Thread: Favorite TIG tungsten angle

As the title says, what is your favorite angle?
Do you eyeball it and call it good? As I have done up to this point, so really have no idea how much difference it makes, likely erring on sharp side if the internet is anything to go by.
Have just one or a few?

I ask as I am working on 3d printing an attachment for "dremal like" grinder. I guess once I have a grinder I can give consistent angles on I'll find out for myself eventually...

My Boilermaker BIL reckons a sharpened pencil point works pretty well so thats what I do.
This got me thinking - what is that angle?
I measured the length and diameter of a sharpened tip of a new pencil an it works out to be 23.5 degrees.

I was told for general use, about 20 degrees. The sharper it is apparently the better directional control you have on the arc.

Michael

It really is situation dependent. I keep a few around with varied grind geometries. I just eyeball my grinds, I'd love a dedicated sharpening jig like a turbosharp or one of the enclosed units that grind in a water bath, but really not feasible for what I do.

The basic rule of thumb is that the sharper (more acute) the angle, the less penetrating, and broader the arc becomes. A 90 degree grind will have a deep penetrating focused arc cone.

So you can use this to your advantage for your chosen application.
For example I was doing a single sided lapped spot weld which needed a focused deep penetrating arc to get thru two layers, and I chose the 90 degree angle grind.

For general use, I usually just stick with an approx 30 degree grind.

Thank you all.

The prototype "guide plate" I made is 15 degree(so 30 degree tip). Pretty sure neither 10 or 45 will be an issue.

I've been grinding a box of 10 at a time, but then it was a fair walk from the TIG to the grinder, that will less of an issue if this grinder works out ok.

I usually keep a stack on hand, pre-ground. Just a 8" grinder with a green Silicon carbide wheel and chuck it up in a beater drill. The tungsten dust will get everywhere, including in the drill motor.

Do yourself a favour and keep the same tungsten 'flavours' in their own case, and sharpen both ends where you can. You dip it, tap it with filler, or get a bit of schmoo on it, and it's a simple swap out, and less of a drama. I find that people will give themselves reasons to not swap them out as much when the task at hand is difficult- ie dip, stop, walk to grinder, install, rinse and repeat.

Originally Posted by Commander_Keen

I usually keep a stack on hand, pre-ground. Just a 8" grinder with a green Silicon carbide wheel and chuck it up in a beater drill. The tungsten dust will get everywhere, including in the drill motor.

Tungsten is very dense (6x denser than SiC ) so will not go far, what is going everywhere is the wheel grit.
If a diamond wheel is used much less wheel grit is generated.

I see a similar thing with my dust meters when steel grinding using an Alox wheel. There's a range of dust particle sizes produced by both steel and Alox, but over time two distinct populations of dust can bee seen. One falls out of suspension about 3 times faster than the other and it just so happens that steel is about 3 times denser than Alox. If I put a dust meter over the other side of the shed I see much less steel dust and mostly Alox dust.

Originally Posted by Commander_Keen

Do yourself a favour and keep the same tungsten 'flavours' in their own case, and sharpen both ends where you can.

So far except the one job with zirconated I've only use Ceriated but have a few others so have been keeping them in their cases, I was only grinding one end so as not to loose the color, I'm sure your idea of grinding both ends would have occurred to me... one day lol


For sometime at least I will be welding outside, now I will be able to grind outside.