Can you weld copper with your TIG welder?

[jameslo]

Here's a picture of copper fittings welded with a ground wire as filler - from weldingweb...

That boy does good work.

[Jason]

This is interesting to me and I believe it has been discuessed before. Is there any worry about welding on the material without a resporator?

[joshuab]

This is interesting to me and I believe it has been discuessed before. Is there any worry about welding on the material without a resporator?

Well, that's a good question. I don't know the answer for sure, but I have never heard of a problem. Then again, copper is not often welded, so maybe it's just not talked about much. I know that you can get zinc poisoning from welding on galvanized, and some of the chromium compounds that come from welding stainless are very carcinogenic, but I don't think copper is typically alloyed, and of course it's not usually coated either (e.g. with zinc) so I don't expect there would be an issue.

[Rambozo]

In theory you should always wear a respirator and or have good ventilation when welding. But for pure copper there is nothing particularly bad. It's brass where zinc is added to the copper that can boil out and give you some issues.
FWIW, with real low amperage you can sweat copper with a TIG torch, too. I ran out of gas one night and after fooling around with a heat gun I figured I would give TIG a try instead. It's just another heat source. Just keep the power low and the arc moving and it's not hard to heat copper pipe to the melting point of solder.

[jameslo]

This might get me expelled, or banned, but I started using the copper-bond epoxy I've almost set too many fires working in tight places

[Rambozo]

This might get me expelled, or banned, but I started using the copper-bond epoxy I've almost set too many fires working in tight places

I have yet to try those sharkbite fittings, but I hear you about burning things while sweating pipe. One thing is that the TIG was so focused and no flame so it was better in that regard. I see there are neat little induction heaters for pipe sweating without flame, too. Maybe I'm just too old skool to trust epoxy for that, yet. Although, the older I get, the less I'm concerned with how long things last.

[jameslo]

I've seen the shark bite things for PVC, and even have some, just waiting to use them to fix the next leak. I haven't seen the copper versions. Why in the world can't I invent simple stuff like that?

I've had good luck with epoxy. Never a leak, either at the time of the repair or later on.

I know what you mean about worrying about how long things last, now. Sometimes I'm not sure I'll outlive the usefulness of a wet paper plate.

[Jason]

In theory you should always wear a respirator and or have good ventilation when welding. But for pure copper there is nothing particularly bad. It's brass where zinc is added to the copper that can boil out and give you some issues.
FWIW, with real low amperage you can sweat copper with a TIG torch, too. I ran out of gas one night and after fooling around with a heat gun I figured I would give TIG a try instead. It's just another heat source. Just keep the power low and the arc moving and it's not hard to heat copper pipe to the melting point of solder.

Thats what I was thinking about....