TIG Welding

[TomG]

I was just about to make the point about gas welding, but Rick beat me to it.

I used to work for a DOD contractor and we built a lot of tube structures to mount radar and infrared sensors in our aircraft. They were all made of 4130 tubing and we almost exclusively gas welded them together. Some of the clusters were so complex that they had to be preheated in order to weld them. We also did some TIG welding of 4130, but I preferred oxy-acetylene. It's a lot easier to use on out of position welds. I had so much torch time that stepping up to TIG was pretty seamless. Don't do much gas welding any more though, my oxy-acetylene welder gets used mostly for cutting off exhaust systems and loosening stubborn fasteners.

Tom

[Rickabilly]

Sorry calling welding gear of any kind a "set" is kind of old lingo nowadays, so by "dc inverter set" I mean a basic dc current welding machine that uses the modern "inverter" innards, rather than big heavy copper coils with iron centres, an inverter system is just far lighter and the output seems to be nice and clean (clean = Smooth to use),

This kind of welding machine is good for both stick and TIG welding and is relatively cheap and easy to use with only one adjustment "Amps" to worry about, which means you get to spend more time worrying about learning the art of welding as opposed to the art of dial twiddling and looking like you're not confused despite being absolutely baffled, which frankly is what happens to most folks when they buy a high end HF TIG with all the gadgets, If you weld mostly in steel and 99% of folks do, forget hf machines until you can properly weld in steel, just my $0.02

Regards
Rick