Dave Lyon wrote:

My employee wants to make a titanium roll cage for his high performance
remote control monster truck. We have a good 185 amp tig welder, and he's
pretty good at using it. We are using argon as a shield gas.

The problem is, we've never worked with titanium before. Can it be Tig
welded? Can we use stainless rod, or should we get something else. Is the
argon OK?




Depending on the alloy, it probably can be welded. This is a project
designed to gobble up money, obviously not for any practical use,
as what the heck does an un-manned vehicle need a roll bar to
protect, anyway?

You are going to have to use titanium filler rod. Since this is most likely
going to be made out of solid Ti wire, anyway, you can probably use scraps
of the original stock as the filler. You may need an additional TIG torch
and a helper to apply enough shield gas to prevent a fire. The helper
may need to apply shield gas to the opposide side of the weld, or to follow
the welding torch to inert the just-welded but still hot metal until it
cools.
IF you did this on tubing, you might need to fill the tube with argon first,
and then plug the bottom to keep it in.

I think Argon should be fine for Ti, and I'm pretty sure you don't want
anything with oxygen in it, like CO2.

Jon