On Thu, 02 Apr 2009 23:15:34 -0500, Don Foreman wrote:

On Thu, 02 Apr 2009 20:02:25 -0500, James Waldby wrote:

On Thu, 02 Apr 2009 17:12:04 -0500, Karl Townsend wrote:

I have an older Lincoln Idealarc 300/300 AC/DC/TIG combo welder that
has served well. Got it for $400.

I can't weld AL for beans with it. My son can make it do anything.
he's pressure test welded many AL irrigation pipes among other
projects.

My old eyes can't tell if there's a weld puddle with AL.

Karl

Have you tried using a blue or green lens?
http://www.saber.net/~jere/Weldingaccess.html has inexpensive ($10) blue
lenses while expensive ($315) green ones are at
http://www.tinmantech.com/html/tm2000.php . Someone who thought using
green lenses was a great invention got a patent on it...
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5170501.html

Those are for welding with O/A, not TIG.

You are right, the pages above refer to O/A welding not tig,
and say that a main part of what blue or green lenses do is block
orange glow or flare that is caused by burning flux, a problem
tig doesn't have due to inert shield gas. I can't find the page
I was looking for which I think mentioned amber lenses for puddle
visibility while tig welding.

--
jiw