Micro Tig. Could I do it myself ?

So I'm pretty handy at precision engineering but I don't do my own micro tig welding and I live 1.5 hours from CHCH.
And I only go to the big smoke fortnightly or less which means sometimes I do a restoration project in a day and then its a month to get a tiny part to town, leave to be tig welded, next trip pick it up and back to finish the project.

How realistic would it be to buy and learn how to use my own micro tig welding unit ?
And what should I be looking for and how much should I be looking to spend ?

This is for small parts, extractors, stubs to barrels, quarter rib tabs and hanger blocks on to double rifles etc
I have one job on the go in the workshop that will need 4 trips to town to tig weld, with machining and set up between every tig weld application.
If the mill or lathe is set up for that part from prepping it and the weld is added it can go straight back in to be tidied up and finished.

I have some great tig and laser welding operators who do work for me in CHCH.
But there is no one in my area and I want to take control of this part of the process to be able to complete these projects without loosing the thread of where I'm at.
I have plenty of junk and off cuts I can practice on

Mainly working with
4140
4340
P20
#1 plate
416
Lots of old unknown steel on vintage rifles

Thoughts and advice appreciated

@veitnamcam might be of help here with knowledge of all things welding :)

And @MSL is here next week and I will be picking his brains

I’ll bring a machine


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If you can neatly gas weld small items then Tig should be easy enough to pick up.

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Originally Posted by akaroa1

And @MSL is here next week and I will be picking his brains

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Won't take long!

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Originally Posted by Mathias

@veitnamcam might be of help here with knowledge of all things welding :)

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Micro tig is not something I have experience with.
I have welded some pretty small tricky bits with just a pretty basic Tig tho.
I think a micro Tig is pretty much set up like a spot welder set amps and run time and push go?
Regardless I'm sure it's something a man of @akaroa1 skills would be able to pick up.

@akaroa1 Do you mean Micro Tig with a binocular microscope like is used for tool and die work?

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Originally Posted by Shamus_

@akaroa1 Do you mean Micro Tig with a binocular microscope like is used for tool and die work?

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Well micro maybe not the correct term

But pretty small parts and wanting to limit the heat transfer
So more correctly tig welding small parts in very small bursts

If you can pat your head and rub your belly at the same time I am sure you would have no trouble ...

Pulse tig setup, get a unit that does AC/DC is my advice - you may not want to do alloy/aluminium but it has a use for some oddball things like some cast iron brazing and the like. Very useful process, I've only done a bit of it but have the setup there for when I can convince the left arm to play nicely with the right arm again. It's a thing...

The thing with AC/DC pulse tig they tend to have all of the nice to have stuff as well like pulse width modulation and rah rah rah. What you do need to look for is the minimum power setting, some tigs only go down as far as 20amps with an upper setting of 200+ (most people wanting to weld thicker stuff at balls out power settings...). Something like the BOC 185 AC/DC pulse machine would probably suit, or the Xcel-Arc Razor machine and pretty much anything of that sort? It doesn't need to have a colour TV on the front knob-based control panels are fine, pulse and AC/DC with HF start are what you are after.

Then it's down the rabbit hole for consumables and tungsten types, I've settled on 2% Lanthanated and use that for everything. Might not be the best at every type of tig welding but it's a damn sight easier!!!

Some people really promote foot peddles, like a weld current accelerator pedal but for pulse settings on tig (it spends a bit of time at 100% of the current you set then drops back to a percentage under that say 70% of setpoint then ramps back up) - I reckon that just makes the foot pedal something else to have to do especially on short weld runs. Which is most of what I do, shoot me for being a lazy tig welder haha, and theres enough to think about keeping a tungsten at the right height in the right place and not smacking anything with something I shouldn't like hitting the tungsten with the filler rod or sending it for a paddle in the pool...

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Originally Posted by andyanimal31

Won't take long!

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Took my line. Just an advisory: my welding was crap after a lesson from @MSL.

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Originally Posted by Tikka7mm08

Took my line. Just an advisory: my welding was crap after a lesson from @MSL.

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Ahhh, what was it like before? Gotta ask that, having been accused of similar in the past haha.

Was first time picking up a welder thing...apparently a skilled profession.

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Originally Posted by Tikka7mm08

Was first time picking up a welder thing...apparently a skilled profession.

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Nah, they just say that to try and justify a pay rise.

Fugem.

I'm told if you can use a glue gun or poo up a window you can weld, dunno if that helps (or if it's true haha).

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Originally Posted by Tikka7mm08

Took my line. Just an advisory: my welding was crap after a lesson from @MSL.

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Ah but I've seen your hole tapping !

now THAT right there is a dodgy statement if ever Ive read one....

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Originally Posted by No.3

Pulse tig setup, get a unit that does AC/DC is my advice - you may not want to do alloy/aluminium but it has a use for some oddball things like some cast iron brazing and the like. Very useful process, I've only done a bit of it but have the setup there for when I can convince the left arm to play nicely with the right arm again. It's a thing...

The thing with AC/DC pulse tig they tend to have all of the nice to have stuff as well like pulse width modulation and rah rah rah. What you do need to look for is the minimum power setting, some tigs only go down as far as 20amps with an upper setting of 200+ (most people wanting to weld thicker stuff at balls out power settings...). Something like the BOC 185 AC/DC pulse machine would probably suit, or the Xcel-Arc Razor machine and pretty much anything of that sort? It doesn't need to have a colour TV on the front knob-based control panels are fine, pulse and AC/DC with HF start are what you are after.

Then it's down the rabbit hole for consumables and tungsten types, I've settled on 2% Lanthanated and use that for everything. Might not be the best at every type of tig welding but it's a damn sight easier!!!

Some people really promote foot peddles, like a weld current accelerator pedal but for pulse settings on tig (it spends a bit of time at 100% of the current you set then drops back to a percentage under that say 70% of setpoint then ramps back up) - I reckon that just makes the foot pedal something else to have to do especially on short weld runs. Which is most of what I do, shoot me for being a lazy tig welder haha, and theres enough to think about keeping a tungsten at the right height in the right place and not smacking anything with something I shouldn't like hitting the tungsten with the filler rod or sending it for a paddle in the pool...

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+1 to the above.
DO NOT overlook the need for low current control. Go for a lower amp machine and make sure that the supplier proves that it is controllable and can sustain an arc at the bottom end. Definitely go for a pulse machine.
Then you need to size your consumables accordingly - electrode dia and filler wire dia. All need to be in proportion to the weld current.
Very light gauge filler rod may be an issue to source, so you might have to look at a suitable solid MIG wire and cut your own.

Tig welding is a really satisfying art .Very neat and not hard to pick up. Machines are well priced now, the gas not so much. BOC have some reasonable gas plans.
Go for it Practice x3 plus you tube & you'll have it mastered in no time. Don't expect a perfect finish after a nite on the piss :-)

Foot pedals come into their own when welding aluminium. The high heat conductivity means that as the work heats up less heat input is needed. which means weld faster or lower the amps. It's a lot easier to back off the foot pedal.

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Originally Posted by Tikka7mm08

Took my line. Just an advisory: my welding was crap after a lesson from @MSL.

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I was teaching you how not to weld, and man were you good at it!


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Originally Posted by Got-ya

Foot pedals come into their own when welding aluminium. The high heat conductivity means that as the work heats up less heat input is needed. which means weld faster or lower the amps. It's a lot easier to back off the foot pedal.

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If buying a foot peddle make sure its a throttle type like the boc ones not just a on /off switch like the one my mate bought .

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Originally Posted by hotbarrels

+1 to the above.
DO NOT overlook the need for low current control. Go for a lower amp machine and make sure that the supplier proves that it is controllable and can sustain an arc at the bottom end. Definitely go for a pulse machine.
Then you need to size your consumables accordingly - electrode dia and filler wire dia. All need to be in proportion to the weld current.
Very light gauge filler rod may be an issue to source, so you might have to look at a suitable solid MIG wire and cut your own.

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Yeah, good points. That's something I struggle with a bit, I run pretty much one size of everything with a couple of filler wire sizes as it's just easier and make do at the extremes. For a 'hobby' guy it's bloody expensive feeding the thing the right bits if you're going to get the 'right' bit for each different job and you bloody near need an entire shed just for bits. It's a bit rougher and not as nice running one size fits all but it works for me. With the low current control, it's something the decent AC/DC machines seem to be better at from what I can tell. Some of them are rated to go low on the minimum amps but as he says are pretty ragged on the minimums. I have the manual Xcel-Arc 200A AC/DC welder, the manual one that pre-dated the current model Razor machine and it is rated I think for 10a minimum but actually does that and with the pulse it will weld craft knife blades together autogenous-mode (no filler wire). That's pretty much as thin as I need to do!

One thing I did do, is get some cheap diamond cut off discs in 40mm size off Aliexpress. They were supposed to come with a mandrel but didn't the buggers... I mounted them up on a cheap dremel type tool, make a housing out of box section steel with an adapter on the end to screw the box section onto the rotary tool's end thread and then set up holes at the right angle and various sizes for each tungsten diameter to be able to slide the tungsten in and turn it by hand until it is pointed and sharp. A lid keeps the dust in as well. That's a seriously cheap and feral quick way to sharpen tungstens, works mean and it's one of the hard bits to get sorted out quick - getting a repeatable sharp point on your tungstens with the grind lines aligned the 'right' way. Seems stupid, but having a tungsten grinder really helps with the repeatability and controlled arc and buying something off the shelf is brutal expensive for what they do.

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Originally Posted by MSL

I was teaching you how not to weld, and man were you good at it!


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Now correct me if I'm wrong but I recall @MSL was also teaching you whisky appreciation
Was he a crap teacher on that

Now on whisky he is definitely the student...but seems to enjoy lessons involving my whisky!

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Originally Posted by Tikka7mm08

Now on whisky he is definitely the student...but seems to enjoy lessons involving my whisky!

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Ok
That was a while ago and I got the teacher and pupil mixed up

He can teach me tig welding and I will see it there is something I can teach him in return

I can show you a picture of Bob ‘teaching me about whiskey’


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And vice versa!

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Originally Posted by MSL

I can show you a picture of Bob ‘teaching me about whiskey’


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Ive got those sort of pics filed away someplace too ....

you can teach em son -but youll never teach em much!the whiskey equation -the size of the headache is directly proprotional to the degree of imbibing.!

Even an electrician can weld..... if he fucks up badly enough.

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Originally Posted by Ross Nolan

Even an electrician can weld..... if he fucks up badly enough.

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Never trust an electrician who asks to use your pliers!
He's not quite sure he's killed all the circuits in your shop strip out

UPS got one pair of pliers
Landlords A.C. control got another

I picked up TIG reasonably quickly when on a decent machine and after a small amount of tutorage. I struggled when I first started as I had a shit machine, shit helmet and didn't know that. Once I got onto a good machine and had a helmet where I could actually see what I was doing properly, my welding improved very quickly. I was interested in it for the same reasons as you, mostly small gun stuff. Have done a few jobs on the machine at work and parked the shitter I bought. If I find myself needing it more often, I will splash for decent gear.

Biggest thing I found for good welding on small parts was a foot pedal, cups shaped for the job size and a really good helmet. For me personally, the helmet was the main factor.

From seeing your work, I would guess you will have no problem picking it up. There is more info on youtube about TIG than you could digest in the rest of your life.

Well a part to tig is fully machined and waiting for MSL to arrive
We can play with the tig in the evenings after a hard day sawmilling

The rifle this extractor is for is 100% completed except for cutting in the extractor blade slot, fitting the extractor and proof testing