Tip for better tig welding

To really help with making your tig weld as strong and as smooth as possible, I found that changing your tig torch to a gas lense is the best thing you can do to make your welds the best they can be.

I was reading where the flow of a standard collet lense is so turbulent that it allows oxygen to enter the weld area and makes for weld contamination.

With the gas lense, the gas flow is smooth and keeps all oxygen out of the weld pool

Photos of the difference of the gas lense (left) and the regular collet lense (right)Attachment 4861Attachment 4862

The cleaner flow of the gas lense allows for the extension of the tungsten to allow for welding in tight areas.

Agreed... Gas lenses help the gas flow immensly, and help any time you can use one. They also can save you a great deal on gas using. Lense, because you can your flow down *a lot* and still get perfect welds.
My only problems using a gas lens all the time is the bulk of the nozzle getting in the way of welding in tight places. Pulling the tungsten way out is okay when you don't need too much heat, but on thicker projects it makes it hard to keep even heat and penetration.

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Originally Posted by Spike

Agreed... Gas lenses help the gas flow immensly, and help any time you can use one. They also can save you a great deal on gas using. Lense, because you can your flow down *a lot* and still get perfect welds.
My only problems using a gas lens all the time is the bulk of the nozzle getting in the way of welding in tight places. Pulling the tungsten way out is okay when you don't need too much heat, but on thicker projects it makes it hard to keep even heat and penetration.

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I agree with everything you've stated. I also do not use them all the time as I have to get into some tight areas. But for 90% of what I weld, the gas lense is perfect.

I really like the way the welds are so much cleaner with the gas lenses. Plus my arc seems to be more stable as the argon has less turbulence to it. For X-ray quality welds, the gas lense is the choice for most welding as the contamination problem is greatly reduced.

Gas lenses are available for almost all tig torches and they are fairly cheap. You do need new cups as the standard collet cups do not work with gas lenses. I upgraded my torch to a gas lense for less than 10 bucks with me getting both 3/32 and 1/16 gas lenses plus a #6 and a #7 cup.

One other thing I've noticed....the tungsten stays cleaner longer and cools down quicker with the gas lense. There are just too many positives on using the gas lense instead of the standard collet lense to not use it as often as you can.

I have to agree and i really like them using the smaller WP 9 torch