Tig Weld Stainless - Walking the Cup vs Tig Finger

Time for another Tig Weld Video. But the only problem is there are no Tig jobs in the shop.

No prob, I just made one up.

I retrieved this hunk of stainless from the scrap bin and thought it would be interesting to do a multi pass tig weld walking the cup ....and Freehand too.

Its a 3 inch thick piece of stainless that was cut from one end of a roller we modified a few months ago. 3" round stainless that is turned down to about 2 inches with a nice radius. Just right for a multi pass weld.

click the tig finger below to learn more

For heavy wall socket welds , multiple passes are required and this piece of scrap very much resembled a heavy socket weld so here we go.

...here are the basic settings:

130 amps, 20 cfh of argon flow using a #7 gas lens setup, 3/32 (2.4mm) 2% thor tungsten, 1/8" (3.2mm) er308L stainless filler metal....and thats about it for tig settings.

As a general rule, I like to use as small a torch as possible.

But sometimes I evaluate a tig welder that comes with a big tig torch that I am not that crazy about and instead of swapping out torches, I just use whatever torch comes with the machine.

Thats when I use a "stubby gas lens kit" from CK worldwide.

The stubby kit makes any big torch seem a bit smaller and for me, that is a good thing.

As I show in the video, I used the "walking the cup" tig welding technique for the first 3 beads and then switched things up.

For the last 3 beads, I switched welders and torches and used a Tig Finger instead of walking the cup.

I used a CK flex loc 150 amp air cooled torch with the 2 series head. This torch is pretty cool.

This Flex loc is a 17 style air cooled torch but can also be used with the 2 series head and small style gas lens. It felt almost like a #9 small air cooled torch.

On the topic of different tig welding techniques...

I like walking the cup when the job calls for it because usually you can make an awesome uniform weave walking the cup....but it does not always work. Especially when there are things in the way.

Also, there are some situations where it is just not allowed or tolerated.

I even have comments on other videos from welders who said they would get fired for walking the cup.

Others said that their company would not hire anyone who could not walk the cup.

Different strokes.

For smooth machined surfaces, the ceramic cup scratches the surface and some of my machine shop customers would squawk that.

Machinists go to great effort to achieve a smooth machined surface. Scratches next to the weld on an otherwise polished surface stick out like a sore thumb. Thats just one more reason to make sure to learn how to tig weld with AND without walking the cup.

Well thats about it for the commentary on this weeks video.

As I mentioned in the video, I shoot at least one per week...every week...and in order to keep it up, I have to sell some stuff every now and then.

So if it makes sense for you to try out a tig finger today...

Just Do IT!

You wont be sorry.

(p.s. I visited Lincoln welding school last week and was very impressed with their instructors. Especially when one of them pulled a tig finger out of his pocket. )

click the tig finger below to learn more

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