Sharpening Tungsten 9 Different Ways

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.