TIG practice

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Here are a few TIG welds I laid down on my break time at work. I've only TIG welded for maybe 4 hours total. And no, I don't weld on product. We get free reign on scrap for practicing. This is stainless. I'm not sure which kind exactly. Oh, and the pieces are about 12"x4", tacked together to form a box shape. I know my beads lack fusion in a few spots. And I'm still working on the coordination of two hands simultaneously. So, straighter, more consistent beads to come later. The vertical welds were all uphill. Please critique. And how do I get better color? I know that grey is not what I should be aiming for. I was mainly concerned with puddle control. The pics that say 3F uphill, the bead on the right was fusion only, no filler. On the 1F weld I actually started it as a horizontal weld and for some reason I was adding filler from the left while dragging to the right. It wasn't working at all so I switched to flat headed left. Do what it takes to get the job done right.
Reply:Grey welds usually mean too much heat with stainless. That could mean your amps are too high, but my guess from looking at the picts, is it's just the opposite. Your amps are too low meaning you need to stay longer in one place to get the puddle to form. It sounds counter intuitive, but often if you weld hot and fast, you put less heat into the piece than if you try and weld cold and slow. Information of what thickness material and filler and what amps you are using would help. The more basic info we have on what you are working with, the better the answers and suggestions can be.FYI outside corners like that are fairly tough to do well. At the tech school we start out students on basic beads on flat material followed by over lapping beads  to get the basics down. From there they do lap joints followed by T joints before moving to outside corners. You have more leway on your heat with laps and T's than you do with outside corners. Also we usually start students on thicker stainless or mild steel than it looks like you are using so they have even more "fudge" room with their heat. Also stick with flat for right now. Horizontal, vertical and overhead require even more skill than flat. Don't complicate things needlessly at this point. You want to simplify things as much as possible right now. Try and remove all the variables you possibly can and just learn to manipulate one thing at a time until you can do it without having to think about it.For someone trying to learn tig, get yourself as comfortable as possible and set up to weld in the flat position. Set up so you can rest your torch hand on the table thru the whole weld. This allows you to simply drag your hand along the table to maintain a consistent torch height and speed. Use a lay wire method to add filler or simply slide the filler along the plate rather than "stab" filler at the puddle. Remember you melt the filler with the puddle, not the arc. ( I see some indications that you might be melting the filler with the arc not the puddle in those picts. More detailed picts would help prove/ disprove that since it's hard to get a god look at those tiny beads at that distance.) With all those factors controlled, all that's left is to learn to adjust your amps with the pedal as you weld. When you have that down, you can change things up and learn to do the same thing with the amps pegged with the pedal, and adjust your heat with your travel speed, or with torch height... When doing tig, a good tig welder will be constantly adjusting his amps, speed, torch height, amount of filler added etc to achieve the results he needs. You have a great deal more control over the weld pool with tig than you do with other processes, so it takes longer usually to learn all the small things that are part of that make up. Right now just keep it simple rather than trying to learn to juggle all of them at once.Good luck..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:Originally Posted by DSWGrey welds usually mean too much heat with stainless. That could mean your amps are too high, but my guess from looking at the picts, is it's just the opposite. Your amps are too low meaning you need to stay longer in one place to get the puddle to form. It sounds counter intuitive, but often if you weld hot and fast, you put less heat into the piece than if you try and weld cold and slow. Information of what thickness material and filler and what amps you are using would help. The more basic info we have on what you are working with, the better the answers and suggestions can be.FYI outside corners like that are fairly tough to do well. At the tech school we start out students on basic beads on flat material followed by over lapping beads  to get the basics down. From there they do lap joints followed by T joints before moving to outside corners. You have more leway on your heat with laps and T's than you do with outside corners. Also we usually start students on thicker stainless or mild steel than it looks like you are using so they have even more "fudge" room with their heat. Also stick with flat for right now. Horizontal, vertical and overhead require even more skill than flat. Don't complicate things needlessly at this point. You want to simplify things as much as possible right now. Try and remove all the variables you possibly can and just learn to manipulate one thing at a time until you can do it without having to think about it.For someone trying to learn tig, get yourself as comfortable as possible and set up to weld in the flat position. Set up so you can rest your torch hand on the table thru the whole weld. This allows you to simply drag your hand along the table to maintain a consistent torch height and speed. Use a lay wire method to add filler or simply slide the filler along the plate rather than "stab" filler at the puddle. Remember you melt the filler with the puddle, not the arc. ( I see some indications that you might be melting the filler with the arc not the puddle in those picts. More detailed picts would help prove/ disprove that since it's hard to get a god look at those tiny beads at that distance.) With all those factors controlled, all that's left is to learn to adjust your amps with the pedal as you weld. When you have that down, you can change things up and learn to do the same thing with the amps pegged with the pedal, and adjust your heat with your travel speed, or with torch height... When doing tig, a good tig welder will be constantly adjusting his amps, speed, torch height, amount of filler added etc to achieve the results he needs. You have a great deal more control over the weld pool with tig than you do with other processes, so it takes longer usually to learn all the small things that are part of that make up. Right now just keep it simple rather than trying to learn to juggle all of them at once.Good luck.
Reply:I found some thicker material and will try to get some better pictures Monday.Do what it takes to get the job done right.
Reply:along with what dsw said it looks like you need more gas coverage. a bigger cup and gas lens can help with the color.Miller Dynasty 200Millermatic 211Instagram?.... find me @ WELD_MEDIC
Reply:Originally Posted by dkalleckUsed a Miller Syncrowave 250 set to 115 or so. Foot control. The material was 16 guage 304 stainless. 1/16th SS filler.