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So I’ve been trying to teach myself to Tig weld stainless.
Turns out it’s pretty hard, but managed to finally make some decent progress earlier.

It’s one of those jobs that you need to be doing on a regular basis.Otherwise you lose the knack.
In my time I have seen some amazing s/s welders.
I remember refusing to machine some welding as it looked like a work of art. Just total perfection.

Ps. Your attempts looks really good.

Yeah, I’ve got through quite a lot of gas and filler practicing so far!

The standard on some exhausts ive seen, seems a shame hiding them under a car, do love a good TIG weld

Top pic looks really good

Some nice looking welds.

Where did you get the argon?

I use https://www.sgsgases.co.uk/

No cylinder rental and lots of local motor factors stock them - I use 20 litre bottles.

Awesome. I always assumed you had to have a BOC subscription.

Yeah, BOC was the reason I didn't upgrade my welders for years and just used the biggest disposable bottles I could get. Expensive rental, not many suppliers, and then ones I could find were a pain in the arse.

SGS stuff is good - I have a couple of argon & argon/co2 mix bottles.

The only issue is that stainless needs a lot of argon to get proper coverage & afterflow and argon isn't cheap

I never understood how difficult it was to weld stainless till I saw Mike Finnegans YouTube channel. No thanks, I want to go do something easy like learn astrophysics.

I was getting quite frustrated with it. I was using normal cups for the shielding gas and welding as fast as I could. Literally couldn't dab filler any faster - but was still getting oxidation.
Until eventually I bought a gas lens cup and instantly things got easier.

Lots more practice needed to get consistency, but am happy with progress. I've read that some guys, especially those doing art with it, have a particular song they use to set the dab rate, or even some guys use a metronome when they're going for perfection. I'll be happy with functional and "not completely sh!t" as a decent enough standard.

Ah, so we can expect you make some proper stainless exhaust systems and spaghetti manifolds

Actually, I am. Starting with a crossover exhaust for the boat, and then want to do a proper set of headers for the Ultima. That's where this is all "heading"...
I did these welds - but was miffed with the oxidation, despite my test welds coming out OK and making sure I purged properly. So I went back to basics and started learning all again with lots of test pieces.

I know these welds below are not good enough - I'm not pretending they're good. But they are part of the learning.

I love to see a tool board with all the tools in the right place.
Defines the character of the owner IMO.
A real fussy bugger who likes things just right.
It’s how it should be.

Having said that. I darnt send a photo of my tools.
The above photos really puts me to shame.
Better get my act together.

I can't promise it's always that tidy! But I will say the tool board is by far the most effective way I've found of keeping things tidy.

Yes Matt. At work we always had shadow boards so that when a tool was not replaced it really stood out.
This was checked at the end of the day just before we all went home.
If one was missing we had to stay behind and find it.