The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Tool Chest Argon vs. Sielding Gas?

When I was doing TIG we used Argon as a shielding gas. When I bought my MIG welder they use "Shielding Gas", a mixture of Argon and CO2.

Can you use Shielding Gas for welding mild steel with a TIG welder?

It will work fine the difference in gases is usually related to things like deposition rates, arc penetration curves etc. Bottom line is the pure gases are more expensive but the quality for this kind of work is not noticeable.

That's what I was hoping. I can get shielding gas 5 minutes from my house but I have to drive 45 minutes one way to get Argon.

Any gas used to shield an arc from the atmosphere is "shielding gas". Argon is inert, CO2 is not.

I have never tried TIG welding with the 75/25 mix, only mig.
I would guess the weld quality would go down some, thinner materials will be a little harder to weld, may have some pin- holing.

My opinion is, if you're going to TIG something you might better get the proper shielding gas for the best results. Kind of like a $200 suit and no underwear. What's a 40 minute drive in the grand scheme of things? Depending what size bottle you get, it should last a while.

In any event...good luck and have fun with it.

Nope, won't work.

Although they are both "shielding gas" the names that distinguish them are 100% argon, and the 75/25 mix.

I worked in a shop and we had both a TIG and a MIG welder, the TIG used 100%, the MIG used the mix. Each machine had its own bottle and a spare.

Occasionally I would run out of gas for the TIG, and grab the spare bottle, the wrong spare. We knew which was which by where they were stored in the shop, the bottle colors always changed, and sometimes after a refill they were stored in the wrong place, forgot to read the label.
Using the mix for TIG right away I would wonder why my welds were so poor, it only takes about 30 seconds to figure it out, as you can not TIG weld with the mix, unless you like to grind the tungsten every minute, and enjoy pinholes in the weld.

Stick with the 100% argon for the TIG welder!

Grigg

i will only be useing my tig not very much mainly i will be learning what size bottle should i try and get will a small bottle last very long

No!
Denny G

What Denny said. Get the in-between size... the money you save with the small bottle is more than offset by the aggravation of it always running out, and you having to have it filled.

Sorrry didn't mean to be so curt, had to get "my big old wife" of to work!
What Woody said. The small bottles are fine if you need something portable and want to carry it out to do a small job. But in the shop TIG welding your going to use 10-15 cuft of gas on the average. Most of your suppliers will have cylinders from 20 to 380 cuft. A Linde-style T, 380-cubic-foot cylinder would give you around 25 hours of welding time and a mid sized, say 150 cuft bottle would give you about 10 hours. You can see that the smaller tanks are only going to give you an hour or two of welding time before you have to get a refill.

And Woody, I'm sure you've found out by now that the others are quite correct, you need an inert or noble gas to maintain the plasma for the arc in TIG welding. MIG is generally a short circuit process unless your using the spray arc process in which case you would be using a 95/5 or 98/2 argon/co2 gas.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

In VA, and possibly all states? the largest the "customer" can easily own is 80 cuft, it's about 40" tall or so, and 6 or 7" diameter.

They said if I want a larger one I can rent it.
Or if I really want to own a large one I should buy two, or more, and expect to wait a few weeks for a refill. They will send one out for the refill and I can use one, then swap. If it needs to be tested or inspected it's on me. And if I damaged it, say strike an arc on it by mistake, it then won't pas inspection, and I have to buy a new one.

With the 80 cuft and smaller they just exchange them, and they keep up with the inspections and test when needed. I own two, and usually have them exchanged two at a time, but if I am getting low and in the middle of a job or before the weekend I'll get the one empty filled to get me through.

Grigg

That's why I asked... Argon it is

I keep two bottles of argon. When I run out, I have a full bottle and I can go get the refill when it is convenient for me.

some states i agree in ca i cot a 120 cuft bottle from my welding supply the same bottles that the school that i was learning welding had the bottle is the same size as my ox bottle in my oxy acetline set possibly a oxygen bottle in a previous fill it might be larger than 200cuft but ive useed it a year and its still got plenty left i dont use the tig much and its pure argon have fun

It's not just a matter of MIG or TIG that determines the shielding gas used. Most commonly MIG is only being used for mild steel and in that case the 25/75 mix is used. If however you are set up to weld aluminum with your MIG then you would need to switch to the ARGON just as you would if TIG welding. That is one of the aspects of TIG welding that makes it so versitile is that you are set up to weld many different types of metals without otally reconfiguring your equipment.