[TheForge] Tig welder

[Ries Niemi]

Tell us more about what brand and model of tig welder  that is for sale.
Most of the modern improvements to tig welders are really nice. How 
absolutely necessary they are depends on what you are doing, and how 
much of it.
You can put a foot pedal on most, but not all older scratch start 
machines.
A foot pedal on a scratch start machine is handy- it enables you to 
control the amperage, and taper off the weld at the end. It doesnt help 
the main problem with scratch start, which is that you tend to stick 
the tungsten down a fair amount, which means a lot more sharpening of 
tungstens. Kind of like sticking an arc rod to the work.
Preflow and postflow timers built in are a nice feature. The 
alternative is either the gas is on all the time, which gets expensive 
fast, or else you are manually turning it on and off every weld. And 
you forget, and weld without gas, and then, its back to sharpening that 
old tungsten again.
Square wave, pulse, and other electronic controls of the arc are nice, 
but not absolutely necessary.
Depends if you are welding milspec space shuttle parts, or a 
candlestick.
How good do you want to pay for.
I really like a welder that automatically turns on the coolant pump, as 
when you forget to turn on the pump, with a watercooled torch, the 
hoses melt. 75 dollar mistake.
Of course, you could use aircooled torches, but your hand gets hot and 
you have a limited duty cycle.
Again- depends on how much convenience you are willing to pay for, and 
can afford.
AC? or just DC?
DC works fine for brasses and bronzes, copper, cast iron, steel and 
stainless.
You need AC, and High Frequency, to weld aluminum.

ries