a fairly common task in TIG welding aluminum is filling up a Bend
radius relief . so I have kind of mocked one up here on this cube that I was
using for a previous video to get some arc shots it's roughly 1/2 inch across
nothing difficult at all about it it's just that if you've never done anything
like this before if you're new to TIG welding I think there'll be something to
learn here so I'm using the clear number 8
Furick cup here gas lens I like using a gas lens for welding on an edge like
this for a say eighth inch and thinner and the reason is sometimes that edge
will split the gas and it creates a little bit of a venturi effect and
that's no good so the first thing I'm doing here is kind of sealing up these
corners so that everything conducts heat evenly so that no corner peels away if I
get carried away and daydreaming with my amperage or something like that and once
I've done that then just come across and weld a little bead around the edge now
this doesn't take much amperage this is eighth inch thick material 3.2
millimeters but welding on an edge like this takes somewhere between maybe 50
and 60 amps so I'll go ahead and do that first get one little bead there and I'm
using a little bit smaller diameter filler wire for this first bead I'm
using 1/16 1.6 millimeter 4043 wire just to get a bead on there and so I'll let
that cool just long enough to grab a 3/32 rod the machine I'm using today has
these little blue markers for the sweet spot recommended starting point settings
and I'm using them 120 Hertz and six on the AC balance if you've never filled up
a void like this before it's really good practice just to see what it's like
running a bead on the edge of the same thickness like this is the same
thickness that that I'm using on that cube and so I'm just running a little
bead on the edge here it's a good exercise in heat control of just using
just enough heat to flow the puddle forward practice kind of slipping your
rod in there instead of stabbing it don't let it ball up and blob in there
you can see here that the amperage required is not that much I think I
peaked out at 50 something amps it's all it takes now that I got a bead on there
there's no risk of anything peeling away with me or anything I grabbed a little
bit bigger rod a 3/32 rod and I'm just gonna go to town on this thing and I
could be actually going a little bit quicker and a little bit hotter I'm just
kind of taking it slow taking my time
trying not to get carried away with slamming too much rod in there giving
things time to blend in but I don't want to go so hot that I just sink a half
inch deep of penetration through there you know I want to be reasonable with it
not gonna take very long anyway at this point I can just sort of wash it and dab
and wash it and dab go around in circles until it finally closes up and then I
add just a little bit more rod as I swirl it and the reason for the swirl is
to blend everything together and to not leave a crater crack as I taper the
amperage off if this were some kind of vessel that we're gonna be pressurized
and you had a little crater crack there a little crater I it would leak. that's
the reason for the swirl well I couldn't very well see this nice outside corner
joint here and not go ahead and weld it up because who doesn't like an outside
corner she noticed they being able to see right through the cup and how it
kind of lights up a good inch or so ahead of where you're going that really
helps me clear cups are definitely not needed on every job but for me it just
helps me see where I'm going and this this cup lights things up tremendously
so now we're going to weld up another one of these corners one of these voids
using a regular ceramic number 8 gas lens I'm not going to see much
difference here other than it's not gonna light everything up quite as much
I'm gonna work out just fine I'm doing the same thing I'm going to
kind of make sure all the corners are sealed up before I get started and then
I'm gonna run a bead around it we'll see an arc shot in just a minute just taking
things nice and slow making sure that cleaning action works there take a
little peek at it here before we keep going also it's kind of helps to weld
downhill on things like this when you're welding on an edge but this is eight
inch so you can go uphill or downhill on it
without too much problem just makes it a little bit easier to go down here I'm
just gonna go ahead and go down and then go ahead on up and then once I get that
first layer on there again I can go a little bit heavier on the heat start
start going round and round and just kind of feed rod until it seals up and
then feed a little bit more rod and swirl once again as I taper off amperage
to not leave a crater crack or fish I
bought the same as the clear cup let's go ahead and weld another outside corner
with this ceramic cup is to see if there's any difference haven't noticed a
tremendous amount of difference in the shielding with the ceramic cup versus
the clear cup but the biggest difference is that this one just doesn't light
things up quite as much make it quite as easy for me to see where I'm going good
all-around cup though 8 and 8 is my kind of my go-to for stainless aluminum
carbon steel but a clear cup you get a benefit an obvious benefit is that you
can see through it in certain cases where you might need to like in a corner
like this and you're welding on the inside of angle it's very helpful to be
able to see a little bit better a little bit more without having to extend the
electrode out in order to be able to do it
and this you can see sort of I'm looking through the cup for part of it and I can
see the puddle for part of it also still getting good shielding now here's a here
several clips from previous videos just to kind of show you looking through the
cup here when you need to and in this case this is just happen to be where the
camera was I didn't really need to look through the cup just a lap joint out in
the wide open but the cups doing a great job you can see the band of of shielding
there the cathodic edging that's where the argon is going to that's where the
shielding that's how big the shielding is not necessary to have quite that much
shielding but again on those edges where I'm filling the hole it really does help
I shot this video some time ago lap joints and corner joints and tea
joints all in one video using this 8 clear cup
and I'll link it up right here if you're watching this on YouTube I think it's
one of the better videos I've ever done it a lot of content in one video and
here's a perfect example of that that glowing tungsten inside a glass cup like
that is like a it's like a big light bulb lighting everything up so you can
see where you're going better you see everything just so much better and for a
lot of people that's helpful I know it helps me my eyes are not quite what they
were when I was 21 and this video is just of a little simple quick little
simple project of a business card holder that utilized lap joints and an outside
corner joint as well as just running beads around an edge I'll put a link in
the description where you can go learn more about these two cups in fact I've
put them together in a single kit at Weldmonger.com thanks for watching see
you next time
you