Today was a pain in the . . . everything.

Today, my TIG welder decided to throw a temper tantrum. I'm thinking that something might have gotten knocked around when I moved it to the new shop. I've eliminated just about everything else and have finally gotten some decent beads.

First order of business, the sign holder frames:

Hmmm . . . I wonder if the floor is level?

Yeah . . . Of course not. heh

Solution:

Using the plate and flat-face clamps keeps the pieces generally in place. Also, I am welding the sides as per the customer's request so he can fit poles or fasten attention getting things to the sides of the sign holder. Normally, I don't leave ends open.

First one welded together:

I got the second one welded up then moved on to making sure all the pieces I have fit together correctly:

I took a break and wanted to figure out WTF was going on with my welder. For some reason, I was getting a LOT of crud in the welds even after sanding, acetone, wire brushing with a stainless steel wire brush only used for aluminum and then acetone AGAIN. I checked my ground connections, torch connections, gas lines, adjusted gas pressures, played with the frequency and balance, found this:

moved up to 1/8" tungsten (thought I am not a fan of the type I am using for aluminum, but it works decently enough it seems) and after all that, I FINALLY started to get something resembling decent:

I got a bit hot on this joint:

The sign frame is going to get welded into the slot formed between the upright angles and the tab welded to the end of the box:

First on the right, last on the left:

Much better color on the last one, showing much improved weld quality:

Funky 1/8" tungsten:

 Odd color, but a really nice ball at 125A dialed in, so it isn't all bad.