Hey gents,
I'm interested in your personal opinions, experience, and decisions on your choice of the various tungstens available. I hope Lawrence will input, as I know his experience level has really provided sound information to those who need qualified answers.
I keep reading all the opinions posted on various forums, documentation from the manuf. of welders & tungsten, testing/results documentation, and there appears to be quite a bit of variance of information. So, I decided to "play" with all the info. available.
Ok, I have done an extensive experimentation with the tungstens available for TIG and used mild/hardened steels, sheetmetal, aluminum, SS, titanium, and thicknesses ranging from .032-.500. I maintained a testing logbook on the results of each test and really did a lot of alternating of range settings(frequency,pulse/no-pulse,heat, pre/post flow, down slope, & clean width area). In addition, I will note that my TIG is an inverter with .5-300hz freq.,10-200A available. I used ER70S-2, ER70S-3, ER70S-6, 308/L, 309, 4043, 5356, & 5556. I will say that I did not use pure tungsten for any tests. All tests were with ceriated, thoriated, zirconated, lanthanated, and sizes from .040-1/8" and I used 100% Argon exclusively as I didn't feel like getting into the different gas combinations. Mainly, I wanted to determine if there really is a true "all-around" tungsten other than 2% Thor. that seems to be the prevalent choice. To my surprise, there is.....2% Lanthanum(blue). The 1.5% Lan.(gold) would be 2nd choice. I found this tungsten to be quite a workhorse for all the variables I subjected it to. Also, included in the testing were cup size changes, stickout, and varying the tip from small flat to pointed to balled. Fascinating results and quite a learning process.
Since I have chosen the 2% Lanthanated because of results, why would there be a preference of 1.5% over 2% by all the recommendations of the professional technical minds?
Do those who swear by 2% Thoriated ever try 1.5/2% Lanthanated?
Do our teaching institutions provide the various tungstens, especially Lan., or is there a cost prohibition?
Do any of you have a reluctance or is there a detriment to Lan.?
Anyway, I hope to hear all your responses and hope I have provided some "food for thought" for those who have never tried the Lan. ...............Denny