intensive 1 week course. I figured I would learn more from doing a few hours a week over a longer period rather than going all out for a week.

What was the reason for learning? What you looking to make?

A cordless drill with a rotary wire brush is handy for cleaning up material. To avoid your pool getting too big, try looking ahead, don’t stare at the pool. Much like mtb’in 🙂 And as mentioned practice practice practice, getting your two hands to do two different things isn’t that easy but it will come. Also try to start your run from an extended position, alot of folks get comfy at the start and quickly run out of travel. And try to support your hands, fresh air welding is very hard. This is easier to show than explain unfortunately. But keep at it, it took me a full week to become proficient and another two to get coded.

Reasons for learning – have wanted to learn to weld for a while, my current day job is a hands off kind of job so had been wanting something to entertain my practical side.

Immediate needs are a welding trolley and a stand for the BBQ. Long term i want to build a bike frame or two. I’m sure other things will crop up.

Long term i want to build a bike frame or two.

Thought it might be the case. Me too but not before I’ve put together a few more utilitarian projects.

I found this video on the welding tips and tricks site mickmcd mentioned above so will aim to give this a go next.

[video]https://youtu.be/uzIF0H02fBw[/video]

After watching that video i think my torch angle has been way too slack so i will look at remedying that first.

I’d be interested in any progress updates as they crop up.

I booked that course this afternoon but it doesn’t start till September (assuming my booking get accepted) so I’ve got the Summer to start planning some projects.

are you welding onto a piece of worktop?

first thing to do is get yourself a bit of 8mm plate and earth the bench not the job.

plant, 4.5″ grinder/sander, grips and clamps
a load of scrap.

@ Soo

A bench of sorts is top of my list.

I have been looking at offcuts of steel I could mount to the pretty rotten work mate.

The other option is I saw these on ebay and it looks just the job.
http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=151680508937&alt=web

No further progress to update. Didn’t make it into the garage yesterday, was busy being a dad.

Got a little quick practice in this evening.

Plate wasn’t as clean as it should have been but a grinder and flap disk are on order.

I’m away with work for a week on Thursday but when I get back I’m gonna chase up getting some cleaner steel and a plate for the bench top rather than trying to do everything in mid air.

Edit – can’t link the picture on my phone sorry.

“cleaner steel” you need to learn to clean the job
(cant see your pic tho – so that may be unnecessarily harsh sounding)

that ebay bench looks nice, with my welding habits it wouldnt fold away for long.

The scrap I have is rusty as heck, I couldn’t go at it with the bench grinder as my daughter was asleep upstairs with her window open. Getting everything shiny and bright I know is a must but it will be easier as you suggested with an angle grinder and flap disk when I get one I just ran out of time to buy one for tonight.

I figured new steel may be quicker to clean up that was all.