Quote:
Originally Posted by sanddrag
Here's one from today. It's so fun to totally just nail one spot on.
Airgas guy told me the green tungstens are not for use with inverter machines like the Diversion 165. Wish they had told me that a year ago when I bought them. Anyhow, I switched over to the purple colored E3 tungstens (I think they're called) and it's a big difference. Real smooth buttery arc.
The only issue I'm having with these tungstens is that the arc wants to dance around a bit when starting, until you really punch it in with the pedal.
I did have a few welds completely blow out (yes, outward), and then the metal just would not accept a weld in that location no matter how clean I ground it out. It was really weird. I think I had a bad batch of metal, with contaminants or water in it. Anyone ever experience that?
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Looking good.
I assume you're welding up a closed tube structure? If so, that's air heating up inside the tubes and pushing the molten weld material out from the inside. The areas they blow out get super contaminated with oxides and need to be completely ground out and/or cut away. Drill a small (1/16-1/8in) hole where no one will notice to vent out said gases and you won't have the blow-out problem anymore. I have encountered this issue welding aluminum, steel, and titanium.
I used to use thoriated tungsten for everything: steel, aluminum, titanium, etc. Having learned that its radioactive I've switched to using 1.5% lanthanated (gold/yellow band). Never used purple/E3 before... might have to give it a try.