by Jim Watson 

A variety of tungsten electrodes are available from resellers who put their label on it and offer it for sale.  Often this material is considered a commodity and is bought at the lowest price.  That’s great for the Purchasing Department’s bottom line, not so good for a welding department’s quality and productivity

While it’s true that most of the tungsten electrodes on the market today come from China (in fact most all the tungsten ore has come from China for years) not all manufacturers are the same – not even close!

Let’s take a closer look at some of the problems we’ve seen with these cheap “reverse engineered” tungsten electrodes:

Varying Diameter – without strict adherence to specifications, the tungsten electrode diameter can vary causing problems with tungsten gripping in the collet/collet body of your TIG torch or your tungsten sharpener.

Bent Electrodes – especially with 1/16” and smaller diameter tungsten electrodes.  This can cause problems with arc performance.  See photo below.

Inconsistent Finish – spotty texture and uneven ground finish indicates a total lack of production quality.  A poorly textured finish can also contribute to arc performance problems.

Flaking paint – tungsten electrodes are color-coded with a swab of paint on the end to distinguish one blend from another. When the paint flakes off, not only does it render the color-coding system useless, it can contaminate your weld.

That’s what you see, but what’s more important is the make up of the base material prior to extrusion.  Tungsten electrodes are produced by mixing chemical compounds raw tungsten and specific dopiants which make up each blend thoriated, lanthanated etc.  Consistent mixing, the extrusion process, and adherence to documented procedures is the real key to a high-quality end product.

We field more technical calls from customers with poor weld quality, and inferior tungsten performance than all other products, well other than junk gas lenses…  more on that later.

 Bottom line, when considering tungsten electrodes — you get what you pay for.

NOTE:  Reverse engineer
to disassemble and examine or analyze in detail (as aproduct or device) to discover the concepts involved in manufacture usually in order to rpoduce something similar.  Similar. Not the same….

Practical Welding Today is a great source of information, covering everything from how-to guides and showcasing fabricators to illustrating the nuts and bolts of your welding equipment. This article, “Gun Control: GTAW torch design innovations enhance productivity, quality” outlines the history of the development of the TIG welding torch over the years. And while the magazine is careful to not name names, or show preferential treatment, we’re under no such editorial obligation here at JoeWelder.com. Many of the innovations in TIG welding Torch design happened at Weldcraft. And while Jim Watson doesn’t like to brag, I’ll tell you that he was in on some of that innovation, and in fact patented a design for a new TIG Torch, a TIG torch now known as the Crafter Series.

Whether you’re doing PAW (plasma arc welding), or TIG/GTAW (gas tungsten arc) welding, there’s a lot of confusion about what kind of tungsten to use. At Arc-Zone.com we’ve put together a guide (.pdf) to the various blends of tungsten electrodes for welding.

These days most of the inverter welding machine manufacturers are recommending the Ceriated (Orange) or Lanthanated (Gold) as good performing alternatives to the 2% Thoriated (radioactive) tungsten electrodes. Arc-Zone offers a great selection of tungsten electrodes, including the Hyperformance(TM) ArcTime(TM) all purpose tungsten electrode. This is one tungsten electrode that will make you throw away all the rest. In fact, if you’re like Arc-Zone’s other customers, you’ll call us up to sing its praises.

Arc-Zone also carries the new Weldcraft Premium Tungsten Electrodes, including the “Rare Earth” blend– it was put through some rigourous tests in the Miller TIG welding Lab and came out on top.

You’d never know it from watching any kind of metal fabrication on tv, but safety is a big concern for most welders. The American Welding Society is a great source of information about the industry, and has a collection of welding safety information, from hazards in the workplace to information on Thermal spraying, Resistance spot welding, Laser cutting and Plasma arc welding and cutting…. found online in the AWS Safety and Health Fact Sheet section.