Polishing the tungsten

[Will_Davis]

I use a small drill to turn the rod as I sharpen it on the face of the wheel.

After grinding the tip correctly ( longitudanlly ) is it neccessary to polish it?

If so is it ok to polish on diamond wet stones using a small rechargable drill "the wrong way" as it were - so that the rod just rotates on the wet stone? and the scratches are not longer longitudanll but they are being polished out!

Cheers

Will

 

[chevy2]

Simply grinding it correctly is good enough.

 

[gavuk]

I just use a dedicated grinding wheel,with my bench grinders I use a green wheel but thats a personal preference as its finer than some of the other wheels..

 

[chevy2]

I grind mine on a bench mounted belt sander.

 

[Will_Davis]

I do use a green wheel ( one reason is that its only sharpenned a few TC drill bits - as opposed to the other wheels that sharpen most things )

I will polish up a few a see if there is a difference. Unfortunately as I am on the steepest part of the learning curve the tungstens need frequent dressing

BTW: How long ( in millimetres or cms ) would a good professional get out of single grind of a 1.6 mm tungsten?

At the moment I'm on about 30 mm !!

Will

 

[Paul.]

Using a green stone to grind tungstens is a waste of a stone, an ordinary fine grey alox wheel is all you need, sharpening on an emery band is also a perfectly fine way of doing it, in fact when I was taught many years ago it was the preferred method, and if asked the question in an exam was the expected answer.
As others have said, for general work polishing is not necessary, it can help with arc stability at very low amps, but not something you should be worrying about now,
If you are only managing 30mm of weld before a regrind is needed I would suspect that you have a gas flow or coverage problem, or some other contamination.
Some pictures of your welds, and some of the tungsten will help with a diagnosis,

 

[Lawnmowerboy]

It really depends on what you're doing that affects it, if its long straight runs with no filler on stainless with clean materials and no wind then you can get meters out of it (I did a stainless industrial cooker hood for a customer at work, about 8 meters welding all together) and only sharpened once at the start. But on tube or fiddly stuff with filler at low amps it is easy to stick the filler where it shouldnt be or touch down on tight round corners.

I am no way a professional just the apprentice!

 

[biffa]

The difference gained from polishing will not be noticeable, but you will notice the difference from the tappers of the point so always try and keep the same. I'm far from a good professional but I managed to do 6 meters from one tungsten sharpened both ends, in 500mm runs, but that was and straight with a nice piece of box to rest on, but once you start going round pipes under a machine that drops dramatically

 

[Will_Davis]

If you are only managing 30mm of weld before a regrind is needed I would suspect that you have a gas flow or coverage problem, or some other contamination.

Only just started to practice so shaky hands mean a few touches in the weld pool and even sticking the tugsten to the work piece!

After a few more days I'll see what I am like and post some pictures.

Many thanks for the help

Will

 

[Will_Davis]

Here are a couple of shots of my first autogenous weld. Its 1.2 mm SS at 35 Amps.

The face side:

And the back side:

I think I should have pulled back at the end of the run hence the slight dimple

Will

 

[Lawnmowerboy]

power looks a tad high, the basics are there. and the steadiness will come in time.