After 20 Years Of Welding, I Learn How To Weld
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Equipment I used (affiliate links):
Diamond lapping discs amzn.to/3L0XgQy
Tungsten chartreuse amzn.to/41x090S and white amzn.to/4057x2E
PrimeWeld 225X Welder amzn.to/3zXzlv8 (This is the smaller one than I bought, but if I were to do it again, I’d buy this one)
Holder to grind tungsten: amzn.to/41qLYKY
CK20 water cooled torch: amzn.to/3L3fam2
Excellent ESAB welding helmet: amzn.to/3UC1hOy
Good inexpensive welding jacket: amzn.to/41rU8mk
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As a career welder/fabricator who has welded more alloys than most people have seen or heard about. Why am I watching this..? Oh right, Matt
Same here I got welds in outerspace
@@jeremyhanna3852 Samesies!
Yeah I got 200 yards of welds on the tituaim base of the hubble took over a month tituaim and nititaim suck
@erikdude666 I think I also sign a non disclosure to not talk about nitituaim It's a mix of nickel and tituaim that nasa says don't exist when I worked on parts with it there was armed security there
at this point i just watch whatever he puts out, did i learn anything? nope, did i have a great time anyway? Yup! I dont got any welds in space tho... hahah
I did a welding course and for some reason ended up talking to three different teachers there . Each one of them told me to do thing totally differently from each other , which was a bit confusing at the beginning. The coolest thing was watching them weld in completely different ways but always having amazing results.
The one thing they all agree is, stop/start is VERY limited quality welding !
This is the sign of an artform. Welding is a craft like cooking is a craft. Yes there is science behind it but the act of doing it comes down to the artistry of the person.
This sounds like art school, but more blue collar than white collar. I once derailed our finals class for 15 minutes because I asked the simple question "can I put a drop shadow behind my 3D model when doing a beauty shot?" and all 4 instructors went to war on whether drop shadows were tacky or tasteful. Eventually one of the teachers said "I'm overriding this. I will grade it. Keep the shadow. Next student."
@@ImBarryScottCSS it reminds me more of Chinese alchemy
As an adequate approaching proficient welder (mostly aluminium) there are five core things I know: 1. If you can't see you can't weld. 2. Don't chase the weld, if you feel that you can't keep up you're running too hot, stop, and start again with less amps. 3. Be patient setting up your weld pool whilst ensuring adequate penetration. Otherwise you will end up referring to point two. 4. There is art in the science, results are what matters, once the basics are met your personal "style" counts. 5. Use your skills or practice often, TIG welding requires skills up keep, if you don't use it you lose it and there is always a better weld out there to show off.😊
wasn't in a class but was welding some stainless on a jobsite and this oldtimer (not even working just having a look at his friend's future office) walks up, stops me, twists my wrist to a different angle and says "now weld properly" 30% improvement to my welds. thanks, wise old timer.
Wow, sounds like a guy that knows his shit but never learned how to properly interact with people. Glad you got something out of it!
Depends
Hope you had a proper air fed mask for that
@@oShadowkun Agreed. Hilarious!
“Like any good welder, I blame the equipment”. Classic line and this guy is great. Laid back and self-effacing during his video which covered a lot of great info for the laymen.
Excellent video, Matt. I love your low-key and (sometimes) self-deprecating humor - mixed with, good, solid technical information. You clearly hit the points that most beginning welders struggle with.
Eyyyy, you certainly doesn’t have any welding issues. Also Matt would be great in motorizing your creations!
Thanks, Ron!
When Ron Covell watches your video, well, you've made it! Ron is amazing.
Anytime I see Ron pop up in the comments of a channel I follow I feel a deep sense of validation that my tastes are on point. 😎
@@rickmellorUnfortunately he's usually correcting some dumb shit I wrote in the comments. Whenever I see his name I grit my teeth and brace myself. Ron's the real deal
Okay frenchman speaking, Chartreuse is the name of a mountain range in southeastern France. It is more famous as the name is used by a French herbal liqueur made by monks since 1737. The liquor is green as your electrodes. If you are curious, you can find some importers in the US, it's 55%ABV and already quite pricy in France where I live next to the factory.
-Have you seen God? No -Here have our 55% herbal liquor and try again please.
Is it related to Chartre?
Very informative. Thank you Monsieur!
Drink enough and you get to see through time.
In my misspent youth I used to mix it with hot chocolate and serve it at parties..
Matt, As a gearhead and fabricator I've been enjoying your exploits for some time now. A comment about the laser cut steel parts. As a part of my 30 years as a certified aerospace welder, I"ve worked directly with the engineers in the material engineering depts. We've found that what appears to be a clean cut at the edge of laser cut parts there is a thin oxidized layer left over from the laser. If welded as cut, there is a narrow band of a porous and brittle weld left behind. Verified via x rays of finished welds. There are some SAE studies verifying the same under high powered electronic microscopes. Up close, that narrow band looks like a sponge!!! Just a few moments dressing those laser cut edges results in a uniform solidly fused weldments. Just a light pass with an abrasive. Doing this you'll see some the grinding 'dust' is hard and crunchy, evidence of the oxidation and porosity. When terminating a weld, chopping the current all at once leaves the dreaded dimple or divot caused by the rapid cooling, shrinking of the weld puddle. Close microscopic inspection shows there are numerous spider web stress cracks radiating from the middle of the 'dimple/divot'. The technique to eliminate this is...at the end of the weld, slowly back off (pedal) the current but while the puddle is still molten, add just a tiny droplet of filler to cap the shrinking puddle then slowly back down the current while moving the torch in small circular motions. Don't forget to keep the inert gas flowing until the weld has totally cooled. I've seen top notch chrome moly tube race cars (top fuel dragsters) with every single weld terminated with the dimpled puddle, a disaster in the making. Even pre welded kit plane frames I've seen exhibiting the same. Everyone knows that 'big cracks' emanate from 'little cracks'. Why take the chance?? I'm surprised this issue isn't covered better in most all welding tutorials. Go figure???
I'm glad I read your comment coz I noticed when I was practicing with TIG that "dimple" is a common appearance unless you know how to get rid of it. Even with conventional welding methods to make sure the end cracks are eliminated using runout plates on both ends if possible. In pipe welding, they always recommended using a grinder before restarting. In your line of work, I guess those methods are out of the question, eh?
bro wrote a book
@danlearned6199 This type of comment makes youtube better. Inviting thought and curiosity.
Nice explanation! But, What if the machine has no pedal? What's the procedure to end the weld?
There are welding machines that have an adjustable shutdown ramp, where you can choose what your arc and gas do once you let go of the button. So the gas continues for a set time and the current decreases in its set time. If your machine doesn't have these settings you should get yourself a pedal.
Hi Matt (and whoever might be watching the tungsten preparation part)! Just one important remark on grinding tungsten. Those expensive tools are not expensive because they're fancy but because they insulate you from the tungsten particles getting grinded off the rod. Those are super harmful to your health. I remember when I studied mechanical engineering and we had welding classes the prof. was super insistent on "Guys for the love of life never grind those on a bench grinder, it's about your own health!" and it stuck with me.
It's been said that practice makes perfect, when in reality it's practicing with good technique that makes perfect. Big props for taking a class and increasing your knowledge base.
Somebody once told me that perfect practise is what makes perfect
Personal instruction from an experienced welder is much better than just watching videos to learn from. Having someone there to point out your mistakes or poor technique is invaluable and can save you from ingraining a bad technique.
@@Allazander Absolutely right.
and increasing OUR knowledge base
I had an old teacher that preferred the saying "Practice makes permanent" and I tend to agree
"A bad tattoo that someone traded meth for" I'm always at a loss to describe that sort of art, that's a beautiful description.
The before and after on the welds is impressive ,I took a 2 year welding course along with a welding job, learnt everything under the moon about welding and id say that you summarized the most important parts very well.
I was an industrial welder for years and your information should be very useful to many people but what made me hit like was the humorous delivery. Well done.
My favorite comment was about the 240v outlet. "In that case, this was already here". Nice.
Never thought Welding Class would be this entertaining
"A good pilot is always learning" -I'm proud to see another Matt making the world a better place. So much good info here. I've only ever done arc welding so far, but this makes me more excited about trying these fancier welding methods and materials.
Appreciating all the great Matt's over here
Your honest failures are more helpful to society than you might know - whether they are something you have made and since regret or something you have bought/adapted and wish you had done it differently.
The cooled torch will be really helpful in AC welding, too, even at relatively low current and/or duty cycle the torch will heat up much quicker in AC. It's worth the money.
I second this! Definitely the best money spent in my shop was a water cooler. Not to mention using a smaller torch for the same amperage.
Yep you think it's a fancy luxury right up until you get one and realize just how much better it is
True. I’ve yet try aluminum with mine, but this tells me I *need* to get one. 100 amps DC in a gas-cooled torch is uncomfortable enough…
Aluminum also reflects/releases a lot more UV and thermal radation leading to you and your torch heating up faster as well
Started welding last year and it is like programming. Only very few get perfect on it, for the most of us it is about becoming less worse.
Amen.
I've never seen a perfect welder. Been in the industry near on 30 years.
@@MrJuxton99 Yeah, one of my fabricators was in aerospace welding and fab for 45+ years, and despite being the best welder I've ever seen by a long shot on all kinds of bizarro alloys, his weld quality had good days and bad days.
Is called a robot?
I welded with a robot once, in my undergrad days. You haven't seen awful welds until you've seen what a robot can do when it's set up wrong!
Boilermaker here. 30 years experience welding pressure vessels. Good video. Having your welds x-rayd is great incentive to get it right.
Nice TIG crash course! Only thing I would add, which I also learned kind of late, is to relax and breathe. If you use the "grip of death" on the torch, you're going to be too stiff to turn corners and make adjustments. If you hold your breath (like you would when shooting a rifle) your longer welds are going to suffer.
You forgot the best weld method known to man, JBWeld.
JustRolledIn taught me thet sprayfoam also totally works
This Old Tony enters the chat
I built my own water cooler for my water cooled tig torch using a 1 gal gas tank as a reservoir, an on demand diaphragm pump that I had laying around and a automatic transmission cooler as the heat exchanger. And the cooling fluid is a 50/50 mix of distilled water and antifreeze, because my garage is unheated, and the antifreeze provides a degree of corrosion protection in the cooling system. I like the water cooled torch because it stays cooler and I can hold the torch a little closer to the tip without getting burned. I'd been mig welding for 30 years before I tried tig. Tig is a different animal, so I watched everything on youtube about tig that I could and got more confused and in my head about tig welding. In this regard a teacher will give you the "on the fly" tutelage that can lessen the learning curve substantially. Then you can spend more time practicing and applying what you learned rather than trouble shooting your issues. But alas, I'm stubborn and continue to teach myself the wrong way of doing things. This video has a ton of useful info in it as to the importance of certain things and the unimportant parts. Being able to see the actual weld puddle is paramount. Clean lenses and blocking out the light from behind you was something I learned on my own and I fabricated a hood for my helmet to keep the light from behind me reflecting into the inside of my lenses, makin it very difficult to see. I also wear prescription glasses which tends to compound the problem. You want the inside of that helmet to be as dark as possible, with no exterior light coming in while your welding area should be well lit. It's a PITA to have to learn this stuff on your own. If I'd taken a class, I would have shortened my learning time and saved myself lots of frustration.
Great Video! The only two things I would have included cause they are cool are 1. Aluminum rusts a hard outer-shell instead of flaky grossness of steel. This shell melts at a significantly higher temperature and is the main reason for a a good pre grind/clean on aluminum. Some welders can modulate the signal to blast away the outer-shell with one portion of the square wave and to weld (input heat) with the other. My welder has a Cleaning/Penetration knob for deeper welds or better shell blasting. 2. Heat spreads in aluminum much faster than in steel. For this reason you need way more juice for the same thickness of material being welded. For the same reason as you approach the edge of the material (especially points and corners) you "push" the heat ahead of the work area and this concentrates as you approach an edge and it all melts away. Thus you need to ease off the throttle before you get there. Great Video! Oh and I guess 3... Aluminum expands/contracts MUCH more than steel and minor warping problems in steel will triple for the same project in aluminum.
The amount and variety of stuff you have "laying around" is always impressive.
"like any good welder, I blame the equipment" lol, thats the truest thing said in this video.
i am a retired welder and watched and i have to admit you narrated perfectly. i am impressed you did great. LOL let the people also know that practice makes perfect. then have someone grade your weld. and that applies on all different types of metal and thickness.
10:28 -- Matt, they make little thingys about the size of a Bic lighter that hold the filler rod for you. On top of it is a system of wheels (gears?), one of which you rotate with your thumb. Rotating that wheel/gear will move the filler rod forward or back. Supposedly this is easier than sliding the filler rod down your glove with your thumb. Check it out! I'm not a welder but I remember a welder friend telling me about this tool.
I was going to say this. (Most current 'TIG pen holders'?) Pinch the rod under a finger-driven wheel at its tip while the wire/rod entered the other end of a stick. -I forget which company included it as a 'freebie' with purchases $$ or larger, but eventually people stopped picking it as the reward.- I found the "here, have this _[plastic]_ TIG pen" people kept giving to me in college -years after I shut up about getting mine back- more tiring to use than the one I made in high-school. It must be fairly intuitive for most people, since only ( US PAT D952011 ) is the only commercial variation that doesn't emulate a pencil I could find (today) on Google. My high-school shop 'let' me make one out of flat-stock that bends/curves the rod between three rollers. The weight of the handle rested easily in my palm while guiding the filler with my finger tip, and extending/retracting it with lazy swipes of my thumb. I couldn't manage to set an arc in thicker wire/rod with the dispenser itself, but the offset rollers meant that I had no trouble keeping any arc landing exactly where I wanted it while keeping my knuckles resting on the work surface. (note: am cataleptic / have paralysis ) But.... I did find a 2017 thread on weldingweb forums about a few shop-made from a bit of bent tubing or coiled wire that's the same shape/profile as the one I made was. Only without the extra complexity of hanging bits of an old tape deck on a cam to constrain an arc in the wire/rod. I might have to make one of those if I do try welding again. Would certainly be less work tailor to the shape to my hand than alternating bandsaw+files (on pieces fished from the scrap bin) was.
Takes the fun out of TIG
Tig welding is like juggling and playing the harmonica at the same time while reading a book.
Don't spend 10 minutes grinding that ball of steel off your tungsten. Clip it off with side cutters then chuck the tungsten in your drill. You'll get a more symmetric cone at the end of you electrode with a drill spinning it. Don't run the drill too fast, you want the scratches on the end of the electrode to be pointed towards the tip.
I'm a serial dipper. It takes at most 10s to grind a good tip with a bench grinder, half that if you are doing it a lot. A drill is totally unnecessary.
I agree, take several tungstens, get your drill out, get ten to twenty of them ready, and get to work.
Youll fracture your tungsten kid
Yeah don’t do that just grind it away but I don’t know shit
I have made some amazing "rivets" from bolts, to be used in my steel projects this way. It works very well.
18:47 "My Garage Conveniently already had 240" 👍
I love this. pretty much describes all my mechanical tool knowledge - Start Doing (it wrong) .. either you learn the right way eventually or give up cause you're so horrible until someone shows you what you've been doing wrong all these years. my dad put a soldering iron in my hand as a child and ive been soldering ever since ... 30 years later i watched a louis rossman soldering video and learned... and immediately went and threw away half my tools and replaced them with cheaper better versions of the tools, and far more expensive and reliable consumables. overnight i went from a .. passable thru-hole electronics guy, to an adept surface mount capable solder-monkey.
Use a variable speed 1/4 " drill to hold the electrode when you sharpen one.
I have been Tig welding for over 25 Years and have always hand held the Electrodes when grinding.
@@scottcarr3264I’ve got 25-30yrs welding experience too. You should try using the drill. Awesome idea, perfectly sharpened tips, no more burnt finger tips. I hand grind when I have to but usually keep a tin of 10-20 sharpened tungsten’s ready and re-sharpen any I’ve damaged at start of shift or after lunch before going back onto the job.
My buddy, Walrus (you my know him if you're into Chrysler Hemis) had me TIG welding in 10 minutes. There's nothing like having a good instructor. (I had never welded anything in my life before that and have since forgotten everything he told me because I don't weld, but it was fun to do it.) Excellent video.
Thanks. This is one of the most comprehensive tutorials on tig welding. I can't wait to practice all of your suggestions!
I have been a welder for 18 years and everything you said is spot-on. It's something you have to learn by doing. Any good welder has gone through the same frustrations you went through.
Re: grinding your tungsten electrode. A good college friend and roommate is a proper Welding Engineer at SpaceX working on starship. During the pandemic i worked there as an integrator. We didn't cross paths too much, but would text and such. At one point I mentioned welders using angle grinders with no guard or handle to sharpen their tungsten and he was... heated. Apparently SpaceX DOES buy those expensive sharpeners and if you use a grinding wheel on something *going to space* it will apparently matter.
The biggest thing is the grinding wheel can get different bits of metal embedded in it that can then embed into the tungsten and contaminate the weld. Ideally you either have a grinder just for the electrodes, or the special tool.
For something as sensitive and expensive as space equipment, I'd say that's a warranted response. For most anything less snooty and precise, fancy tungsten sharpeners aren't generally needed.
I’ve welded everything from carbon steels, 1 1/4 Crome to 9 Crome, to different stainless steel’s to Inconel to nickel and copper nickel, aluminum and copper alloys. I’ve had welds gone through “non destructive testing” with X ray, Ultrasonic, Phased Array and never had a weld fail due to using a grinder to sharpen my tungsten. But I guess if you’re spending billions of dollars to go into outer space you can afford a 2-3-$400 tungsten sharpener. The main thing is grind your tungsten the right way. Don’t have you tungsten at 90 degrees to the wheel spinning it. Hold it straight on to the wheel so the grind marks run along the length of the tungsten. The arc will be a lot more stable. Having a perfectly sharpened tip does help control the arc in tight awkward spots where you only get 1 chance at getting it right. In critical welds the angle ground on your tungsten, heat input (amps vs travel speed), inter pass temperatures, proper gas coverage are more important.
yeah, radioactive tungsten contamination everywhewre and then having to pay out millions when an employee gets cancer is probably a lot more expensive than a sharpener.
@@mytuberforyou lol it's openly wondered at how no one has died at "Starbase" yet.
We should all do refresher courses every now again just to keep this on toes
Tip: Do not weld on your toes. Superglue works better for bonding flesh.
@@petergamache5368having you ever welded your mates steel cap boots to the bench
I think we need refresher courses on driving too - our insurance rates would probably lower by more than the cost of the course by removing bad habits from our roads.
@@petergamache5368 I do like that 🤣🤣😂
@@questioner1596 doubtful, insurance companies would just pocket the extra savings rather than passing it down.
Always enjoy your videos, your one of the best KZhead content providers out there in my mind. Thanks for the lessons and laughs!
Your welds have improved immensely after taking the course. Ditch the pin vise and buy a cheap cordless drill and use it to spin your tungsten when you're grinding the point. The A arm looks awesome!
I've been learning welding at school for a couple years, but I learned some things in this video, thanks
I been welding for about 6 months, I realized that the most important thing is running on the hot side without melting holes in your work.
On the flat maybe.. Not so much when you’re doing uphill or overhead butt welds with root gaps.
@@Jonathan_Doe_ my first welds were awful because I was too afraid of melting things, until I realized welding is about melting 2 pieces of metal together. I think most people start shy, and the beads are awful because they lay in the surface and don't penetrate far enough. Or at least that was my issue
As a self taught welder, who doesn't really know what is doing to this day, I find comfort in the fact that it's not only me that feels lost when welding stuff 😂😂😂. One tip I got from my KZhead Course is that, if the puddle takes a minute to form, it's too cold, if it almost immediately explodes, it's too hot (so simple yet so true) 😂 And as always, loved the video. 👏
LaYZr means Lanthanum, Yttrium, Zirconium. These electrodes were originally developed for automated inert gas welding.Therefore, since visual control does not play a role in such a process, it was necessary to create an electrode that would retain its shape for a long time after sharpening.
Looking forward to Matt rigging up a laser scanner and a robot arm to keep the welds at a consistent distance, speed and angle...
😂 I could see Matt doing that 🤣
Best of luck mastering welding, from one of the rare people on the internet who are supportive :)
Love for the algorithm. Good to see you putting in the time to master the craft and can already see the improvement in those control arms. I did a speciality metal fabrication apprenticeship a few years back (before going back to engineering), mostly TIGing stainless for food and wine processing equipment. Was lucky to learn under some very skilled guys and eventually got Cert 7 qualified for high pressure stainless pipe work. It’s a rabbit hole for sure, but messing around with pulse settings can wield wonders for dialling in a consistent weld, getting the penetration without heat soaking the part.
hands down the BEST welding video for beginners on the internet! i hereby award the video "KZhead legend " cheers!
I still have that snap-on helmet somewhere, I picked it because that was the largest viewing screen on a helmet, and almost immediately I melted half of the decal off. I recently bought a Miller helmet from the gas supply store intown cost the same as the snap-on did, but definitely a lot better battery life and also a lot better functionality
I bought one of the first Everlast welders (when they first hit the market) about 20 years ago, a 3-in-1 that does TIG, Plasma, Stick. It still works the same as the day I bought it!
Oh, and my machine is straight DC - the AC/DC machine back then was (IIRC) 3 times the price. Times... they have changed though! Spend the extra dough up front, and get the AC/DC variety.
I have been hugely impressed with my Primeweld MIG180. If you every need it, their customer service department is the owner and the QA/testing engineer...in the US, answering the phone almost 7 days a week about 14 hours a day.
I appreciate that you're honest and humble. Thanks for the video, sums up things.
Bill is great! He set me straight last year on Tig. Great video Matt. It was a good refresher for me haha.
I have learned on a handheld portable stick welder since I was 11 years old in our garage, and it took me the while to get good at it especially with all that slag it created that was hiding the actual weld. When I later on bought my own MiG welder it become so much easier to weld with it because I could see the actual weld straight away.
Stick has one of the steepest learning curves. If you learn stick first then mig is easy as it’s basically just a hot glue gun for metal.
Stick is weirdly fun! It's such an aggro process. Loud, dirty, and can be used absolutely anywhere. I never made what I would call good welds with stick, but it'll put damn near anything together it seems like.
@@NBSV1 Yea, the welding class I took at a CC years back, stick welding was taught for a bit over half the semester first, before anything else. Made everything else after so much easier to pick up.
@@evanbarnes9984 It sputters and smokes like crazy, but not many things are as satisfying as laying down a stick weld where the slag just pops off by itself.
@@NBSV1 Gotta say, I've never understood this. I didn't think stick was *that* hard to learn and I'm totally better at stick than anything else.
Thanks a lot for sharing the experience - I just started tig welding after many years of mig/mag and this really helped.
I'm a big fan of Prime Weld. Nice gear, great support.
Nice video. I'm taking welding at Palomar college. Great equipment and instructor and its cheap. I hired a guy at a maker space that got me started. For the same amount of money I'm taking a semester worth of welding. stick, mig, flux core tig, al tig, and metal cutting. Also love send cut send.
Can you make a video about your GD&T considerations for send cut send? Stuff like alignment tab clearance and tolerances for existing parts. That would be great!
Love the humor and mellowness, good job! Thanks for the thorough overview. You nailed it man!
I taught myself to TIG weld aluminum via YT and it's hilarious to watch you make the exact same mistakes I did. Dipping your tungsten and having to stop and grind it each time is a very humbling experience. Oddly, I can't wait to do more. Great video! You earned a new subscriber.
Loving your work Matt! Being genuinely entertaining while getting useful information into people's heads isn't a commonly encountered combo.
Comfort is one of the first things should think about when starting to weld and I think it’s too often overlooked. You need to be as comfortable as possible when welding. That mean seated with head and arms in a comfortable position. Gloves on so you are not jumping when your hands get hit with molten metal. Proper helmet, cloths and shoes. Trying to weld squatted on the garage floor with arms fully extended while trying to avoid molten sparks will not result in the highest quality welds.
How refreshing to have an "internet guru" deliver useful information in such a fun, humorous way! Your tips are great, and your delivery style makes me want to stick around for more. Well done!
I love your work. Clear, well organized. clevver and accurate. Thanks a lot
As a new welder myself, you have confirmed all of my biases and assumptions 👍
🤣
Very clear and concise explanation. Excellent!
I just tripped over a wiring video you did. I did some production MIG welding 30 years ago and now am picking up TIG for the first time. Great videos! I learned a lot!
I really enjoyed this presentation. Good information, pace, self deprecating humor, yet a good flow of ideas toward a cohesive goal.
Enjoy all your videos but this has been by far the most useful for me personally. You identified all the worst TIG mistakes I currently make. I suck less now! Thanks.
i welded two things last week one of them held so i'm bacisally a pro now
Man, I can relate to this video on many levels. I do many things in life self taught. It is when I am working with someone with core skill sets that I watch carefully and ask questions from that always highlights my faults or bad habits. I can attribute most of my skills to the selfless and patient conveyance from experts out there that pass on what they know.
One item I rarely hear addressed in welding videos is the use of magnifying lenses. I lived in a state of denial or ignorance until I used a magnifying lens to aid my aged eyes. The difference in my welding quality was profound. Give it a try.
This was one of your best videos and they all are great. Coming along with you on a self improvement exercise we all can relate to- that was just plain cool. And instantly, I respect and admire Bill. Stay Awesome Brother Matt 🎩😎♠️💙
This is sick! Going to weld for the first time in a bit, perfect timing!
I've been half-ass MIG welding occasionally for 25 years. I took a TIG class at our local Makerspace right before the pandemic shutdown, so had minimal time to practice. I'm looking forward to getting back into it. Recently, I had some trailing arm mods that needed to be done ASAP. I was lucky enough to find a local one man shop that mostly does aerospace and marine contract work, but the owner likes a little variety in his week, so he'll do little side jobs to break up the monotony of doing 200 identical submarine parts. I highly recommend building a relationship with an older, experienced welder as a backup plan for emergencies and a good source for pointers.
Great video ,always learning is a nice aspect of living . I enjoy your commentaries with the humour built in so smoothly. I’ve amassed quite a few followings over the years but seldom come across such quality of enjoyment as your efforts. Thanks
Hi Matt. Don't poke the filler into the pool. Let it melt in the plasma and it'll jump to the pool on its own. It'll always put the right amount in too. Your filler rod never needs to touch. Makes for a pretty weld as well.
Thanks Matt for improving your welding skills. Your new grasp of basic welding skills will as well significantly help thousands of new technicians. Your excellent projects will now not expose viewers to unfortunate welding errors. Regarding grinding Tungsten; As a toxic heavy metal, all grinding dust should be captured and a personal respirator used. The same caution applies to grinding Tungsten Carbide tools as well. Matt, your humor is priceless. You are very funny. Your potential to influence budding Hot Rodders is significant. Keep up the good work. Our society needs your specific influence.
I'm sending my son to train in basic TIG welding, and I have just ordered a TIG welding unit. The very first thing I did was have him watch your video. I love the way you presented this and your humility was a great example for my son. Thank you very much for this video. KZhead could use more content like this.
A Superfast Matt and a This Old Tony video on the same weekend! Life is good.
im a federally approved welder in germany and i have no probelms with anything you said in this video. but id like to add two things: firstly: i cant stress enough how important the jacket and long sleeves are. they are not to protect you from heat but from the UV rays wich can cause severe burns after only a couple of minutes (seriously!!) secondly: timestamp 18:38 maybe not place your welding helmet glass side down if you want to prevent scratches?
I have the alphatig 201xd. Love that machine. Super affordable and came with everything I needed to get started except for the gas and tungsten/filler. Works really well
I literally had this conversation with my bro last week… been welding professionally for 10 years & just now put conscious thought into every single detail & action I make/take. Leaving me with some of the most beautiful results possible…. Don’t get me wrong, back then I was making 🔥 welds but now, they’re flawless AF. I think it came with my prefrontal lobe fully developing last year lol. I’m not sure but I’m not on “auto pilot/wining it” anymore.
This is definitely the most useful Tig welding summary I've ever seen. Great job, you got a new sub!
You've taught me that welding properly is just as complex as playing an instrument.
I took a welding course at a local Vo-Tech in 74 and welded for about 43 years. Your video piqued my interest as to how the training has changed over the years. You are learning good habits which will serve you well in the present and future. Multi-pass purged thick-wall steel or aluminum tubing is something backyard novices will probably never address, but it's a hoot to use a scope to see a beautiful bead on the inside of the tubing. If you ever have your welds tested by X-ray you'll soon appreciate welding as an art form and not merely a trade or a craft. BTW, plasma arc and laser welding was pretty much in its infancy in 74 but they're commonplace in some industries today. So, thanks for the video and happy welding as you continue to learn and develop your skills.
True the bending and joint of each metals as a whole structure is quite fascinating to dissect. Mixing metals is another skill in welding which is metallurgy which I'm willing to learn since it's pathway to casting or sculpting a statue.
Great video. I used to be a decent welder back in my 20s but haven’t done any for over 30 years. Your video brought back memories
Thank you Matt! Your video is just mesmerizing.
A weird tip I picked up from my time TIG Welding: When you have a chunk of steel that's giving you hell because of contamination, hit it with Silver Rustoleum spray paint and then weld it. Something that offgasses from that seems to help. Never did figure out why it worked.
I'm NOT doing that, thanks anyway.
Oxygen is afraid of all the cancer vapors it creates :D
Stop giving dangerous advice, this way you will poison yourself!
@@kapytanhook i mean. You should have a breather pack and keep your face out of fumes anyways. Vaporized metal is also pretty bad for you. I worked with Stainless more then 50% of the time, the chromium in that is more likely to give me cancer then the spray paint.
@@alaricpaley6865 fair point, zinc makes me pretty creeped out. I got a simple diy suction hose. But it's not enough to be honest. I have gotten bad headaches and such
You've been doing incredible work given you're self taught, but I really hope you get a lot more satisfaction out of your welding now you've got a broader skill set👍 A good looking weld is usually a structurally superior weld. Stop/start is a VERY limiting method 😕
A little side welding story some may enjoy... Most all have seen photos of the strange 'Side Hack' or 'Side Car' Smokey Yunick brought to Indianapolis in 1964 that he called the 'Capsule Car' that included a drivers compartment separate outside from the main chassis/body. The first weekend thru tech inspection, the car was considered unsafe by the tech inspectors. They would not buy off any of his welding. The old school inspectors were familiar with the welds they'd seen for years on the old roadster style Kurtis Kraft and Watson Indy cars, put together with either oxy-acetylene or stick welding. Much larger, fatter welds often on DOM tubing rather than the chrome moly that Yunick used for his design. With Yunicks military aviation background he was familar with the advantages of strength and stiffness of CrMo tubing vs the mild steel DOM many used and appreciated the TIG welding used in the aircraft industry. He could use smaller diameter tubing that matched/surpassed the larger OD tube most the others had used for decades. The reason why the inspectors would not approve of Yunicks car is they were not familiar with or had ever seen the smaller, cleaner, tidy welds that TIG welding can produce. It wasn't until a certified aircraft inspector showed up that worked as a weld quality control inspector at North American Rockwell as one of the additional tech inspectors. He declared these welds were not only sufficient but some of the best TIG welds he'd ever seen. The irony of this is Smokey not only taught himself how to TIG weld but he built his own welding machine from scratch using recycled transformers, capacitors, switch gear and rehostats sourced as scrap from the phone and electric companies!!! The only 'store bought' TIG component was the air cooled TIG torch, the rest was all DIY!!! Learned this from his column in Circle Track Racing magazine when he was the technical contributor years ago,
I love the way you explain things in the warms of your words, makes me understand
Average Azerbaijani Weld
Polish engineering 🇵🇱
@@tony_5156 The work Poland has been doing with military equipment welding in the last 10yrs is amazing, you should watch a doco 👍
Like Barat is your average newscaster?
@@edwardfletcher7790 what kind of equipment?
This was a great video! I learned how to "Stick" (Arc) Weld when in Jr. High. We also did aluminum sand casting... Sadly, the public school districts no longer provide these type of shop classes. :-( Would you consider, (I think it would be really fun) to attempt casting some parts for a car as part of your second video in this series? Thanks for all the great videos! (yes, I hit the "Like" button...)
Yes, I had the same class in school during the last millennium. We goofed around a lot in that class just trying useful/useless things. I loved shop classes, wood, metal and auto. Sad kids don't get hands on experience like this anymore. These classes are helpful for the rest of your life.
We must be around the same age. The metal shop I took in Junior High did spot welding, metal bending, basic fabricating and metal casting. Then in High School it was welding, first with stick, then with MIG. TIG was its own separate class that you took after basic welding. Unfortunately, I never did take the TIG class, but damn, did I enjoy all the shop classes I took in Junior High and High School. In addition to welding, I took wood shop and auto shop. I ended up being an airline pilot (going to retire in a few more years), but of all the things I learned in the public education system, my shop classes were the ones that have really carried me through life. Such a shame that kids don't have the opportunity to learn these basic life skills anymore. Nowadays, they're too busy teaching the importance of correct pro-nouns and snow flakery to ever be concerned with skills that people actually *need* on a day to day basis.
So sad that we live in a disposable world!
@@floorpizza8074 Basic question... where is your sample of what today's kids are learning in school coming from? Social media outrage? How much time do you think kids are spending in mandatory gender studies classes that you think that's why shop classes have disappeared? I grew up between your generation and this one, and was around for the beginning of the pressure that put programs like shop classes out of even the best funded public schools. The reason kids these days don't have time for shop class is mostly due to the amount of time schools have to sink into teaching them to pass standardized tests. Welding would definitely be more useful.
@superfastmatt Excellent work! Love the format including the humor, sarcasm, mistakes, etc. You've distilled months of learning down to 20 min, which I suspect will take many diyers (like me) beyond the half-assed level, with less swearing and blaming of equipment. Keep up the good work 🤘
I loved your combination of humor/serious Great info and advice.
Enjoy the videos. Don’t think it will take you long to appreciate the water cooled torch…even if you don’t go much over 120 amps. That said you mentioned the aluminum rod melting if you get the rod too close, which it can do. However what I tend to find is that it melts usually as you are trying to dip, if that happens it’s because the torch angle and the rod angle match if that makes sense. Think of the torch as a laser and the metal as a mirror, that’s how the heat acts in a sense. So if you get in the reflected heat you’ll make the rod turn into that balled up garbage. Only happens with aluminum, but feeding from a different angle will fix it. Not that you need my help I’m sure there’s 900 comments of useless info already haha.
I think I'll stick with my flux core mig. Might not look pretty, but easy to use.
This is the best explanation that I have ever seen, thank you!
10:04, when tattooing especially doing linework, using your arm/body to slide along a set path and using your fingers for the fine adjustment is usually how you get clean lines (like welding.) In tattooing, you obviously don't want to sit on one spot too long, or too short. Your arm/body movement is what determines the "rate / pace" of how much over how far. The thing is if you are doing welds that do not fall on straight lines, save the fingers for the "fine adjustments" (shapes curves zigzags, etc...) and use your arm/body to pace the weld. Just like tattooing! But, literally, whatever works for someone, works for someone.