After years of wanting one I finally ordered a tig.

I got the everlast 255ext with two torches.

I ordered a package of 2% thorium or whatever electrodes 3/32 and a 5lb box of filler.

This week I'll head to the gas supply to buy another bottle, I think it's traight argon right?

Anyway what else do I need to get started?

I'm a hobby welder so just looking to scratch the itch.  And for anyone who's wondering why no Miller or Lincoln, I can't belive how expensive they got :( they basically doubled in price since the last time I considered it.ive got a Miller 175 for mig and a Hobart 60a for plasma, it felt a bit wrong to go green here but there's only so much $ to go around.

How you planning on sharpening your tungsten?  I bought a grinder head that attaches to a Dremel tool.  Bit of a Gucci purchase but it will help with some consistency while learning.

Got a set of TIG gloves?  Don't try to do TIG with MIG gloves on.  

And yes pure argon is what you seek.

Did you get a stubby kit or are you using standard consumables?  Maybe grab an extra pack of collets.

Maybe grab a second pack of tungsten. And sharpen all of them the same. So when you inevitably dip, or q-tip it, you can swap and keep going. Then later have a cut n grind session to hack off the contaminated section and resharpen everything at once.

Talk to me about the gloves, what's different?

For grinder I've got a small bench geinder with a fine stone that I hoped would work.

The consumables idk about.  It came with a #9 and a #20 torch.  I read the 20 torch is water cooled only, so hopefully I can get what I want done with the 9.  If you got a link to some consumables or stubby pass it along?

Honest I know nothing about tig, so anything I can get now to dull the learning curve will help short of "taking a class at the local community College..." that's not an option.

Tig gloves are thinner and allow for more fine motor control.
I prefer a 1" belt sander, for tip profiling, over other options. Bench grinder being near the bottom.
Water cooling isn't necessary for the hobbyist.
The diameter of your tungsten is going to align with your amps and material thickness. You'll need various sizes. Aluminum is a different electrode.
Make sure you have ventilation and don't ever weld stainless w/o any.

When I got my first tig, I bought a few accessory packs from Amazon.  Nice to have spares and a variety of stuff.  Many come with collects, cups, orings, stubby and other various stuff.  

A carbide diamond wheel isn't expensive.  I already have a 6" for grinding cemented carbide tooling, so it gets used a lot.  Buy a dozen or 2 tungsten electrodes, sharpen both ends on all of them all.  Chuck em in a drill to get a perfect grind.

It is not very exciting, but get some stainless steel wire brushes.  I label one for stainless and one for aluminum. I also buy these squirt bottles for acetone.

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I buy some of the accessory kits from Weldmonger

I only use 3/32 electrodes.  I have 1/8 and 1/16 and rarely use them.

Cool.

And BTW a 125cu argon bottle is 420 dollars!? Wow that sucks big time.  I budgeted 250 for a bottle nothing like missing the mark by 200 bucks.

Thanks inflation

Nothing wrong with red electrodes, but there are better options these days depending on what you're welding.  

I discovered lapidary discs for sharpening electrodes.  Around $10 on amazon, I have 240 and 500 grit discs, you can put two of them back-to-back in place of a single disc grinder wheel.  I have them on a 1600rpm drill motor, the 240 will sharpen a fresh electrode in about 10-15 seconds.  The 500 will put a finish so fine on the electrode it just looks matte on the taper, the marks aren't really visible without a magnifying glass.  Put the electrodes in a drill and spin them on the disc and you can get the best point you've ever seen.  

The 9 torch is pretty small and can heat up real fast.  You can get a few fittings and hook your 20 torch up to a tap water source and just put the outlet hose in a drain or outside, it can corrode your torch inside depend on your tap water quality but it'll still last years.  You can replace just the bare torch head pretty cheap.  Could also get a larger air cooled torch, 17 is the common medium size.  

Miller and lincoln have gotten very $$$, but that 225ext looks to cost the same as a squarewave tig 200....

I paid 1900 for the 255ext and another 100 to have it shipped 2 day, is the square wave 200 the Lincoln welder?

Square wave I assume means DC only, and no aluminum?

No, it will do AC or DC.

Been a while, but I seem to recall jumping to the big bottle wasn't much more.  Like $650.

Yes, the #20 is water cooled, and it also has a 250a rating.  The water ports are tiny, you can hook it to your water hose and run the outflow into a drain if you want to use it.  

I agree with the other poster, 3/32 is a sweet spot in electrodes, so I use those in an E3 flavor with a gas lens (Jazzy #10) and midsized back cap.  Aside from a great gas envelope, the lens arrangement also gives you a way to rest your torch on the work without dipping the tungsten.

For test strips, some 1-1/2 x1/8" flat strap cut into 3" coupons will yield a LOT of practice time.  You can setup butt welds, filets, outside corners and all sorts of positions for rather cheaply.

The acetone squirt bottle is a good idea, as are dedicated brushes.  I tend to use CRC brake cleaner, the Green NON-CHLORINATED bottle.  A case is $50 on Amazon and that will last a while.

Yes lincoln - they have a $600 rebate on it now.  Baker's gas doesn't add tax, ships free, and is currently including a CK torch consumable kit for free.  It's $2500 to your door(get the credit card points) then you get $600 back, so $1900 total.
Squarewave meaning it's an inverter machine, not a transformer machine(which would have a sine wave).  It is AC/DC.  

You've got plenty of machine now, so it doesn't matter.
There have been a few "learn to weld" threads in here with lots of great info, they're probably all archived.

I'd stay away from diving too deep into all the settings and features of that everlast - stick to adjusting current just current (and balance/frequency for AC) when learning because technique is way more important that settings.  It's easy to think that whatever problem you're having is caused by a setting rather than your technique.  Hint: it's technique 98% of the time.
I'd also consider getting a 17 torch to start with or adding a water cooler - looks like an everlast cooler that plugs directly into your welder is under $500.  A 9 torch will get hot very fast, especially when you're learning and welding a lot.  If you're cost-conscious you could sell the torch(es) you're not using.

For the gas, ask your local welding shop how much it is to lease a large bottle(larger than 120cf).  The refill cost is mostly labor, a 120cf bottle costs me $30 to fill while the large (330cf) is maybe $60, but it costs $11/month to lease it.  Depending on how fast you use gas it may or may not be worthwhile.  You can lease and keep an eye out for used bottles, but used bottles are generally either garbage that is out of inspection or priced at 80% the cost of a new bottle.

Primeweld sells bottles shipped to your door. But yeah check with your local welding supply shop

For tungstens I have 3/32, went with CK worldwide LaYZr (green) but honestly I don't think color maters much. Especially when you're just learning. Buy at least 2 packs.

Filler I use 1/16 for steel, haven't dabbled in AL yet but when I do I know I'll go with a thicker rod.

Where I noticed the E3s (purple) to shine was that they seem tolerate a little touch of the puddle.  If you full on sink it, ya, you're hosed....but a little love touch and it seems to not care.

I'm also a convert to 3/32" filler.  Fewer dabs, but I'm usually on 11ga - 3/16" material.

Thanks for the advice everyone.

I got the bottle today 430 after tax, what a rip..but it's mine so that's just the way it is.

The welder will be here tomorrow, as well as a cart, filler rods, gloves, torch holder, and an angled gas fitting because I read these are a pita that the port is smack dab on the middle of the rear.

Tomorrow evening I'll give it a go, I ordered 3/32 red electrodes and sharpened one on both ends this evening.

Optimistic, maybe I'll pick it up quick, maybe it's a disaster who know!

I am usually working with thinner stuff.  When 1/16" filler is too much, (because I'm cheap) I steel a few feet of .025 wire from my mig.

ETA: also, being cheap, I found a 1940 something bottle on FB marketplace for $140, not bad for a 330 tank.  Took it to my local welding supply for a trade-in they didn't charge me anything extra, but said something about if it were a few years older they wouldn't even take it, it would be end of life.

As long as it passes a hydro test, the date is somewhat irrelevant....there are a bunch of pre WWII tanks out there.

Welder arrived yesterday, took an hour to set up and get my stand going but so far I dig it

My first weld looked like a racoon turd, but I'm definitely progressing.

I think I'm most interested in the pulse settings that stuff looks cool.  Idk if I'll ever weld aluminum though. But I guess having the ability to do so can't hurt long run.

I was not prepared for how big it is.  The stand I got is actually about 2 inches too short to fully hold the welder front to back.  I propped it up in the front with some kind of spacer and that helped a bit.

Anyway thanks for all the help here.

You can drive yourself batty trying to get the perfect blend of freq and background to match your work flow.  

I also bought a tig welder about 5 years ago and taught myself to weld and got pretty good at it pretty quickly.  Some things I learned:

Stay away from any setting other than current until you can reliably make modest quality welds.  
Using the fancy settings only adds variables which makes it more difficult to know what the cause of your problems are when you have no experience.  
Without fancy settings you know that any and all problems you are having are due to your technique, setup, etc.  

The most useful thing I did early on when teaching myself to weld was to practice on thick/heavy pieces of steel.  That makes your welding less sensitive to heat input(ie. you won't blow holes in the metal and it is very obvious when you need more power since the large mass of steel can absorb a lot of energy) so you can focus on your hands  - finding/maintaining a good torch position and arc length, timing and dipping of filler metal, cleaning and prepping the metal, etc. are all far more important than settings and people often neglect these basics.  Once you can consistently make decent beads on heavy pieces of metal move to thinner metal and start controlling your foot in addition to your hands.

It is not possible to have the electrode too close to the metal as long as you don't touch the metal.  It is not possible to have your metal, torch, etc. over prepared or too clean.


It's like teaching a kid to ride a bike with a balance bike or a regular bike - kids learn a balance bike in a few minutes and then it's easy to add brakes and then pedals.  But if they start with a regular bike learning to balance, pedal, brake, etc. all at the same time overloads their brain and learning takes a much longer time.  Also similar to learning to shoot with iron sights rather than fancy optics.  

Those are excellent tips.

One I'll add- always make a dry run.  If you're going to do a 2" bead, run the torch along the path to make sure it and you move freely.

Yeah I've already ran into an issue when the torch wouldn't fit in my corner without excessive stick out.  I did move the tungsten out about 1/4 inch to get rhe angle needed.  Maybe in the future a different shaped torch would be nice.

What size torch are you using?  Probably a situation where a 9 or 24 would work better than 26 or 17

This is one area where a gas lens really shines.  Their gas envelope is stable enough to permit some pretty healthy tungsten stick out.

I was using the 9.

Spent all day welding its going good but my hands aren't as steady as they used to be :/

This.

A quality lens set-up is game changer for steels, especially stainless.

I was also guilty of being stingy on the amount of tungsten protrusion. Now I have that out to max & it’s pretty awesome once you get the gas volume down.