evil_si Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 With ac tig on alloy with positive handpiece the tungsten should ball on the end, i grind mine to a dull point so they ball easier, Xcel arc do some sweet tig gloves, about $15 a pair, they have a poo yellow / brown cuff, and cream leather glove I mported a bunch of tig fingers, they are a kevlar sleeve that you put over the finger that is closest to the torch or the one you use to stead your hand with, some guys just use one of these and no gloves (fuck that) $15+ freight I was recently given a leather apron, wasnt to keen to start with then i actually used it,, its fuckng sweet, stops the shirt or pants catching fire when grinding and excellent at stopping the stray rods buring me when i raise my helmet, without being cunty and hot like overalls A watercooler is a huge improvement, ability to drop to a smaller lighter torch with out it melting and getting hot. I use to destroy wp26 torches, they would just get to hot, and come away from the body, split the rubber boot and then leak argon. I made my own cooler, found a small commercial a/c condensor about 250x300, made a 15litre holding tank, and rangi'd my 5amp arlec battery charger to run a caravan water pump, on the lowest output it can, plan is to get a tiny 240v electric pump but this hasbeen going strong for about 3 years now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yoeddynz Posted December 14, 2012 Share Posted December 14, 2012 With ac tig on alloy with positive handpiece the tungsten should ball on the end, i grind mine to a dull point so they ball easier. -Ahhhh- I went wrong with this then.First time round I set mine up positive hand piece, like a mig, and tried welding steel on DC. I wondered what the fuck was going wrong as the electrode kept melting away within seconds. Swapped to negative hand piece and much better. But now I'm welding alloy should I try positive hand piece again? I seem to remember something back in the day in my hazy days at Nmit about swapping leads about.... I imported a bunch of tig fingers, they are a kevlar sleeve that you put over the finger that is closest to the torch or the one you use to stead your hand with, some guys just use one of these and no gloves (fuck that) $15+ freight - just bought one off trademe from a fella who did the same. Cheers for offer though. I was recently given a leather apron, wasnt to keen to start with then i actually used it,, its fuckng sweet, stops the shirt or pants catching fire when grinding and excellent at stopping the stray rods buring me when i raise my helmet, without being cunty and hot like overalls - does it have pockets? And can you get them with a fluffy cat printed on the front? If so then I'm sold. A watercooler is a huge improvement, ability to drop to a smaller lighter torch with out it melting and getting hot. I use to destroy wp26 torches, they would just get to hot, and come away from the body, split the rubber boot and then leak argon. - I don't reckon I need one yet but once I'm doing more it's a bloody good idea. I imagine much better especially welding tight frames etc (read bicycles...) I made my own cooler.. -This I would do too. Just for the fun of it. Cheers for the info! Dave- I totally get what you mean about starting at the thinnest bits. Top tip! Thanks. Now back to practice.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dohcturbo626 Posted December 14, 2012 Share Posted December 14, 2012 Costal Machinery In Feilding is the best guy to talk to. hes a x trademan and is thea to help the home handman he sells new and used stuff. all i can say if ur keen to tig alloy get somthing with a foot control i am a engineer have being using a chinese inverter ac/dc tig for a while now and it shits all over the workshops old miller transtig when working with all light material ie (6mm and under) however they do need a water cooled torch which about 1g if ya wnt to do alot of heavy stuff lyk cylinder heads and gearbox casting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gto1973 Posted October 26, 2013 Share Posted October 26, 2013 @ yoeddynz if you want to put a ball on the end of your tungsten turn the cleaning % right upon the machine, crank up the welder start it then stop it when ball forms. don't let it get more that 1.5 times the size of your tungsten or you will get an unstable arc hope this helps Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toy-mota Posted October 30, 2013 Share Posted October 30, 2013 does anyone know much about this brand of welder,anygood? Â https://www.machineryhouse.co.nz/W1125 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Llama Posted October 30, 2013 Share Posted October 30, 2013 It's highly likely rebranded something else, plenty of the UK and US sites will have good reviews on them, you just have to figure out what the equivalent is you are looking at Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rookie Posted October 30, 2013 Share Posted October 30, 2013 I just bought one of those, I have no idea how to use it. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rookie Posted October 30, 2013 Share Posted October 30, 2013 Seems to be good though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sheepers Posted November 2, 2013 Share Posted November 2, 2013 does anyone know much about this brand of welder,anygood?  https://www.machineryhouse.co.nz/W1125  very similar to mine. pro tip, the arc force dial is your friend. by careful manipulation of that and the current setting you can weld thin/difficult/rusty parts. in the instructions for mine it says it only works during AC welding but that is not the case. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Llama Posted November 3, 2013 Share Posted November 3, 2013 What does arc force even do in TIG mode? With stick, it's meant to up the current when the load voltage drops too low, helps you stop sticking among other things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rookie Posted November 4, 2013 Share Posted November 4, 2013 very similar to mine. pro tip, the arc force dial is your friend. by careful manipulation of that and the current setting you can weld thin/difficult/rusty parts. in the instructions for mine it says it only works during AC welding but that is not the case.  Care to expand on this any more Sheepers? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sheepers Posted November 4, 2013 Share Posted November 4, 2013 arc force is really for stick welding to stop you sticking the rod if you try and push the rod into a corner or whatever. on my welder when its in TIG mode the arc force is still active, on others its turned off when you switch over to TIG. in practice what it means is you can add a bit more fine tuning to your current setting when your welding very thin sections at really low amps. you can set your current too low and set the arc force at about 20% then if you cant get the pool started or its not melting how you want you can decrease the arc length and it will increase the amperage a bit to get you going. its a bit like a foot pedal but not really.  its something you have to fuck around with but you will find that these machines are very unstable at super low current settings and using the arc force makes it far more usable. have a play about with it and you'll see what i mean. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rookie Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 Hey Sheepers, is your clean width % backwards on you machine? it seems to be on mine hahaha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ta63-1uzze Posted February 7, 2014 Author Share Posted February 7, 2014 does anyone know much about this brand of welder,anygood?  https://www.machineryhouse.co.nz/W1125   i just bought one of these bad boys. they are on special at the moment  1600 including gst and loaded into your car . 1 year warranty and technical support IE actually someone you can talk to and go and see, they have a rep for the north and south island also so no one will miss out, they also have parts replacement if necessary.  the only bit i don't like is that you have to buy the pedal separately. which i didn't have enough for today but oh well .well get it next week   so now to get some scrap alloy and let the fun begin , any tips for alloy settings? i have white tungsten 1.6 , and gas lenses and some nice large cups, looking at welding fairly average size piping and stuff for brackets all for my radiator , and some shit just for mounting stuff in engine bay . so around 2mm to 4mm . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stillway Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 i just bought one of these bad boys. they are on special at the moment  1600 including gst and loaded into your car . 1 year warranty and technical support IE actually someone you can talk to and go and see, they have a rep for the north and south island also so no one will miss out, they also have parts replacement if necessary.  the only bit i don't like is that you have to buy the pedal separately. which i didn't have enough for today but oh well .well get it next week   so now to get some scrap alloy and let the fun begin , any tips for alloy settings? i have white tungsten 1.6 , and gas lenses and some nice large cups, looking at welding fairly average size piping and stuff for brackets all for my radiator , and some shit just for mounting stuff in engine bay . so around 2mm to 4mm .  Make sure you clean your joints. Contaminants = pita Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evil_si Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 Ditch the 1.6 and get some 2.4's 1.6 can be a cunt on ali when your learning, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sheepers Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 yep^.  tips? just fuck around and be prepared to be extremely frustrated for a great period of time. stop and calm down then have a think about whats going wrong. 99% of the time you'll find the answer on the net or in this thread, believe it or not there are some very important pieces of wisdom in this thread, and this is old school. best thing you can do is try some things, wind the dials to the extreme ends of their range and see what happens. try to understand whats happening, if you can't, take a picture and we'll try to help. best of luck. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rookie Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 Anyone recommend a welding helmet for TIG? My auto darkening one doesn't play well with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stillway Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 I like the miller digital elite - big lens Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evil_si Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 I rate the x-mode otus / miller helmets, Good on low amp tig, and outdoors using the x-mode function Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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