my aHa moment has arrived...

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I have been extremely busy fishing and have had little time to TIG weld. The net season went out friday and upon parking the boat and unloading some tackle I got busy practicing  on the Squarewave 255 on Saturday. I got a ten minute lesson from my buddy who told me that I needed to work on some mild steel before moving on to aluminum.  II think he got frustrated with showing me how to tig aluminum.  He set my welder up to weld mild steel. Gave me a quick lesson and laid out some nice beads for me to see how it was done and examples for me to compare with.So I got to practicing on the steel and now I am laying out some decent beads. I got to welding small pieces of steel together I had for practice and could not beat them apart. Welds looked good and although I'm pumped up I am not read for fab work yet. I practiced on steel a couple of hours sunday and several hours on monday. I got so I could start and stop my weld and weld along edges and up to edges with decent weld beads. I was feeling so good I set the welder up on AC for aluminum.Chicken turds and plenty of them. I messed around and messed and could not get a start no way no how.  So I stepped back and thought of the basics I needed to do. I cleaned the aluminum to be welded, I cleaned the filler rod, I ground the tungston, checked the guages, checked the welder settings, went into the house and got my tig handbook out and went over it, got on Weldingwevb and looked up old post on learning to weld aluminum, watched videos on youtube and made a pitcher of fresh sweet tea and poured me a mason jar full and headed back to the shop.I sat down and really paid attention to all factors and laid out a bead not fancy but something to build on. Did some more beads that were along the chicken turd pattern and then I laid out a bead that was very nice and stacked like dimes but I could tell I was a little hot. The bead was laid in nicely but too hot of a weld. However I seen some things I had yet to see. I stopped practicing with a smile.On tuesday I was out in the shop early with success on my mind. I had some honeydos to get done but stopped by the LWS and picked up a set of 'cheaters' for my hood. Returned home and got back in the seat and almost on the first couple of welds they looked like a stack of dimes. I could really see the metal change with heat and figured out how to dip the rod without it coming back stringy. I could see how the hotter I ran the faster I needed to go and how if I worked the heat I could go nice and easy and control the weld instead of it controlling me. The one most important factor was that I needed the cup and electrode down very close to the weld for it to really stack up. I see where when the heat is up you can wet out the bead and slow down and let the bead grow tall.  I have to say that I practiced and practiced all day yesterday knowing I was finally turning the corner with tig welding. Today I'm going to go back at it until I run out of argon. I have one argon tank that is a  lease and one that I own that came with the welder. Both are empty and I plan to get them both filled for my practice. I am using 1/8 pure tungston, #7 cup, 3/32 filler rod. My gas setting is on 30 as I wonder about that but my buddy set it there when he set my welder up for aluminum. I'm wondering if that is too much or my guages are off some. I plan to cut the gas back today and see if I can get the welds looking good at a lower number. I am using 1/8 inch alum scrape as my work piece. I was about done yesterday when I noticed all the stubs of filler rod laying around. I decided to practice some starts with the stubs.  I would heat the metal until shiney, wait a second or two and back the electrode up a little and dab the stub in the hot spot to get mhy  first dime and then lay a few more dimes until my fingers got hot. I did this until I was out of stubs. I went to bed last night knowing I'm on the right track.I will take some photos today.RandyLincoln Power Mig 300 with PythonLincoln SquareWave Tig 255 Hypertherm Powermax 45 HH120 w/argon
Reply:Gas setting is way high. Your just burning money on the end of your torch. If your indoors you probably wont need more than 15-18cfh."ALL DAMAGE, NO CONTROL"
Reply:When I back the gas down to the 15-20 mark it seems I have no shielding. Even with the electrode sticking out a 1/4".  Once I raise the gas up the weld cleans right up.  Is there something else I should look at?   I went to 2% thoriated yesterday and really like the results. My starts were alot quicker and smoother.  I have some ceriated electrodes on the way.  I noticed on the thoria that my electrode point stayed a point for a long time unlike the pure tung.I'm gonna stick some alum together today.RandyLincoln Power Mig 300 with PythonLincoln SquareWave Tig 255 Hypertherm Powermax 45 HH120 w/argon
Reply:If the welds are OK with the gas at 30 but no good with the gas at 15-20, then use the gas setting at 30.     The best laid schemes ... Gang oft agley ...
Reply:netman,I just started TIG alum a few months ago.  Just a hobbyist here...nothing professional.  I know how it is when you shift from steel to alum.  It's like all the rules change.  The pic below is a recent sample...not great but a hell of a lot better than when I started.  The welds on the sides are T-joints.  The one in the middle is a corner joint.  I ran a lot of butt joints and these are as good as anything I've seen.  Be ready for a shock when you try the T-joints...these can really kick your a$$.  What works for me is to start out really hot (floorboard the pedal) and get the tung REALLY CLOSE.  Wait a few seconds for the puddle to flow together (the sides will start to melt first then they'll flow together right at the joint) and start moving.  Might need to back off the heat as you run the bead...certainly at the end of the weld or the puddle will fall through.  I'm still working on this.For 1/8" alum, I'm using a 3/32" tung.  I've used 2% thor and pure.  The pure was hard to start but balled up nice.  The 2% thor worked fine but sometimes developed what looked like little warts on the end (?!?!?).  I've got some 1.5% lanthanated but haven't tried these yet.  I'm using 170 amps w/ a foot pedal and air cooled torch, 20 scfh argon, 3/16" stickout, 200 hz, 3/32" filler.I go thru argon and filler rods like crazy.  I was buying aluminum flat bar from Home Depot but someone on this forum steered me away from there.  Now I buy 1.5" x 1/8" flat bar from onlinemetals.com at something like 1/4 the HD price.Another great tip I got here was to use a heavy, cheap glove for my torch hand and a thin deerskin glove for my filler rod hand.  Before, I was using thin gloves for both hands and my torch hand was getting really hot.  Now the cheap glove just smokes a little...bfd.This has been a lot of fun.  Frustrating at times but I'm seeing progress.  I've also developed a deep respect for the guys that do this for a living and do it good. Attached ImagesMiller 211 w/ spool gunMiller Dynasty 200DXLongevity 60i IGBT plasmaO/A w/ crappy chinese torch/gaugesSouth Bend 10K latheGrizzly 4029 10x54 millGrizzly 7x12 hor bandsawangle grnders, bench grnder, bench belt sndr7.5 hp 80gal cmprsor