got some more practice, check out my welds

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got more practice in today, another hr or so, i now am up to ~ 8 hrs of total time tig welding. starting to get a little more consistant and co-ordinated with both hands, i think once i get some extra cash to either build a welding table, or at least get one of those portable "nomad" welding table like jody uses, it will really help, right now im welding on a wood topped bench thats way to high for me, with a peice of 3/8" steel laying on top that i use as a ground point/heat sinkso settings are as follows:3/16" aluminum diamond plate (welding on the backside)3/32" 2% thoriated tungsten, ground to a dull point3/23" 4043 filler rod160amps max footpedal controlleda/c frequency @ ~125a/c balance @ ~ 40%a few pics:the first is the overall pratice, the last couple are my best bead so far, first with flash, next withoutgot a little hot there right at the beginning, started working the pedal back a little late. still need some work filling that crater there at the end, i gotta work on putting in that little bit of extra filler as i work the pedal more. getting there!!constructive comments and suggestions are welcome! Attached Images
Reply:Not bad but you are running too cold. For  3/16" alum you probably need to be set closer to 190-220 amps. 160 amps is closer to what you want for 1/8" alum. The beads are sitting up too high. Alum you want to hit it hard fast to get the puddle going then back off fast as the plate heats up. You may be getting "better" results than you realise because the practice piece has soaked up residual heat from your previous practice beads on the same piece. This will act like you have turned up the amps on the machine, but it means you will run poor beads in real life starting out on cold material.You will probably find starting out with steel to be easier than alum. It's easier to see whats going on and get the heat control down better. With alum it's very difficult to see whats going on and you have to react 10 times faster than with steel. Most people have no real issues transitioning to alum if they have heat control on steel down well. Most of the guys I help instruct will take 10 times longer trying to learn tig starting with alum than the guys learning tig on steel. The guys that insist on starting with alum are lucky if they can get thru the all flat section welds in the class, the average guy learning steel usually gets thru flat and horizontal positions and is well thru vertical by the end of class. The steel guys that come back, usually finish up vert and overhead on steel and get thru flat on alum by the end of the 2nd class..No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Ronald Reagan
Reply:I'm a rookie myself so I won't pretend to give advice but...DSW raises a few good points. The main one I am still scratching my head over is why people seem to want to start GTAW with aluminum? The community college I attend does this and I'm not sure why. All the students start with 1/8" aluminum coupons (about 3" X 5") when they get to GTAW. Some grasp it right away and others seem to get discouraged and say things like "I really don't care for TIG." I was fortunate in that I didn't know any better so I just went with the program in the order that it was laid out. There have been some very frustrating days especially in the out of position welds. One good thing about starting with Al. is that when you get to mild steel, its a breeze compared to the aluminum. At least I thought so. So, presure2, how about fixing that crack on the left hand side of your practice piece and post some pics of that.  Looks like a decent first attempt to me for what that's worth. There's a lot of excellent info and very helpful people on this forum. The hard part is not finding good info here, its actually taking the advice and putting it into practice. Keep an open mind and a humble attitude and your skills will grow quickly.Good luck,Eric.
Reply:thanks for hte tips guys!i've been practicing on the aluminum, cause thats what i happen to have around the garage, and what most of my work will be, i gotta get some clean metal scraps to work on.
Reply:presure,Couple comments.As mentioned, too cold.Why the thorieated tungsten?  Thoriated is good for steel, not recommended for alum.  Ceriated or lanthanated is better on an inverter.  Pure would be a better choice on the transformers if you don't like lanthanated.Not sure of the machine you're using, but a balance setting of 40% seems way off.  I know some machines are set up differently, but on the Miller machines, I'd recommend a balance setting of between 75-85% DC-.  The higher DC- setting will put more heat into the workpiece and less into the tungsten.Syncro 250 DX Dynasty 200 DXMM 251 w/30A SG XMT 304 w/714 Feeder & Optima PulserHH187Dialarc 250 AC/DCHypertherm PM 1250Smith, Harris, Victor O/ASmith and Thermco Gas MixersAccess to a full fab shop with CNC Plasma, Water Jet, etc.
Reply:thanks sundown, i know its on the cold side, i can tell by how the beads start out taller and thinner when its cold, and as the peice heats up it melts in a little more, i am more doing this to try and get my hands co-ordinated, just trying to make consistant movements before really worrying about getting good fusion or anything.the thoriated tungsten im using because that was all the LWS had in stock at the time. im ordering some lath here this week. i left the machine info out on purpose, cause if it aint blue or red, everyone around here freaks out..lolmy machines balance settings are the reverse of millers, and i noticed thru trial and error the higher the % i went with it, the more it would ball up the tungsten, so i left it where it seemed to allow the tungsten to live a while..lolAgain, thanks for the helpful tips, soaking up all the info from you guys that have tons more experience than i do with this stuff, and hope that even tho i dont own big blue or big red (actually do own a big red mig machine actually!..lol) that you guys wont be TOO hard on me about it. but its all good, i have thick skin, i can handle it. haha.i found some 1/8" thick, ~2"wide flat stock i had laying around the garage this morning, im going to cut that up into som 5-6" strips and practice butt welding those, then running more beads on them like i did with the aluminum. i played with a couple cutoffs of that stuff a couple weeks ago, with no filler rod, and definetly seemed easier to work with than the aluminum, thats for sure.although with the metal being thinner, heat control with the footpedal needed more work as it heated up, and it didnt take long to get those small peices realllly hot, so i went back to the larger peices of aluminum i had.damn ADHD makes it hard for me to sit and do one thing for long periods without loosing focus, so i tend to just keep switching things up back and forth to diffrent things, just to keep it fresh and keep myself focused on what im trying to learn.
Reply:Originally Posted by presure2...., i am more doing this to try and get my hands co-ordinated, just trying to make consistant movements before really worrying about getting good fusion or anything..although with the metal being thinner, heat control with the footpedal needed more work as it heated up, and it didnt take long to get those small peices realllly hot, so i went back to the larger peices of aluminum i had.
Reply:Thanks for the detailed response, I really appreciate it. There are no tig classes close enough for me to take after work, so I'm hoping zap will take me under his wing! LMAO!! (he is less than an hr from me. )Anyway, I took your earlier advice and found some 1/8" steel ~2" wide, I cut a few 4 or 5" strips, and got an hr in today. I tacked them together with ~80amps, same tungsten and whatnot as before, no filler. When I did use filler I turned it up to ~ 100amps, seemed to stick in the puddle at anything less, just as you discribed in your last post. LolHere are a couple pics. The first pic, the middle bead is a butt joint ~80 amps, the other 2 beads are playing around with the filler and pedal~100 amps. This pic, the middle bead is with filler ~100 amps. The other 2 are more messing around.