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Old 04-16-2012, 07:27 PM
SWT Racing SWT Racing is offline
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Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Lake Wylie, South Carolina
Posts: 338
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I agree with Ransom that your torch angle may be laid back too far if you are balling up the filler rod.

Sometimes when the tungsten ball up excessively, the arc cone gets pretty wide and makes this a little more problematic. Because the arc cone is not as focused, you throw more pedal to it to melt the joint, and then you start melting the filler rod.

I would do as he suggested and try an angle closer to 90° to the joint. I've also found that using Zirconated (brown color code) tungstens helps with preventing the tungsten from balling up as much. It is usually used on MIL-STD-1595 aluminum radiographic quality welds, and prevents tungsten deposits in the weld. This may also help with cracking when planishing the weld after dressing it out, although this is only a theory.

All I ever use anymore are Lanthanated and Zirconated tungstens.
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