I finally got enough time to get the Everlast PowerTig 210EXT set up, and actually tried it over the weekend. I just grabbed a piece of 3/16" flat stock, flap disked it clean, then wiped it down with acetone. I ran a couple of beads without filler, and then jumped right into adding filler. At that point I was just happy I could strike an arc and not stick the tungsten in the puddle, or hit it with the filler rod too often (did both a couple of times).
I felt like I had two left hands, and two left feet, but it started getting better pretty quickly. I often forgot to ease off the peddle, and leave the torch in place, among many other faults, but I know that will come with practice.
This is what I wound up with:
So, i grabbed two pieced of flat stock and tacked them to try a fillet weld. I liked being able to tack the pieces together without adding any filler...pretty cool. At that point I really started to spend time trying to sort out the exact amount I wanted the tungsten to extend and playing around with the flex head on the torch, my hand position, etc....lots of little things to sort out. I went slow and didn't vary the amperage too much at this point....just trying to get a puddle really. I ran three short beads, and this is what I wound up with:
At that point I flipped the piece around and started again after making a few more adjustments (and some along the way). I think this was four or five starts and the first couple were awful, but the last two (overlapped a bit) weren't too terrible.
I ran all of these with a 3/32 2% Lanthanated tungsten, around 20cfh and between 100 and 150 amps as max (changed as I went along) using 3/32" ER70S-6 filler rod.
Lessons learned: I need to get different gloves for TIG. I tried my mechanic's style gloves and they got hot too quickly, and then I tried my stick gloves and I wasn't able to feed the filler rod at all....which also cause me to be stupid and burn myself with a hot filler rod...ouch! I'm going to get some thinner flat stock to work with, and then spend a bunch of time working on simply getting into position, feeding filler rod, and varying the amperage on simple welds since I'm not in a rush. I spent maybe 30 minutes to get these "Ugly Beads" down, so I've got a lot of work/practice to do.
Overall, I'm a fan...love that it's quiet, and not smoky! More to follow
