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Up Topic Welding Industry / Technical Discussions / GTAW Titanium
- - By MDG Custom Weld (***) Date 06-06-2005 16:20
Our shop has done mostly stainless, aluminum, and steel fabrications. We are now looking into titanium for a long time customer. The parts are small and would be good for GTAW. The only thing I know about titanium is to weld with a trailer cup to ensure complete gas coverage as the puddle cools, and use backing gas on thinner stuff. What else do I need to know to do it right??
Thanks in advance,
MDG
Parent - - By Lawrence (*****) Date 06-06-2005 17:17


Thats a pretty big question.

There are hundreds of posts on this board on dozens of threads with lots of good and bad advice.

Try the search function on the AWS board and make sure you set the time for 999 days so you can get a good selection. After a few hours of reading, I bet you will be able to ask some very specific questions so the posters can give you their best responses.
Parent - - By MDG Custom Weld (***) Date 06-06-2005 17:23
Thanks!!
After some looking, here are some more specific questions. What Tungsten needs to be used? What method is best to clean prior to welding? Is Ar the only gas for shielding and backing that will work? What purity of gas is required? ERTi-2 is the required filler, do I need to clean it before welding?
Parent - By medicinehawk (**) Date 06-07-2005 08:38
Years ago I worked for an aerospace sub-contractor and we welded titanium there. The parts were small so we had a tank we put the parts in and had a tig rig set with rubber gloves (so we could handle & weld the parts). We worked under the scrutiny of the FAA and maybe this was over kill, but the chamber was air-tight and the first thing we did (after loading the parts to be joined) was to purge the tank with Nitrogen.....The chamber was 4' X 2' and 3' deep and made of plex-glass. An outlet (check valve) was set up near the top of the tank to vent out the Oxygen (major contaminant for titanium welding) and 2 hoses (at the bottom of the chamber) were set up-one had N2 and the other had pure argon. We also had an Oxygen meter (the probe was near the top, away from the check valve). N2 was used to purge the chamber of Oxygen (since N2 is way cheaper than argon) and once the O2 read less than 2 tenths of 1% oxygen was present, then you would close the N2 supply and turn on the argon. They had calculated what time an area would take at say 25 cfh to fill the chamber with those dimentions I have given.....I think it was 15 minutes, anyway it's not too difficult to figure out, but you always had to keep an eye on the O2 meter.
Like I said, this chamber was monitered by the FAA and everything was radiographed and occasioally there would still be problems with parts welded in the chamber.
We used 2% thoriated tungsten and the rig had a gas lense with a flow rate of 25-35 cfh of argon. We taped a# 10 lense at a location where we could weld and see the work well.
Hope this helps. Weld on!
Parent - - By caweldtech.com Date 07-20-2005 22:22
My business is welding Titanium for Aerospace, Military and critical applications. My web site has downloadable technical documents that may help. Also, I have pictures of the laboratory equipment I use to weld Titanium. Feel free to contact me via the email address on my web site if you need further assistance.

www.caweldtech.com

Dave
Parent - By MDG Custom Weld (***) Date 07-22-2005 17:22
Thanks Dave, your site has a lot of ggreat info.
MDG
Parent - By Orbimatic (*) Date 07-31-2005 10:23
have a look on the download page of my site which has a couple of titanium welding guides which can be downloaded in PDF format (free of charge).

www.orbimatic.co.uk
Up Topic Welding Industry / Technical Discussions / GTAW Titanium

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