turbocad's custom fx
- Thread starter turbocad6
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def better off starting with a mig welder as a novice weldor. when it comes to mig welding I'm a very good weldor & at times can lay a bead that almost looks tig'd with excellent penetration & weld quality, you can def do a lot with just a mig, I've gotten by with mig welding alone for a lot of years which is one of the reasons I never quite made the jump to tig, I'm hoping that much of the experience & skill I have there is going to make the transformation to a tig that much easier.
tig comes more into play when the beauty of the weld is as important as the functionality, & also when you start to play with more exotic materials & thinner aluminum. tig is the most controlled, precise & slowest form of welding & really is an art that needs to be mastered... only problem a beginner will have when it comes to mig welding aside from just blowing through the material is not getting enough penetration, once the arc is established it's pretty easy to just weld into the pool of the molten added material from the wire feed & not really get good enough penetration to the base metal itself. as a novice you can & probably will in the beginning wind up making welds that either just blow through & melt everything, or welds that look solid but that can just be pulled/peeled apart because the weld for the most part is on top of, rather than in to the metal.
a mig can be dangerous in a novice's hands because you can actually weld something all together & have it look like it's all welded up, but then when stressed can just pull apart... sometimes the only way to really know how strong the weld is is by stress testing or destruction. you shouldn't go welding together anything critical or anything that if it fails you'd be putting anyone or anything in danger when you first start to learn to mig weld. tig is a different animal in that regard, as well as even stick welding. if your a novice & you need to create welds that are critical then believe it or not a stick welder is your best bet. there it will be much more obvious as to weather your welds are successful or not. mig can be deceiving.
tig comes more into play when the beauty of the weld is as important as the functionality, & also when you start to play with more exotic materials & thinner aluminum. tig is the most controlled, precise & slowest form of welding & really is an art that needs to be mastered... only problem a beginner will have when it comes to mig welding aside from just blowing through the material is not getting enough penetration, once the arc is established it's pretty easy to just weld into the pool of the molten added material from the wire feed & not really get good enough penetration to the base metal itself. as a novice you can & probably will in the beginning wind up making welds that either just blow through & melt everything, or welds that look solid but that can just be pulled/peeled apart because the weld for the most part is on top of, rather than in to the metal.
a mig can be dangerous in a novice's hands because you can actually weld something all together & have it look like it's all welded up, but then when stressed can just pull apart... sometimes the only way to really know how strong the weld is is by stress testing or destruction. you shouldn't go welding together anything critical or anything that if it fails you'd be putting anyone or anything in danger when you first start to learn to mig weld. tig is a different animal in that regard, as well as even stick welding. if your a novice & you need to create welds that are critical then believe it or not a stick welder is your best bet. there it will be much more obvious as to weather your welds are successful or not. mig can be deceiving.
Took a couple of welding classes and really liked the control tig gives you over mig. I'm sure this will open up some new doors for you and good to see you're taking things into your own hands!
Even on the brick wall obstacles, did you manage to get the FX wired up? Any attempts at starting it up on the haltech?
Even on the brick wall obstacles, did you manage to get the FX wired up? Any attempts at starting it up on the haltech?
ok, I wind up getting myself into so many projects & I had another project that I was doing for a friend of mine that was way overdue, so I've been stuck for the past 3 weeks on just finishing up his project just to get it out of the way. now that I finished that I can get back to my own project.
what I winded up doing for a friend of mine was, he seen my carpc & really wanted one, but he's not the most computer literate guy out there, so I wasn't looking to do anything complicated for him like embedding a full blown carpc because then he would drive me crazy all the time with configuring & front ends & all the other stuff that goes along with a "normal" carpc, so instead I decided to do it for him but keep it real simple, simple enough that once I finished the install he wouldn't have to keep coming back to me for anything.
I winded up making him buy the same laptop I have, a fujitsu p1610 tiny tablet with an 8.9" widescreen display. I chose this laptop because of it's tiny size, high resolution sunlight viewable display & also because it has an available docking solution. this may look like a simple install but the amount of fabrication & custom internal dash work was pretty intense. the center console is all 100% built from scratch, as well as the motorized drawer that I built. this guy is very rough with his stuff so I over built it to last forever & made it very strong so it could last many years & can motorize in & out countless times without issue. even the lower storage compartment is made very rugged & it's on a custom magnetic hinge that makes the whole compartment easy to pop in & out for access to behind it for another hidden storage compartment. that handle you see to the left of the console is the valve for the locomotive train horn I installed under the truck:tongue (2): I made a quick video for some of my friends over at mp3car.com but thought I'd share it here with you guys too...
YouTube- Cadillac Escalade EXT Motorized CarPC
far as my fx goes, haven't had any time at all for more progress at all, I got my welder weeks ago but never even had the chance to even plug it in:frown: the headers are still the brick wall I'm at & I can't do much else until I get past those, I should be able to really dive back into them head first now though & hopefully get her done & running soon... the wiring is done about as much as I can for now but I can't do much more testing & stuff until the headers are installed & I can finish up the wiring & start testing stuff...
what I winded up doing for a friend of mine was, he seen my carpc & really wanted one, but he's not the most computer literate guy out there, so I wasn't looking to do anything complicated for him like embedding a full blown carpc because then he would drive me crazy all the time with configuring & front ends & all the other stuff that goes along with a "normal" carpc, so instead I decided to do it for him but keep it real simple, simple enough that once I finished the install he wouldn't have to keep coming back to me for anything.
I winded up making him buy the same laptop I have, a fujitsu p1610 tiny tablet with an 8.9" widescreen display. I chose this laptop because of it's tiny size, high resolution sunlight viewable display & also because it has an available docking solution. this may look like a simple install but the amount of fabrication & custom internal dash work was pretty intense. the center console is all 100% built from scratch, as well as the motorized drawer that I built. this guy is very rough with his stuff so I over built it to last forever & made it very strong so it could last many years & can motorize in & out countless times without issue. even the lower storage compartment is made very rugged & it's on a custom magnetic hinge that makes the whole compartment easy to pop in & out for access to behind it for another hidden storage compartment. that handle you see to the left of the console is the valve for the locomotive train horn I installed under the truck:tongue (2): I made a quick video for some of my friends over at mp3car.com but thought I'd share it here with you guys too...
YouTube- Cadillac Escalade EXT Motorized CarPC
far as my fx goes, haven't had any time at all for more progress at all, I got my welder weeks ago but never even had the chance to even plug it in:frown: the headers are still the brick wall I'm at & I can't do much else until I get past those, I should be able to really dive back into them head first now though & hopefully get her done & running soon... the wiring is done about as much as I can for now but I can't do much more testing & stuff until the headers are installed & I can finish up the wiring & start testing stuff...
na, take too much space & add too much weight, would be much easier to put a dunkin donuts gift card in the glovebox:tonguey:
I built a steel frame & used a pair of heavy duty roller bearing drawer slides for that laptop motorization, then powered it with a honda window motor & used a cable drive pulley setup to move it. I used 1/4" steel bar stock for the support frame & then welded that right to the dashboard support beam. it snaps open & closed fast & strong. I used 4 relays & limit switches at the end of travel, I really like how it came out
---------- Post added at 01:11 AM ---------- Previous post was Yesterday at 11:24 PM ----------
ok last pictures of this but this console winded up having part of my fx built into it
I was looking around for a way to build the center door & the sunglass holder from my fx winded up being the perfect size & shape & the indented design winded up becoming a steel rod/magnet quick release hinge
this is before I built the side walls from the same epoxy composite material that I built my overhead console from, then it was all covered in suede
I built a steel frame & used a pair of heavy duty roller bearing drawer slides for that laptop motorization, then powered it with a honda window motor & used a cable drive pulley setup to move it. I used 1/4" steel bar stock for the support frame & then welded that right to the dashboard support beam. it snaps open & closed fast & strong. I used 4 relays & limit switches at the end of travel, I really like how it came out
---------- Post added at 01:11 AM ---------- Previous post was Yesterday at 11:24 PM ----------
ok last pictures of this but this console winded up having part of my fx built into it
I was looking around for a way to build the center door & the sunglass holder from my fx winded up being the perfect size & shape & the indented design winded up becoming a steel rod/magnet quick release hinge
this is before I built the side walls from the same epoxy composite material that I built my overhead console from, then it was all covered in suede
ok, back to my headers...
as I've said, my headers were built by me with schedule 10 stainless steel elbows... well one of the hardest things in doing a job like this is actually cutting all the angles to assemble the tubes... each elbow needs to be cut & then needs to be made perfectly flat to mate to the next section... this cutting is an absolute nightmare... the stainless steel is very tough to cut & even tougher to cut clean & straight... the first time I did it I was determined to do it no matter what, I did this with the tools available to me at the time which consisted of an abrasive chop saw, a 3" abrasive cut off wheel, a little air grinder, a bench grinder & even a dremel... the job was a friggin nightmare, trying to hold the small elbows with a vice grip, having blades break, many jamb ups, in short it was a nightmare job & also pretty dangerous... once the elbow cocks a little while cutting it it can break the blade, jamb up & throw a piece of stainless clear across the room, then after the cut it took a whole lot of grinding to finish the edge to something usable... many of these cuts winded up taking me 1/2 hour to 45 minutes each & to do the header tubes winds up being ~50 cuts like this... it was a nightmare & a ton of work, but, at the time my fx was in the shop, the engine was out & I had no choice, it was either do it or it just won't get done so I just did it & when it was all done I was so relieved that it was finally over....
this is part of the reason why it was so very depressing to wind up finishing the whole thing, getting it to the point of done, & then having it destroyed with a bad welding job... I just absolutely dread the thought of having to do this all over again, I mean I was lucky the first time that I didn't wind up hurting myself & there were several occasions where it came pretty close. now of course I could wind up redoing it all just the way I did it the first time, but just the thought of all this work & it's going to wind up taking me over 50 hours of labor AGAIN to just redo just all the tubes, on top of the 100 hours of labor it took the first time to completely build these... I just don't even want to do it... but, here I am & it HAS to be done... so,
I winded up looking into better ways to accomplish all the cuts that I need to do. cutting stainless steel with abrasive methods is just a tedious task, as the cuts progress the heat builds up a lot & makes the cut even harder & harder to complete, & this heating up is what makes the blades die & also makes the cuts less than good... by the time the cut gets all the way through it is burning through the metal more than cutting through. the cut edge is all burnt & jagged & less than really straight too...
one problem with cutting this pieces is holding the piece well enough to be cut, it needs to be held very strongly to avoid movement or even vibrations or it can get caught & snap the blade. I decided that now, since I have to redo this I'm going to use a little more brains & a little less brute force. I'm going to build a special jig to hold the elbows solidly & at the correct angle, a little time spent on building the right jig will go a long way towards making the cutting job much safer & easier. the elbows are hollow of course so they can't be held securely in a conventional vice without distorting them, plus the fact that there elbows means there is no real flat area that will hold them stable enough without the chance of them cocking a little & breaking the blade, plus each cut is at a different angle but I have a clamping jig in mind that I'm going to build to solve that problem...
then onto the problem of the actual cutting, abrasive cutting on stainless sucks, so I've been looking into other methods. one thing that has been suggested to me is a band saw... a band saw would work, but not a little rinkydink craftsman cheapo job, no, I tried this before on my little craftsman band saw & all it did was laugh at me & then snap the blade I would need a pretty heavy duty band saw & I've looked into them, almost bought one, but I would need a monster one & then have no where to put it after... space is a consideration so I then looked into horizontal bandsaws, but even they are big heavy & take a lot of space. I also looked into special cut off saws that use very expensive carbide tipped blades, this could have worked & might have been the best reasonable compromise really, but I also found out about a special saw called a cold saw, these saws are specialized & made for cutting heavy metal in an industrial setting, they work at extremely low rpms (like 50 rpm) & they cut with a liquid bath of lubricating coolant, the cuts they produce are amazing & the finished cut is as good as having something milled... they do not heat the metal being cut either which is why there called cold saws...
so in an effort to redo this as easily as possible I ordered a cold saw, this one:
here they are in action, the one I got is there newest model & is smaller than the stuff shown here, mine is a 9" blade & only does up to 2 1/2" tube which is plenty, the bigger machines are many thousands of $$$ so this baby one is going to have to do
YouTube- Baileigh Cold Saws, Manual and Semi Automatic Cold Cut saw,
like the tig welder, this is also a tool that should be very useful way past just my turbo fabrication. this is the welder setup that I got, haven't even had time to plug it in & play with it yet, don't let the small size fool you, this is the newer designed inverter tig & much smaller than a conventional transformer tig, but this is def a kick ass welder:
man, I just gotta get this done, sucks so bad the screwup with the header welding, what a setback... costing me a small fortune & taking so much extra time, I still have the wiring to contend with but I can't even do anything to try & fire this thing up or even see much there at all until the headers are done & installed so I can finish all the plumbing... fx has just been sitting dead in my driveway at home for a long time now:frown:
as I've said, my headers were built by me with schedule 10 stainless steel elbows... well one of the hardest things in doing a job like this is actually cutting all the angles to assemble the tubes... each elbow needs to be cut & then needs to be made perfectly flat to mate to the next section... this cutting is an absolute nightmare... the stainless steel is very tough to cut & even tougher to cut clean & straight... the first time I did it I was determined to do it no matter what, I did this with the tools available to me at the time which consisted of an abrasive chop saw, a 3" abrasive cut off wheel, a little air grinder, a bench grinder & even a dremel... the job was a friggin nightmare, trying to hold the small elbows with a vice grip, having blades break, many jamb ups, in short it was a nightmare job & also pretty dangerous... once the elbow cocks a little while cutting it it can break the blade, jamb up & throw a piece of stainless clear across the room, then after the cut it took a whole lot of grinding to finish the edge to something usable... many of these cuts winded up taking me 1/2 hour to 45 minutes each & to do the header tubes winds up being ~50 cuts like this... it was a nightmare & a ton of work, but, at the time my fx was in the shop, the engine was out & I had no choice, it was either do it or it just won't get done so I just did it & when it was all done I was so relieved that it was finally over....
this is part of the reason why it was so very depressing to wind up finishing the whole thing, getting it to the point of done, & then having it destroyed with a bad welding job... I just absolutely dread the thought of having to do this all over again, I mean I was lucky the first time that I didn't wind up hurting myself & there were several occasions where it came pretty close. now of course I could wind up redoing it all just the way I did it the first time, but just the thought of all this work & it's going to wind up taking me over 50 hours of labor AGAIN to just redo just all the tubes, on top of the 100 hours of labor it took the first time to completely build these... I just don't even want to do it... but, here I am & it HAS to be done... so,
I winded up looking into better ways to accomplish all the cuts that I need to do. cutting stainless steel with abrasive methods is just a tedious task, as the cuts progress the heat builds up a lot & makes the cut even harder & harder to complete, & this heating up is what makes the blades die & also makes the cuts less than good... by the time the cut gets all the way through it is burning through the metal more than cutting through. the cut edge is all burnt & jagged & less than really straight too...
one problem with cutting this pieces is holding the piece well enough to be cut, it needs to be held very strongly to avoid movement or even vibrations or it can get caught & snap the blade. I decided that now, since I have to redo this I'm going to use a little more brains & a little less brute force. I'm going to build a special jig to hold the elbows solidly & at the correct angle, a little time spent on building the right jig will go a long way towards making the cutting job much safer & easier. the elbows are hollow of course so they can't be held securely in a conventional vice without distorting them, plus the fact that there elbows means there is no real flat area that will hold them stable enough without the chance of them cocking a little & breaking the blade, plus each cut is at a different angle but I have a clamping jig in mind that I'm going to build to solve that problem...
then onto the problem of the actual cutting, abrasive cutting on stainless sucks, so I've been looking into other methods. one thing that has been suggested to me is a band saw... a band saw would work, but not a little rinkydink craftsman cheapo job, no, I tried this before on my little craftsman band saw & all it did was laugh at me & then snap the blade
I would need a pretty heavy duty band saw & I've looked into them, almost bought one, but I would need a monster one & then have no where to put it after... space is a consideration so I then looked into horizontal bandsaws, but even they are big heavy & take a lot of space. I also looked into special cut off saws that use very expensive carbide tipped blades, this could have worked & might have been the best reasonable compromise really, but I also found out about a special saw called a cold saw, these saws are specialized & made for cutting heavy metal in an industrial setting, they work at extremely low rpms (like 50 rpm) & they cut with a liquid bath of lubricating coolant, the cuts they produce are amazing & the finished cut is as good as having something milled... they do not heat the metal being cut either which is why there called cold saws...so in an effort to redo this as easily as possible I ordered a cold saw, this one:
here they are in action, the one I got is there newest model & is smaller than the stuff shown here, mine is a 9" blade & only does up to 2 1/2" tube which is plenty, the bigger machines are many thousands of $$$ so this baby one is going to have to do
YouTube- Baileigh Cold Saws, Manual and Semi Automatic Cold Cut saw,
like the tig welder, this is also a tool that should be very useful way past just my turbo fabrication. this is the welder setup that I got, haven't even had time to plug it in & play with it yet, don't let the small size fool you, this is the newer designed inverter tig & much smaller than a conventional transformer tig, but this is def a kick ass welder:
man, I just gotta get this done, sucks so bad the screwup with the header welding, what a setback... costing me a small fortune & taking so much extra time, I still have the wiring to contend with but I can't even do anything to try & fire this thing up or even see much there at all until the headers are done & installed so I can finish all the plumbing... fx has just been sitting dead in my driveway at home for a long time now:frown:
It looks like it wouldn't be impossible to remove the blade/motor/nozzle assembly (the bottom half of the tan portion in your pic) from the vertical hinged support and reattach it to a custom made "table" that is double hinged like a compound miter saw. (everything below pin #7 in the attached drawing) Something that would allow you to rotate the saw 45 degrees each way about 2 axis' would give you far more flexibility with your angles. You may even be able to retain the little vice portion from the cold saw if the two clamping sections are far apart enough to allow the blade to pass through freely at an angle. Is the blue tray just for catching the lubricant? If so you could replicate the functionality of that part relatively easily with a container large enough to fit the revised base. Might be a good break in project for your new welder as well...
hey chuck, really the problem is I don't want to modify the saw just to set it up to only cut these weld elbows (weld el's). I still want to be able to use this saw to cut what it is built for, straight bar stock & straight tubing, I only want to add a jig to securely & precisely clamp the weld el's so they can be cut perfect, then easily switch to straight sections.
pretty much all exhaust & pipe work I'm doing will all be perfect 90deg, cuts which was impossible doing it with a chop saw & a vice grip, I came up with a jig that allows the angles I'm looking to cut on the weld el's to be acurately adjusted for the cut angle. it's easy to adjust just by sliding it in & out of the tube clamp instead of having to loosen & pivot the whole head. only time I would need to angle the head would be if I was building a picture frame or something
this is what the stock jaw looks like
I pictured something that will easily clamp on & off the jaw of the vice, rather than building replacement specific jaws. I built them to be self centering & aligning & they go on & off in seconds. I used a next size up elbow, cut it in half & use that as a clamp head because it's the right size to wrap around & clamp the weld el securely enough to not move in any way
it lines up perfect & gives a perfect cut every time, so now building all this tubing will be almost as easy as playing with a Lego set
virtually ALL of the really pain in the ass part of cutting & building these tubular headers has been completely removed with this setup. it just almost effortlessly precisely cuts so perfect that it's just about ready to weld just as cut. what was a nightmare to try & even get close to the cuts set up too before, is now just 1.5 minutes of cold cut each.
before with the chop saw, just getting some angles right could take 30-40 minutes or more, back & forth chop saw to grinder then sander, dremeling grinding & filing even, all for just one joint, but now, even if I have to re-cut the angle a few times to get the angle just right it might take 5, 6, maybe 7 minutes tops, & without any of the problems of before at all., & because the angles are all perfectly square the flow & transitions at each seem of the tubing is now way more perfectly lined up & flowing like a continuous bent tube, no more butts that are just decent, now there all 100%. this saw was def the best way to build a setup to deal with these stainless steel weld el's I think, nothing else would have come close, even a band saw would need some dressing & finishing, but this thing gives a result that is like it was just cut with a laser.
I also built an easy way to purge the tubes & allow me to position them as I weld them up, I welded a vice grip to a flex arm & welded a sealing cap to that with an inlet in the center for the purge.. opposite end of the assembled tube for welding gets capped off with just a tiny bleed hole.
it actually took a while to get this saw even working, turns out it came to me brand new with a defective fluid pump, a while of back & forth with the manufacturer about that but in the end I winded up having to convert it to an electric pump... I put a clear glass type filter in line to so no metal shavings make it to the pump... I used a pump made for a water cooled PC setup, just picked it up at a micro center, so far it works great & really floods the blade nicely when it's running.
pretty much all exhaust & pipe work I'm doing will all be perfect 90deg, cuts which was impossible doing it with a chop saw & a vice grip, I came up with a jig that allows the angles I'm looking to cut on the weld el's to be acurately adjusted for the cut angle. it's easy to adjust just by sliding it in & out of the tube clamp instead of having to loosen & pivot the whole head. only time I would need to angle the head would be if I was building a picture frame or something
this is what the stock jaw looks like
I pictured something that will easily clamp on & off the jaw of the vice, rather than building replacement specific jaws. I built them to be self centering & aligning & they go on & off in seconds. I used a next size up elbow, cut it in half & use that as a clamp head because it's the right size to wrap around & clamp the weld el securely enough to not move in any way
it lines up perfect & gives a perfect cut every time, so now building all this tubing will be almost as easy as playing with a Lego set
virtually ALL of the really pain in the ass part of cutting & building these tubular headers has been completely removed with this setup. it just almost effortlessly precisely cuts so perfect that it's just about ready to weld just as cut. what was a nightmare to try & even get close to the cuts set up too before, is now just 1.5 minutes of cold cut each.
before with the chop saw, just getting some angles right could take 30-40 minutes or more, back & forth chop saw to grinder then sander, dremeling grinding & filing even, all for just one joint, but now, even if I have to re-cut the angle a few times to get the angle just right it might take 5, 6, maybe 7 minutes tops, & without any of the problems of before at all., & because the angles are all perfectly square the flow & transitions at each seem of the tubing is now way more perfectly lined up & flowing like a continuous bent tube, no more butts that are just decent, now there all 100%. this saw was def the best way to build a setup to deal with these stainless steel weld el's I think, nothing else would have come close, even a band saw would need some dressing & finishing, but this thing gives a result that is like it was just cut with a laser.
I also built an easy way to purge the tubes & allow me to position them as I weld them up, I welded a vice grip to a flex arm & welded a sealing cap to that with an inlet in the center for the purge.. opposite end of the assembled tube for welding gets capped off with just a tiny bleed hole.
it actually took a while to get this saw even working, turns out it came to me brand new with a defective fluid pump, a while of back & forth with the manufacturer about that but in the end I winded up having to convert it to an electric pump... I put a clear glass type filter in line to so no metal shavings make it to the pump... I used a pump made for a water cooled PC setup, just picked it up at a micro center, so far it works great & really floods the blade nicely when it's running.
last weekend I got the welder hooked up & started playing with it, after one afternoon of playing with it & figuring out the adjustments & control I have it figured out enough to be able to weld ok/pretty good with it already. it just works awesome, really nice machine, I'm happy I went for a high end miller on the welder. my welds are not real pretty yet but not horrible either, & perfectly functional at least, a little more practice & I should be able to get them to look pretty too
did a few tests of welding with & without backpurging, without of course you see the ugly build up of slag inside the pipes, but with the tubes backpurged instead of the slag the inside is just a very smooth, almost polished looking fine bead, better even than the outside, huge difference, now when it's all welded like this it'll be perfect welds. took a bit of time to build this whole setup to do these headers over but this time they will be as perfect as I hoped they would be the first time
this is what slag looks like, it happens any time the weld get's full penetration & it weakens the whole weld, not to mention a piece could break off when red hot in use
here is what it looks like inside the tube
but this is what it looks like when the tube is back purged for welding, there is nothing that can possibly break away from this of course & the weld is100% solid
did a few tests of welding with & without backpurging, without of course you see the ugly build up of slag inside the pipes, but with the tubes backpurged instead of the slag the inside is just a very smooth, almost polished looking fine bead, better even than the outside, huge difference, now when it's all welded like this it'll be perfect welds. took a bit of time to build this whole setup to do these headers over but this time they will be as perfect as I hoped they would be the first time
this is what slag looks like, it happens any time the weld get's full penetration & it weakens the whole weld, not to mention a piece could break off when red hot in use
here is what it looks like inside the tube
but this is what it looks like when the tube is back purged for welding, there is nothing that can possibly break away from this of course & the weld is100% solid
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looks like it's going awesome dude....
I'm just excited for you to become an expert at using the Tig welder
I'm just excited for you to become an expert at using the Tig welder