titanium welding

[Aussie damo]

g'day everyone.
I have a young guy that works with me and he wants to learn weld titanium.
we(he) has a lot of questions relating to this.
At the moment he is searching out a sealed chamber to weld in. If you not familiar with titanium it has to be welded in an argon environment of a bit over 99 %.
in Australia there is maybe 500 ppl in 20 million ppl that can weld titanium so market is extremely small so consumables and expensive as is all the equipment.
It is more commercial scale than a home hobby to learn on.
so our first question is:
Does any one have any experience in this?
Can any one recommend a chamber or has plans etc?

Thanks in advance for any help

 

[zkling]

At a prior job we did quite a bit of Ti welding (aerospace). Not all of it is done in a inert chamber, only larger weldment parts that were odd shaped and hard to get full coverage on. Most of the work was done in the welding booths with standard back gassing fixtures, gas lens and a trailing flow setup.

What is the application?

 

[Aussie damo]

he just wants to learn at this stage. wants to inprove welding techniques.
he is amazing at stainless and aly welding tig

 

[king nero]

as said above, argon chambers aren't always necessary.
google for trailing gas gtaw torch.

Better read up on the different types of Ti, as they're certainly not all the same.
cleanliness is VERY important. clean your filler metal, wear new gloves and don't touch anything else with them, the parts themselves need to be clean, ...

once you got all of this, welding Ti is a piece of cake, it welds really smooth.

 

[gte718p]

as said above, argon chambers aren't always necessary.
google for trailing gas gtaw torch.

Better read up on the different types of Ti, as they're certainly not all the same.
cleanliness is VERY important. clean your filler metal, wear new gloves and don't touch anything else with them, the parts themselves need to be clean, ...

once you got all of this, welding Ti is a piece of cake, it welds really smooth.

One of the solar car teams I raced against andworked with built their entire car 12 ft long by 6 feet wide from Ti. Body, frame, suspension all titanium. It was not welded in a chamber http://www.solarcarchallenge.org/challenge/teams2003/stealth.shtml

I've done some Ti welding. I agree with nero Ti welds nice. Joining two pieces ot Ti is a piece of cake. Doing it well requires a lot of attention to detail. Not all alloys are weldable.

 

[BD1]

Maybe join the weldingweb site or do a search there,
http://weldingweb.com/forum.php

 

[Nekit]

We weld lots of Ti at work. (Race Shop). We mainly back gas and used a large gas lens. One trick is to not weld too much at a time. Only go 3-4 puddles at a time the let cool with gas flowing over weld area. If you weld too quickly you can develop cracks. If you don't post gas long enough it will discolor.

 

[Jetfixr320]

I have read about plastic bubbles also.

 

[Nekit]

I have read about plastic bubbles also.

That chamber they are using in the video sure looks similar to a cheap HF blast cabinet. That seems like it would be easy to make on out of that.