Tig Welding

I TIG weld in my house all the time. No smoke, fumes, etc. I also mig weld occasionally too, but I need to make sure my exhaust fan works. For small stuff, I really don't know why you couldn't TIG at the kitchen table.. but that depends on what your spouse will put up with... Come too think of it, its kind of like a sewing machine of sorts..

 

They use tig a lot in our factory, I messed around with it over lunch a few days over the years. Very fine heat control with your foot pedal. Most of the time you don't even need filler on clean metal. Minimal warping and post processing.

 

Yeah, you could tig weld in a tuxedo if needed. I wouldn’t try that with mig.

 

Last part for a job last week made in my house

 

Tig welding provides great control and isn't as messy as MIG but it is every bit as hot at the point of fusion. In my opinion, welding on a bracelet while someone is wearing it is stupid.

 

They have ‘so-called’ cold welders now. It’s just a TIG with a pulse mode. On-off in an instant. It’s not truly cold, as you can see the weld point briefly turn red, but no heat to speak of sinking through the part. I assumed that’s what she was using. Not to be confused with laser, which is cold to the touch.

 

In the house?

Why not. At below zero temps last week I changed my tractor tire in the living room.

 

Depends…

There’s a reason mig is preferred in most body work. A quick zap with a mig spreads much less heat to surrounding metal than an equivalent weld from a tig.

 

This is not completely true, we have a cold welder at work, I have used it countless times over the last 22 years, there is no heat, I can touch the weld at the point of contact and there is no perceived heat even when holding it in the same place for 3-5 minutes of pulsing, no change in color at all. As for TIG, we have a small TIG unit at work that only puts out 10 amps max (weighs around 6-7lbs for the whole welder), it is only suitable for welding on the edge or filling in pits up to about .030" deep, it is great for welding thin metal, we sometimes use it on .020" thick sheet metal or welding the sheet to other parts to fill in voids., we use .012" welding rod. This in molds that are damaged not on structural stuff.