TIG welding arcs that look through my helmet like the arc shots on YouTube videos – Tackle Making – REALLY!

I’ve always struggled as a welder, but eventually I get it most times. One thing I do when it has to work the first time is cut some stock piece the same size and make a few practices welds before welding the work piece. I did this a lot learning to MIG weld aluminum. It makes a big difference.

Yesterday I was trying to TIG weld some stainless washers onto some stainless pins in the middle, and weld then weld cross bars on one end to make it into a T-handle. It’s a custom pull pin for some commercial fishing net sinker molds. See I told you it was tackle related. Okay, not angling per say, but for commercial fishermen.

It looked a volcano pooped on my welds. I haven’t tig welded much, my own attempt at aluminum destroyed the work piece, and my previous attempts at stainless kinda worked well enough, but I knew it wasn’t right. I could have done as well (better) with a torch probably. Yesterday it was driving me crazy. I bought plenty of extra stock and I used all of it trying to make six pins.

Today I was stewing on it, and finally I thought there has got to be something wrong. It can’t be ALL me. The arc is unmanageable, even a tungsten that doesn’t get dipped in the weld pool turns into a blob. The welds looked like a cooling lava field. I had a buddy tell some other tungsten would be better than what I was using so I ordered some. I also did a fair bit of internet detecting, and what I was seeing (or not seeing) was not even close.

I started trouble shooting. Right away I found a massive gas leak in the hose right at the connector to the solenoid. That one was easy to fix, but there was another gas leak in the main hose inside the cover for the DINS connector. The welding cable goes through the inside of the hose from there. It might be repairable, but not by any means I know of. Didn’t stop me from trying. It was beginning to look like I was going to need to buy a new TIG torch, hose, and cable assembly. AHP has direct replacements or course. The price isn’t bad, but waiting on one isn’t in my plans. I still need to finish these pins.

After looking around I decided to pick up a Harbor Freight Vulcan TIG torch “kit.” The price was fine enough. Maybe 10 bucks more than AHP, but no shipping since I could pick it up in store. I opened the box and studied it before checking out. Its got adapters for two different size DINS, and an adapter cable for the larger DINS for machines that do not pass the gas directly through the on machine DINS connector. All I had to do was change to the gas connecter from my bad hose assembly. The machine has a quick couple that looks like a miniature air hose quick coupler.

I cut and reground a tungsten, fired up the machine, and I could tell the difference instantly. I could clearly hear the gas coming out the torch where it was supposed to. I setup some of my scrap pins from yesterday and started playing. For the first time EVER I could see the arc, and the puddle, and the tungsten electrode clearly in my shield. It was beautiful. Like one of those perfect arc shots the welding guys show you on a YouTube video. I think that factory AHP hose always leaked since brand new ever since I got the machine.

It still took me a few tries, and I still dipped the tungsten a couple times and had to regrind it, but I finally got an okay stainless weld with my TIG machine.

They say its a poor tradesman who blames his tools, but that has not been the case for me with welding. I may be a poor welder, but this is atleast the 4th time I have found during welding it was the machine and not me. Oh, I could be blamed for not looking for a welding gas leak sooner, but I’ve never been able to get clean arcs and puddles like this with this machine from day one brand new fresh out of the crate.

FYI: The Vulcan TIG torch kit as a fixed head, a little clunky feeling (to me), but the hoses feel like serious heavy duty rubber, and it comes with a small assortment or accessories and consumables. Long and stubby back cap. Several sizes of collets. Several sizes of gas cups. There is even a few pieces of ceriated tungsten. Its not bad for the price. I may swap the torch over to the flex head that was on my old hose/cable assembly.