I've got a 3 F lap joint here 11 gauge cold rolled steel it's about two
feet long you know I'm not gonna do anything different than I would if it
was laying flat in front of me but it's awkward and so I've got to get around
the awkwardness I gotta make myself comfortable that's really the key to
this let's weld this is a video that I did some while back
it's a lap joint it's the same thickness but it's in the horizontal position
laying right on the bench and like I said I'm not gonna really be doing
anything different I need to hold a tight arc I need to hold a steady arc
not too much torch angle I need to keep the hot tip of that rod shielded so I'm
gonna try to do those same things except vertical uphill it's a little bit more
difficult because it's awkward it's like anything else though if you practice it
you get better at it the three biggest mistakes that I've seen people that are
learning to TIG weld make are too much arc length too much torch angle and
oxidizing the hot tip of the filler so you're pulling the filler out of the
argon and it gets oxidized and then it introduces that oxide into the puddle
and the puddle gets all funky what you see here is I'm doing all three things
wrong arc is too long too much torch angle and I'm coming in and out of that
argon with that hot tip of the rod and you can see it balling up and blobbing
into the puddle instead of feeding into the puddle and you want it to feed into
the puddle if it blobs in there it's not gonna meet her in there evenly so it's
not gonna be even here I'm still at a hundred amps hadn't changed the thing
I'm full pedal at a hundred amps I tighten the arc up a little bit
it's still not enough it's a tiny bit better still not completely good here
all I did was cure those things I tighten the arc length
I'm keeping the hot tip of that rod shielded and I tightened up my torch
angle a little bit and things got tremendously better and here's a little
clip from a more recent video where I used a clear cup and the reason I use
the clear cups on videos is so we can all see things a little bit better well
let's shift gears now and get on into the vertical uphill 3f lap joint if
you've never done this before if you're just learning I highly recommend doing a
few little fusion passes I'm using ninety five amps here full pedal no
filler metal just to get used to the motion get used
to how I'm holding the torch and you can see me I'm pausing just as if I was
adding filler metal about once per second I'm holding a nice tight arc at
95 amps there I'm getting used to it and then I can come back and we'll Dover top
of that even for the practice if I want to then when you start adding filler
metal and I'm using a 1/16 er 70 s6 today
you just need about 10 percent more amps the reason I only use 95 amps is because
if you don't hold a good tight arc without filler metal at 95 amps the
puddle won't even move with you so now I increased it to 105 we're ready to weld
with filler metal now this lap joint is about 2 feet long or so so I'm going to
take this in about 3 or 4 inch runs here and I want to get a puddle
established within about 3 seconds hold a tight arc keep the hot tip of my rod
shielded try to get comfortable and move along at a nice steady pace I'm already
feeling a little bit more comfortable nowhere near as comfortable as it was
sitting on a bench welding right in front of me in the flat in horizontal
position but still it's getting kind of comfortable and that's the way it is if
you're not used to something all it usually takes us some practice and you
kind of can find your groove if you're new to this channel what you see here is
a tick finger this is my patented product I use it in some videos here and
there where it makes sense I think you can see though that on something like
this where there's really no board a prop it can really come in handy
especially on aluminum it makes a huge difference so I'm just trying to do what
I did in the flatten horizontal position here hold the tight arc not too much
torch angle keep the hot tip of the rod shielded I'm at 105 amps full pedal I
don't usually go full pedal what I usually do is I'll give myself an extra
20 or 30 amps not like set the Machine wide open and just completely control it
with the pedal but I like to have a little bit of extra just like when in a
car if you need to pass somebody on the freeway you like to have a little bit of
extra horsepower so I like to have amps there if I'm going over a tack or come
up on a heavy spot or something like that but for the sake of videos I like
to figure out the exact amperage so that I can list it gives everybody a better
shot of duplicating and you can do what works for
you after that but at least at least you see what worked for me anyway
fortunately restarts are pretty easy on steel so stopping and starting if you
need to sneeze or whatever it's not a big deal so I usually just light up
point my electrode pretty much in the center of the crater back up maybe a
ripple and then just go and usually you can hardly tell where the restart is and
if you can tell will usually just be a heat 10 or something like that it's no
big deal there's lots of ways you could hold a torch for a joint like this this
happens to be pretty comfortable for me holding it sideways and they say the
ABCs of welding are always be comfortable so it makes good sense more
comfortable you are the more steady you are a steady hand welds better
well I skipped forward just a little bit but you get to drill so I like to do
something called back stepping and the thinner something is the more back
stepping I'll do now this is eighth inch thick metal you know I could weld that
from start to finish and really wouldn't do any harm or distort a whole bunch or
anything like that here I again I took it in about three or four inch runs
still back stepping but we'll do the other side real quickly and I'll fast
forward it just to show a little two inch runs instead of sliding the tick
finger up I'll just prop and just sort of rotate my wrist a little bit and make
it a little short two inch run maybe I'll be a little steadier that way
we'll see again try to get a puddle established pretty quickly
especially is that's important with stainless steel you know heat will build
up on you with stainless steel if you wait around at a low amperage to get the
puddle started you get into problems not so bad with carbon steel but still you
want to get the puddle established within like two or three seconds
sometimes quicker so I'm gonna I'm at like I said 105 amps I'll go full pedal
right away get a puddle started try to get moving again 1/16 diameter ER 70 s6
and really I just used that because that's what I had plenty of couldn't
really tell much difference between ER 70 s 2 & 6 on this for me the most
difference I can tell between the two is when I'm penetrating all the way through
something in the backside is exposed to air then
it seems like the six works a little bit better so there you have it that's a run
with a whole bunch of little two-inch back steps and it works fine not much
better than the other side really but a different way of doing things that can
limit distortion on thinner stuff here is the machine that I use for this video
you can find it on my website at weld monger dot comm along with the TIG Cup that
I used and my TIG finger product thanks so much for watching see you next time
you