In December, I bought a TIG welder on deep Christmas discount with honorarium money made from a gig at MICA. After a ton of research, I settled on a basic unit from Eastwood, branded Rockwood, which seems to be their entry-level gear. It sat in the garage until this weekend, when I had the jungle site deliver a bottle of 100% argon for about $250 less than if I’d purchased it locally. While freezing my ass off working on the trucks outside, I had the little space heater in the garage warm it up in there. When I couldn’t feel my fingers anymore I retreated back inside, restored the sensation in my hands, and set up the unit.

It’s been four years since my welding class, so my memory of running a TIG unit is very hazy. I’d watched a bunch of setup videos and read the manual, but predictably the printed material was lean on detail. After several minutes with no spark I remembered that I had to ground the workpiece, and after that I was quickly laying beads down. Getting used to the footpedal, which regulates the heat, feeding the welding rod at the right intervals, and keeping the tip of the tungsten out of the pool took some time, but I got into a groove and figured out how to keep the welds from blowing through the metal or just sitting on top of it.

It’s going to take a lot of practice (and a lot of argon) to master, but I’m excited to keep working on it. TIG is really good for doing delicate sheet metal work as well as aluminum, and it’s the latter that I’m really interested in. I’ve got a plan for building a roof rack for the Travelall, and Brian included my metal with an order he put in for the EV project. I’d like to tackle that sometime this summer when I can lay it out in the driveway and assemble the whole thing.