[NU_BLUE]

I have a question. Most of you on here are good welders. I was wondering where ya'll learned it? Do you just pick up over the yrs. or were you trained, etc?

I've played around with a stick welder more times than I remember and I've got the basic idea from welding on farm equipment, etc. However, I would like to get into MIG and TIG welding....I'm just curious where to start.

[robz71lm7]

I messed around for a while by myself(couple years) then I set about doing it right. After I became a CWI at work I decided I needed to become proficient at what I was inspecting. I've been taught by our day to day and maintenance contract welders working outages at our plant (coal fired utility boilers). (ASME code, x-ray quality tube welds for those that don't know). I should be taking a tube test tig root, tig hot pass and stick cap in 6G before the end of the year. Lately I've been welding 4 to 6" pipe (not on the boiler but service water in the plant) and some boiler tube with the tube welders that work for me when time permits.

FWIW I've met more than a few expert TIG welders that cannot stick weld worth a damn. In some cases TIG is the easiest process for a 'real' welder because there is so much independent control. BTW, all of our TIG welding at the plant is scratch start w/o remote amperage control, so don't let people tell you that you need the latest top of the line inverter machine to TIG weld. (Just a pet peeve of mine)

Don't listen to the internet hoopla about just burning tons of wire/rod and practicing....that's part of it but you need quality instruction from someone. In fact it's best to get it from multiple people. Everyone has a different way of doing things and you will learn a lot faster than working by yourself.

[prockbp]

BTW, all of our TIG welding at the plant is scratch start w/o remote amperage control, so don't let people tell you that you need the latest top of the line inverter machine to TIG weld. (Just a pet peeve of mine)

Some good points here- but you're not going to make welds per D17.1 specs without high-frequency-start and remote amperage control. If your goal is learning how to TIG weld aluminum to aerospace specs, then you must have remote amperage control. Proper starts and stops on any material require remote amperage control. Since 99% of the people welding today are not working even close to aerospace specs, scratch start without remote amperage control is good enough. You don't have to buy an inverter in order to have remote amperage control and high-frequency-start; these are common parts of 99% of the TIG welding machines on the market.

Your comment about inverter technology is true. The Miller Dynasty is the best readily-available TIG welder on the market, but you must have expert-level-knowledge of welding in order to take advantage of it's abilities. Throwing down $6,000 to $10,000 on a Dynasty is useless for novices and most welding professionals. Once you learn what a Dynasty can do, everything else is garbage.

This post has been edited by prockbp: Sep 22 2009, 01:56 AM

[robz71lm7]

BTW, all of our TIG welding at the plant is scratch start w/o remote amperage control, so don't let people tell you that you need the latest top of the line inverter machine to TIG weld. (Just a pet peeve of mine)

Some good points here- but you're not going to make welds per D17.1 specs without high-frequency-start and remote amperage control. If your goal is learning how to TIG weld aluminum to aerospace specs, then you must have remote amperage control. Proper starts and stops on any material require remote amperage control. Since 99% of the people welding today are not working even close to aerospace specs, scratch start without remote amperage control is good enough. You don't have to buy an inverter in order to have remote amperage control and high-frequency-start; these are common parts of 99% of the TIG welding machines on the market.

Your comment about inverter technology is true. The Miller Dynasty is the best readily-available TIG welder on the market, but you must have expert-level-knowledge of welding in order to take advantage of it's abilities. Throwing down $6,000 to $10,000 on a Dynasty is useless for novices and most welding professionals. Once you learn what a Dynasty can do, everything else is garbage.

I agree with everything you've said above, but will take exception to this:

Proper starts and stops on any material require remote amperage control.

Nice but not necessary, unless you meant that in reference to D17.1 as well. I'm not familar with D17.1. I'm just a power plant guy.

I think we're both saying the same thing I used the extreme of bare-bones tig welding with any CC power source to contrast a Dynasty and show that "It's the violinist, not the violin." A good welder can make high quality welds without a fancy machine. Now for aluminum yeah you're going to need an actual tig machine, but the novice needn't concern himself with fine tuning wave forms, balance, pulsed tig, etc. A used transformer machine like a Syncrowave or Precision Tig can be found quite cheeply now that many are upgrading to inverters. IF you have a power supply that can feed a big transformer machine. Wouldn't it be cool if we got an energy-savings tax credit for inverters?

Disclaimer: I only work with ASME Sec I, Sec VIII, Sec IX, B31.1. , B31.3, NBIC, and D1.1.