Hello Nick, your teacher was correct in telling you that you can use your stick welder to tig weld with, with some restrictions. It generally requires an air-cooled torch with a manual gas control valve. If the stick machine is a dc only welder then you can only weld materials other than aluminum, magnesium and pot metal. You will have to connect the negative side of the machine output to the scratch-start torch and the ground lead to the positive side of the machine output. If your stick welder had an ac output you could also weld aluminum, magnesium, and pot metal if you had high frequency capability on the machine or you could buy a seperate high frequency generator to provide it. He was also correct in making you understand that unless your machine has remote amperage adjustment you will need to set the amperage to the proper level that will allow you to make the particular weld without adjustment midstream. A real quick run-down on making a weld with this set-up, turn on the gas flow with the valve on the tig torch, scratch and lift the tungsten on the piece that you are welding and hold it off of the material at the appropriate arc length, add rod as necessary and if required, when you are done making the weld quickly snap-off the arc and return the torch to the crater to protect it as it is cooling, once that has occured, turn off the shielding gas with the valve on the torch. Be sure to either use straight argon(most welding applications) or an argon/helium or helium shielding gas. Good luck and have fun! aevald
Nick,
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