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Up Topic Welding Industry / General Welding Discussion / What's Faster
- - By PipeIt (**) Date 01-11-2008 12:37
What's is faster stick or tig? I have some guys(welders) tell me tig is faster and some guys tell me stick. My feeling is its a wash and welder preference. I have a customer now calling me out on this, Please help with any advice.

Thanks in advance

PipeIt
Parent - - By webbcity (***) Date 01-11-2008 12:48
pipeit , we need more info . what code if at all ? are you outside in a wind storm ? and what exactly are you trying to weld ? these things will determine what is faster . many simple welds can be made with stick faster than you can set up to tig . good luck . willie
Parent - By PipeIt (**) Date 01-11-2008 12:52
Its in a heated fab shop. We are following for the most part the WPS 1-32-1 pipe size range is from 2" thru 10" so deposits vary.

Tigging first two passes and stick welding out. 1/2 my crew is stick certified the other is 1/2 is tig certified.

Thanks,

PipeIt
Parent - - By PipeIt (**) Date 01-11-2008 12:53
Carbon
Parent - - By dbigkahunna (****) Date 01-11-2008 14:21
SMAW will be faster as far as welding but you have greater opportunities for slag using SMAW. My guess is you have more issues fitting than welding.
If you have a good fitter who can keep 3-4 welders humped up like show dogs, the process GTAW or SMAW will be somewhat irrelevant.
If you have your welders fitting, there is your bottleneck. If you save a few minutes a day using one process over another, you could make much greater productivity by using a good fitter than dancing angels on pinheads on the welding process.
BABRT's
Parent - - By ZCat (***) Date 01-11-2008 14:24
Dualshield
Parent - - By js55 (*****) Date 01-11-2008 15:28
Webbcity is right. It really depends. If you're runnin rollouts in a fab shop then a automatic voltage controlled dual feed hot wire with GTAW and no gap and a narrow bevel will be WAY WAY WAY faster than stick.
Even in manual applications you can carry more than one wire if you're skilled enough, pull em out of your pocket, never breaking the arc, never even raising your hood, and never essentially stopping until complete, since you don't have to deslag.
But in general stick is considered faster. And ligitimately so.
Parent - - By PipeIt (**) Date 01-11-2008 17:28
Js 55 the more I frequent this sight the more I learn "Great sight" tons of brain power and know how.

I am starting to lean towards the stick welding being faster even with stop and start, electrode re-load and cleaning.

Correct me if I am wrong but it must boil down to travel speed between the two processes IPM for stick is faster vs. tig.

Thanks for the feed back! : )

PipeIt
Parent - By js55 (*****) Date 01-11-2008 17:34
PipeIt
Its interesting, if your predominant background is AWS you have a tendency to think IPM when it comes to speed (its the predominance of fillets of set sizes), if your background is predominantly ASME you have a tendency to think in terms of deposition rate for speed. Not absolutely but in my experience, in general. I think the idea of stick being faster is generally valid with exceptions. But being predominantly ASME background, (until recently) I have a tendency to think in terms of deposition of which stick still has the general advantage. Especially in position work since so much heat is needed to get the deposition of GTAW to SMAW levels and most people are nervous with multiple rods with GTAW.
Parent - - By welderdude (**) Date 01-12-2008 00:50
solve your questions...have a race...the tig qualified vs. the stick qualified.  same size pipe, same gap, same position, etc.  get the parts tacked up and have them go at it.  heck, you might get a little production boost for a couple hours!  ha!
Parent - By mrmachineshop Date 01-12-2008 01:29
I have personally seen a tig outrun a arc weld on 14 In. s.s. pipe.The arc weldor used 1/8 316L. The tig weldor was using a water cooled rig with a huge gas lens and a 3/16 316L tig rod.He ran what was in my opinion about double the nessecary amps. He moved very fast and controled the heat with rod input.He fed the rod in so fast, the pipe bareley turned blue on the inside.
Parent - By medicinehawk01 (**) Date 01-12-2008 20:49
Stick is faster than tig. Think of it, to tig a pipe joint, you have to prep differently than when SMAW. You have to use a knife edge (think grinding time) plus you'll have to get rid of all the paint on the fittings and the pipe (more grinding or/and end grinding). Some "Tig" only hands tend to be fussy so they go with bigger gaps (1/8"- 5/32") so you really need to have them deposit even more metal for the tig welding process. Then again, you need argon which is no big deal, but if you are using high pressure bottles then eventually they run out so they have to be changed out(more time welder's hood is not down). I have had days where I need only one peice of tungsten, but sometimes I use 10 pieces in a day. Oh yeah, and the tungsten gets dull so the welder will spend extra time (not welding) to grind those up.
With the SMAW process, you only need to grind off the paint on the land and the bevel. Usually, you use a 3/32" gap. A seasoned welder will grind as little as possible (because grinding sucks) so he will make sure the root goes in nice. Once the root is in and ground out, it goes pretty fast for someone who can "Git it".
And was said in other posts, whether it's inches per minute or weld metal deposited.........stick welding is faster in my opinion. Ofcourse, GMAW beats both processes out, but to me, welds don't look as good and a mig gun is tiring to run , IMO.
My 2 cents.

Hawk
Parent - - By JescoPressure (**) Date 01-12-2008 03:26
a year ago i would have said smaw without question but i have been doing tig roots for the last 8 months i have learned quite a bit about it and i can attest if you have a good fitter and a competent tig welder you can definately keep up or make more inches with tig on carbon but this applies only to the root and hotpass if you went tig all the way out you would lose inches . Tig root and hot and smaw all the way out is pretty good procedure to make inches and have a pretty low failure rate.But theyre are variables for everything.
Parent - - By scrappywelds (***) Date 01-12-2008 05:07
all depends on pipe size and wall thickness. 2" sch.40 and smaller pipe TIG all the way out is faster and with less welding stub loss. Then again argon cost can add up and other consumables need with the TIG process. Then agian it all depends on welder ability, the bigger rod they can handle the faster they will deposit metal.
Parent - - By Flash Date 01-12-2008 13:05
Pipeit
I will buy into this debate and add my opinion
certainly up to four and even six inch sch 40 tig will win hands down every time, particluarly if u do not walk the dog/shroud (which in my opinion is slow) and when u take into account the lack on cleaning inside and out, tig has all the advantages,
a lot of people think tig is slow, mainly because the wire feed is independant of amps,
if the operators learn to feed more wire they can run more amps, I have done a root on 4inch sch 40 at 300 amps with 3.2mm wire i the 2G, and completed the joint in under 5mins and passed xray to AS4041/B31.3
the analogy I use is add ice to the fire, the wire is the ice, the amps are the fire, you can crank the amps as long as you keep the wire up to it
above six inch the fill can become a bit slow but use bigger wire and this can be negated, if u r in the shop gas shielded FCAW fill and cap will whip stick every time as has been suggested, especially if u rotate it
tig allows for greater joint variation as well, again it is about indepentant wire feed not to mention that tig looks better in the right hands
at the end of the day it depends what operators u have at your disposal, eg. what clubs u have in your golf bag, there is no point using tig if your tig operators are average and your stick welders are guns
the cost of consumables, wastage (depoistion effiency), duty cycle (arc on time), lack of sparks, OHS issues and cleaning associated with stick is why it is being phased out and gas shielded processes are favoured, I have also seen many joints go down for porosity when stick is used outside because people think it can be used in windy conditions, after all the flux breaks down to form the gaseous sheild that protects the arc, if this gets blown away, you have the same problem as a gas sheilded process, eg. porosity
look at improving the deposition rate of the filler and increase the amps accordingly and I think you will find that Tig will get further ahead
just my opinion for what it is worth
R
Flash
www.technoweld.com.au

Parent - By PipeIt (**) Date 01-13-2008 00:48
Great and tactful replies, I love the debate I definetly agree with tig being faster on smaller bore.

Thanks guys! : )
Up Topic Welding Industry / General Welding Discussion / What's Faster

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