Since im here I want to share an experience I had today while doing some aluminum work. I was welding along, and about 3 mins or so into the bead the filler would start collecting onto the tungsten. Getting sucked up is all I can describe it. Its also strange that this did not happen when I was doing my practice runs. About 30 mins on scrap. Note that this has never happened to me without accidentaly getting the tung in the puddle.
Turned down the gas, adjusting it for more cleaning helped but as soon as things heated up i would start up.
Check out the picture, you can see the blow back spots.
So im going back and forth and I noticed that if I wiped my rod down with
acetone it would stop doing it for a longer period.
While texting I inedvertenly swapped my welding gloves and the problem never came back. Turn out when I was fitting the weld bung for the filler cap lubricant from the o-ring saturated the index finger on my glove. As the rod got hot and my finger got closer to the puddle it would release more contaminants. Bam blow back.
Moral of the story keep your gloves, equip and rod clean when going ball deep.
