Hey, this is Jody with another weekly video.
This week's video is a bit of a hot button topic:
it's sharpening tungsten electrodes.
There's a lot of opinions out there on that.
Basically, there is best practice up here
of using a diamond wheel of a certain grit
that-- that is dedicated
to only ever sharpening tungsten electrodes,
and then there's everything else.
There's a lot of ways to do it.
I've seen it done a lot of ways, a lot of pretty crude ways,
and I've seen a lot of-- well, I've seen a lot of x-ray welds
made with improperly sharpened electrodes.
So, just-- just contributing
to the conversation today,
let's get on with it.
There are a lot of benefits
to having a dedicated tungsten grinder,
like a handheld one like this.
You can cut, if you get a blob of metal on it,
you can cut it off really easily with the diamond wheel.
You can put a flat spot on the end, you can put a consistent taper
with the scratches all running like they ought to be,
and the taper is consistent every single time,
and you eliminate variables.
You can also trap the dust,
like this one's got a little capsule,
traps the tungsten dust.
That's that's definitely a benefit.
But I don't have one,
and I just can't make myself buy one,
because every time I think about spending the 300
or more dollars, even up to $800,
I think about what else I can buy with that,
and I wind up not getting one, so here are some other options.
Here's one that a lot of people aren't necessarily familiar with,
it's called Chem Sharp.
It's a powdered, uh, chemical
that you dip the electrode in
after getting the tip of it red hot,
and a couple ways to get it red hot,
really,the best way is probably just
with a little handheld propane torch.
You don't have to ground out your machine like this,
but you can-- you can just ground it out,
get it hot,
and dip it in and out, in and out, in and out,
and, uh, it will put a taper on there
as long and sharp as you want.
It's just messy, it stinks,
I am pretty sure breathing that junk
is not good for you.
Uh, it really stinks,
so keep-- if you-- if you use this,
either, you know, keep your face out of that stuff.
Don't breathe it, can't be good for you.
And also, it's good to have a piece of Scotch-Brite around
and get that mess off of there, it's always got residue on it,
but it works, it's pretty cheap,
it's very portable,
and, again, it works.
I just don't really care for it because of the fumes.
Another-- another nonstandard method
that's used a lot on construction jobs
by boilermakers and pipefitters
is using a cutting torch.
Now, the first time I heard about this,
I was working on a paper mill job
and the foreman said, "Hey, you ever
sharpen electrodes with a cutting torch?"
And I thought, okay, here we go.
Left-handed pipe wrench joke coming, or skyhook,
or bucket of weld tacks,
but sure enough, it works.
It is not the best way to sharpen electrodes,
certainly if you're at home, it's not an economical way,
using all that gas when you could sharpen them
on a on a grinder or using that Chem Sharp.
But you get it red hot, you hit the lever
and uh,
and go up and down and it erodes.
Basically, it just, uh,
oxidizes a layer off of that thing gradually
and taper it on down, and you can get a--
you can get a really decent point,
just like you can with a Chem Sharp, kind of.
Now here's one on the left side,
here you can see it's a long taper,
but it's also black and oxidized,
and if you do this,you kind of need
to light up on a piece of scrap
and let that stuff outgas.
Now, this is a rough way to do it.
Just using a regular grinding rock
on a 4.5in grinder,
chucking the electrode up
in a little cordless drill.
You know, most people have a grinder
and a cordless drill, and it works.
It's just a little rough,
but I do it all the time, to be honest with you,
for a lot of jobs, it's okay.
Of course, there's the old method here.
Mom! He's grinding the tungsten sideways again!
Mom!
Oh, well, never mind.
I picked this up at Home Depot for,
I think, on sale for $30.
Six inch bench grinder.
I mean, this is-- this for most people,
unless you're working in the nuclear industry,
semiconductor industry,
pharmaceutical piping, things of that nature.
For most-- for most jobs, this-- this will be just fine.
There is a risk of embedding aluminum oxide on the tip,
but it's been done--
this this method has been used
for so many years, using aluminum oxide wheels.
Lots of good welds have been made this way.
Another method is just a belt sander, of all kinds.
This-- this is one type of belt sander that would work,
and that belt has been used for other stuff,
but unless you are working on a really critical application,
you're probably not going to notice any difference,
to be honest with you,
and this will put a nice-- this will put a nice taper on there.
It's about 100 grit to 120 grit belt,
and I can put as long a taper
or as blunt a taper as I want,
just they're not going to be 100% consistent
like they would with an electrode grinder.
But, again, it works.
These diamond wheels
is this little four piece set from Harbor Freight.
It's got a quarter inch shank arbor on it,
and I just chucked it up in a straight grinder.
And it's not the safest, not nearly as safe
as an electrode grinder because it's not encapsulated,
doesn't trap the dust and doesn't have a guard on it
and everything, but this little wheel
works really well for cutting electrodes,
as well as putting a pretty quick taper on them.
Just hold this with one hand
and then the drill with the other,
and again, it's a little bit cumbersome,
so it's not my favorite way.
But it does put a really-- a really good point on an electrode,
and it does it really quickly.
And you can get the scratches running pretty-- pretty favorably.
So that's just just an option,
like the cheapest way to go, diamond wheel.
Another way that I've read about on forums
that I, that I tried here,
don't really recommend it,
is just a diamond cutting wheel like this on a 4.5in grinder,
and you can actually-- I've seen actually on forums,
where guys drill holes
in the-- in the guard,
and then poke the electrode through there to kind of support it,
but I could just kind of prop it against the guard like this.
And the-- the sparks,
while not trapping the dust,
at least it kind of directs them
and don't just go everywhere.
And that actually didn't work too bad.
It put a really quick point on one, just really rough scratches.
The point on the right there
is the point that was done
using that particular diamond wheel,
and you can see that the scratches are pretty rough,
as opposed to the one on the left done on the belt sander,
which about with about 100 grit belt.
And what I'm going to do with this electrode
is I'm going to do two different applications.
The one on the left, with the nice needle point,
which, if I was welding on something very thick
or at high amperage, I might flatten off.
But I'm not, I'm going to actually light up
on some razor blade box cutter stuff
with this 3/32 electrode.
This is 3/32, 2.4mm,
and the point here is
when would you-- when would you
use a long tapered sharpened like that
versus a less sharpened one, a blunt one
like this, and what would be a good application for each.
So, that's what we're about to do.
Again, this is the 100 grit, tapered back pretty far.
I'm leaving it at a needle point
because I'm going to put a little tack
on the end of the box cutters here,
and just getting a-- you can see, lighting up,
it's a fairly stable arc, but then
when it hit the thin stuff,
it kind of wanted to favorably move in that position.
But the point is here,
you don't always have the right size electrode in your box.
You know, this-- this-- these box cutter blades,
actually, the right size electrode
would probably be an .040, a 40,000,
so a one millimeter electrode.
20 amps is what I'm using here.
Um, and you can see it's not--
the arc is not wandering everywhere.
It didn't wander everywhere
even to get a tack on the end,
and it's a 3/32 electrode.
And there are guys that will use a 1/8 electrode
for almost everything, they'll just sharpen it,
uh, a lot-- a lot sharper
for for light amperage,
thin stuff like this,
and that's what's in their box,
and that's what they use.
It's not the best practice, not the best thing to do,
but it works in a pinch.
So here's another application,
this is just a bead on a big, thick chunk of metal
that's not cleaned very well,
and you can see the rough-- rough scratches
that aren't running perfectly longitudinally.
But at 135 amps,
you're not going to get much arc wandering,
no matter how you put the scratches.
Now, don't get me wrong, I am all for best practices
and doing things the correct way,
because you don't have to wonder when things go wrong
if that was contributing to it.
But I also live in the real world,
and I've seen it done a lot of ways.
Well, I hope this video gave you some things to think about.
Maybe gave you some new ideas o sharpening electrodes.
There's also a lot more information
on topics like this over at the forum,
at forum.weldingtipsandtricks.com.
It's a great place to go for welding information.
We'll see you next week.