MIG or TIG welds

quinnbrian said:
Nicely said Trev,
Don't forget the Oxygen / Acetylene, if you can write your name on a piece of metal with a brazing rod, that you can do the same with a tig, most times, a little better. Mig for fast one-shot hits or spot welds .
Click to expand...

Thanks.

It really does not matter what a pipeline welder would use, a Gunsmith is not a welder by trade, and has other things that he needs to know and do as well.

Key of the conversation, as far as I am concerned was the adjective 'competent'. If he is competent, he will use what he has and do a great job of it. I am pretty certain it was guntech that said he uses the Welding shop he knows. That seems reasonable, and a far better investment.

TIG is a wonderful tool, but is about the single most expensive way to weld out there. You need to stay in practice to be able to do fine work and have it come out well all the time.

If you wait to do anything, for having only the 'best' tools, you gonna die without doing any of it! :)

Cheers
Trev
 
My own exposure to TIG was quite pleasant. I'd always done nice neat work with an oxy-acetylene setup. Stick welders I struggle with. The stuff doesn't fall apart but it typically looks UGLY! ! ! ! So when I got to play with a TIG unit I figured that I was up poop creek without a paddle. But after a bit of reading so I was able to set it up correctly for the basics I found that it was a lot like oxy acetylene but with the electric arc as the heat source. And within my rather limited welding skills and experience I was able to get decent results pretty quickly. So I'm a big TIG fan as a result. But my favoritism may be shaded by the fact that it was a first class Miller unit with all the bells and whistles. So it might have made my introduction to TIG a lot easier.

For welding I've currently got my father's old Miller stick box. For 99% of my work that'll be fine. But for the smaller gun smithing needs and small alloy welds I want to do I'm thinking of backing it up with a fairly low cost TIG box. We'll see.

And I think this marks the first time that I haven't been in total agreement with Trev on anything..... :d He's likely right on all counts and it was my background with the oxy acetylene that made the transition to TIG a lot easier for me. But that's what I found when I got to try it.
 
BCRider said:
And I think this marks the first time that I haven't been in total agreement with Trev on anything..... :d
Click to expand...

As long as you can disagree without shrieking and name calling.... :)

I'm a big fan of TIG welding, have done a fair bit, though never got anything resembling a ticket. It's a great welding process for detail work and fine stuff, it's just a poor investment for a gun guy if he wants to tool up to work on guns, IMO.

That money spent on a TIG rig would be better spent on a bunch of other stuff, that will be used more often than the welder will. A TIG welder that works well at really low amperage settings, isn't usually one of the more affordable ones. Paying close attention to the Minimum amperage settings as well as the max, is a really good plan!

When we were taking welding in the trade school, we were split into two groups, and half started on TIG, the other half started on torch welding, due to the available number of stations. It was explained that he hand skills were pretty close to interchangeable between the processes, and it did work out that way, for the most part.

Cheers
Trev
 
The DC only Tig units are still somewhat reasonable, around $1K or so.
Thermal arc has a newer model called the 186, its ac/dc. I have the older Thermalarc 185's. Great unit, the new one has 200amps but I don't know if its still made in Japan like that 185's were.
About $2K, torches and what not included just needs Argon.

There's always older machines around, transformer welders do great for DC tig, not so nice on AC though but it works...

I haven't had the chance to try to new small multi units with lift arc Tig, mig,stick all in one, some are in the $1-2K range last I checked for the thermal arc models.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom