Hey Rich,

At any amperage, but certainly TIG at 300, be sure to wear LOTS of
skin protection, preferably thick leathers. I had to have an
operation after I got a sunburn on my belly-button that would not go
away, and it was in the 2 hours at 80 amp range while wearing a
T-shirt and cotton long sleeve work-shirt. Mind you, it was work on a
table at waist height, so maybe that's different, but don't take
chances, especially if you are not getting "paid" and so may not have
any recourse to OSHA or Workmen's Compensation or whatever the US has.

Take care....for sure.

Brian Lawson,
Bothwell, Ontario.



On Sat, 02 Oct 2010 19:39:08 -0700, Rich Grise
wrote:

OK, cards on the table time. I got fired just a few days before last Xmas,
and have been scraping by on charity and a little help from my friends.
Well, it seems that the outfit that fired me needed me to do a little
couple of things, long story short, I'm back, working for free, sort of
indentured, until I repay in sweat what I cost him for my ****up that got
me fired.

Well, historically, I've been a computer geek, but there hasn't been
much computer work; but he's in the middle of making a huge weldment,
about the size of a cement mixer, TIGging together 2.5" slabs of
aluminum. At 300 amps AC. Today, the office manager was at his welding
area, and he was trying to show her how to weld stubs of filler wire
together so they didn't have to throw away pounds of aluminum filler
wire; stick it together and use it like new filler. Duh.

She wasn't able to get a good bond, and gave up in frustration, and
when I looked at the boss wistfully,he let me try.

I did it!

The task was to lay two 8" to 10" stubs of filler wire end-to-end,
and just fuse them. Lying on a steel table. Well, I wasn't lying
on the table, the pieces of filler wire... Well, anyway, I was a
real featherfoot on the pedal, and found that there's no (or
imperceptibly little) pressure feedback on the pedal; but I got
enough of a feel for it that I actually succeeded in joining a
couple of pieces of 1/8" aluminum filler rod into a longer piece
of filler rod. :-)

And he let me watch him use it, and it was beautiful. At 300 amps,
it buzzed loudly as any well-behaved AC arc is wont to do, and
the thing that kind of dropped my jaw was how he fed the filler
rod into the puddle, like six inches at a shove, and then just
held that perfect arc there, the puddle unchanging, while he
choked up another six inches on the filler rod, and gave it
another shove, making another little ripple in this perfect
3/8" fillet bead.

I think if I'm very very polite and subservient and toadyish,
there's a possibility he might teach me to weld. I think that
would be totally awesome - he's won awards for being the best
welder on the west coast for certain tasks; watching him weld
is like watching poetry in motion. After a pass, he said, "Looks
easy, huh?" I said, "You _make_ it look easy.simper" Anyway,
it was way kewl, and I did, in fact, join two pieces of metal
together today. :-)

Cheers!
Rich