Feeling good about my tig-welding after today’s effort. I welded the front triangle and chainstays and these are some of my best yet. Not great by most standards, but I’m really happy with many of these beads! I haven’t burned a hole in any tube (so far) and feel MUCH more comfortable moving the frame fixture around to get the frame in the right position. I’m trying to weld as much as possible in the fixture but it’s not always possible for me right now. I also like to use a BB heatsink which I can’t fit over the BB post in the Access 65 jig. (Does the Anvil have an integrated BB heatsink…?) I’m not using the pulser and I’m going to make that a habit. I did do a bit of foot-pedal pulsing in the really acute angles (ST/DT, HT/DT) as it helped maintain a nice bead when more amps are necessary. I do the tube in quarters, like has been recommended by most every welder I’ve heard of (i.e., if the inline-obtuse angle is “12-o’clock” then it’d go something like: 12-3, 6-9, 3-6, 9-12), it’s just not always matching up perfectly yet.
What I mean is that you’ll see that some of the beads are of inconsistent size (especially the drive-side seat tube where I got a bit hotter on one 1/4 bead than the other). I find that the inconsistency in bead size is because of inconsistent space in the tube miter where the bigger the space the bigger the bead. This happened unfortunately in the DT counter-miter where the downtube joins with the seat tube…that’s just a difficult miter to get perfect right now. Also, since I’m not flooring the pedal to full amps, I don’t get it to the exact same amps the entire bead and instead feather the pedal to keep the puddle going the right pace and right size depending on where I am in the joint. Only more frames will make it better. I’m already stoked to ride this frame! I just have to put in the wishbone seatstays later this week and I think I’m going to rattlecan this one John Deere green.