I had a TIG welding epiphany this week and wanted to share to help anyone else self-learning.
I was over at a buddy's 4x4 shop the week before and he does heavy fab, full rock crawling rigs, axle housings, etc.. and got on the subject of TIG. He commented how when he drives long distances to keep himself awake he practices pulsing his foot and feeding his rod. I didn't think much of it until a few days later when it hit me... Never in any of the threads, or videos, or talking with people had I caught on to the subject of pulsing the TIG pedal. I had always treated it like a throttle rolling on and off but never pulsing it per se.
So I've been playing around with this over the last week on aluminum and yesterday on some 1/4" steel gusseting a torque arm and what a difference it makes in puddle control and heat control!!
I would suffer on a regular basis from the filler being blown away or balling up and contaminating by the torch while trying to feed into the puddle but now with the pulsing it just wicks the molten rod right into the puddle. Back off on the throttle, slide forward, feed and roll in again...repeat as necessary!!
I showed it to my 4x4 fab guy and the only thing he could fault me for was being a little light on my filler rod and going a little slow in places but for me it was a huge leap in consistency!!!
I hope this helps someone!