Are you saying I'm lying because you can't conceive of a person learning a simple skill (it's not rocket surgery ) like welding over a lifetime?

No, that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying even durring your Navy time you make claims to holding some pretty training intensive jobs, jobs that are the normal career in the service, not a jump from one to another thing. Then comes the welding thing, where your claim was that you worked in ship yards doing tig on weapons systems, where formal training and certification is a requirement. I know because in one of my work places we did prototype work that was involved with the military, not the actual production of things just the prototyping of them, and I had to get certified.

 

I had to look up "Lift". It seemed about the same as scratch but slightly different timing. With scratch, power is on and you briefly touch the electrode. With lift, the electrode is touching when you apply welding voltage. From a coordination and screwing up the electrode perspective, I suspect scratch is easier.

I still like HF. If I don't want to start on the weld immediately (like when doing thermocouples), I start on copper with HF and carry the arc to the work.

 

No, that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying even durring your Navy time you make claims to holding some pretty training intensive jobs, jobs that are the normal career in the service, not a jump from one to another thing. Then comes the welding thing, where your claim was that you worked in ship yards doing tig on weapons systems, where formal training and certification is a requirement. I know because in one of my work places we did prototype work that was involved with the military, not the actual production of things just the prototyping of them, and I had to get certified.

Stop the BS guy, I know what you are thinking.

I left military service in 1982. This was long after.

At the time I worked for NAVSEA via a contract with Hughes Aircraft Marine division in Long Beach CA and with a private company. They provided the certification for my simple interior welding work and training that was easy if you actually understand the physics of welding instead of parroting some old guys skills. I signed off my own work when I did the final install system inspection with the ship owners and NAVSEA.

 

Stop the BS guy, I know what you are thinking.

Your the one who should stop the BS. I remember all or most of your claims of fame.

 

All of the TIG welders I'm familiar with , or at least the ones worth ahving, use a RF or high frequency start today. Lift and scratch start are two names for the same thing.

That's what I initially thought but as I read a little they are not quite the same. Here is an overview which after I thought about it made sense. They actually while similar aren't the same. The more I looked at it the more "HF START VS. DC LIFT START TIG VS. SCRATCH START" stuff I found. The lift start came well after any association with weld process I had. Worked with some pretty cool stuff but a weld engineer I was not and really had no desire to get involved.


Ron

 

Thanks for the link. I've never used a scratch or lift start machine but was going by what a salesman at a welding shop told me, that they were the same thing, just done in a different motion.

 

Thanks for the link. I've never used a scratch or lift start machine but was going by what a salesman at a welding shop told me, that they were the same thing, just done in a different motion.

Everything I worked with was an RF start. With the exception of some stick in High School Shop I have never welded anything together in my life. Exposed to or worked with yes, some pretty cool machined but actually weld? Nope. Even my stuff in HS was ugly.

Ron

 

Special thanks, Ron. The choke idea works great.

Years ago I was involved with measuring arc voltage to some extent. Prior to the arc starting there was the open circuit voltage which as I recall was about 100 volts give or take, The arc was started by an RF burst. One big problem was that RF would destroy the meters people were trying to use. The machines were older before real nice new stuff came along. So here is what was done. A choke was placed at the weld head and that eliminated any RF start problems. Next there was a voltage divider circuit to reduce the open circuit voltage. Then the open circuit voltage was fed into a comparator circuit and when it dropped to a preset level the arc voltage was measured and actually recorded. I have forgotten what choke value we settled on. Also I understand in the TIG welding world they have moved from a scratch or RF start to something called a lift start but not being a welder I haven't a clue. Anyway the way I would look at measuring arc voltage would be start measuring once there is an arc and the way to know that I would look at a comparator circuit.

Ron