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[Bentley]

7 times the cost of my unit, would be like getting the keys to a Bentley Continental!  You wanna see marginal come weld on my equipment!   

I find welding is a lot of fun but can be frustrating at times.  My first welder was a Miller EconoTIG.  It was very marginal. 

[JoeGrilling]

7 times the cost of my unit, would be like getting the keys to a Bentley Continental!  You wanna see marginal come weld on my equipment!   

I find welding is a lot of fun but can be frustrating at times.  My first welder was a Miller EconoTIG.  It was very marginal. 

Even at $800 in 1991 it was over priced.  The "Econo" in the name says it all.  Most of the cost was for the Miller name.  It was transformer based and when I kicked the power up it literally growled (vibration) at me.  The newer inverter based machines are so much nicer.

[Bentley]

$800 in 1991 is $1500 today!  But I see you said TIG, which I have never used, it was not around when I was learning, well, neither was MIG.  You used a rod or you did not weld.  There was heli-arch (I think that is what it was called) but believe me, that was not in our Shop class.  I have seen a lot of TIG welding on TV, Orange County Choppers or what ever that show was called.  It always looked like they were braising with the equipment.  Is TIG welding some what like that, the thing that looks like an air brush is the flame, and obviously the rod is the rod?

[JoeGrilling]

$800 in 1991 is $1500 today!  But I see you said TIG, which I have never used, it was not around when I was learning, well, neither was MIG.  You used a rod or you did not weld.  There was heli-arch (I think that is what it was called) but believe me, that was not in our Shop class.  I have seen a lot of TIG welding on TV, Orange County Choppers or what ever that show was called.  It always looked like they were braising with the equipment.  Is TIG welding some what like that, the thing that looks like an air brush is the flame, and obviously the rod is the rod?

I like TIG welding the most it seems to be the most controlled form of welding.  It's used for car and motorcycle frame building for that reason.  The downside is that it is slow and prep is very important.  The TIG process is basically creating a puddle between the tungsten rod in the torch and the base metal and feeding filler metal into it and moving along.  Your weld should resemble a stack of dimes slid sideways.  The problem with TIG is your weld area must be ground to shinny metal and washed with acetone.  If you dip your tungsten rod into the puddle it needs to be changed.  A steady well propped hand is real important. If there is any contamination in the weld area it will blow junk onto your tungsten and it needs to be changed.  xxxxxxx up tungsten needs to be reground.  I have a dedicated grinder with a diamond wheel for this.  A normal grinding wheel will be destroyed by the hard tungsten.  I found this out the hard way.  A lot of tungsten needed to be reground when both my daughter and I were learning the process.  A variation of TIG welding is fusion welding where no filler metal is used.  Welders will often  build thin stainless steel sheet metal boxes like this.  I used it to build my grill grates.  Manufacturers typically will typically do grill grate welds with electrical resistance welding.   

MIG welding is a little more tolerant of cleanliness.  It has been said that you can teach a monkey to MIG weld.  Not true.  It is important to get your metal feed rate and voltage properly set for good welds.  MIG welding also produces splatter.  Overall, it is fast.

Stick welding that you are used to is the good old fashion way to weld.  I never used it.  You can get a pretty strong weld between two rusted pieces of metal with stick.  It was a farmer's go to method for fixing farm equipment.  The old Lincoln tombstone welders are an icon for this method.       

[JoeGrilling]

After several months of rainy weather and home repairs, I'm finally back at it trying to get the thermals under control in my smoker.  On and off I tried several things including tuning plate and could not get much of a change.  Other structural things I did along the way are as follows:
1. Added the Savannah Stoker 4.5
2. Replaced the grease tray going form 12 to 10 gauge steel.
3. Added a bit more pitch to my grease tray.

My old grease tray was getting a bit warped so I increased the metal thickness. My supplier only had shiny cold rolled steel so I went with that.  I did a run about a month ago from power-on to 225 degF and noted a huge HAZ (Heat Affected Zone) on my shiny new grease tray right above the heat diffuser.  The temperatures in the smoker were pretty much what I was seeing before where the middle was about 25 degF above the hopper end and the far end was somewhere in between.   This told me my high temperature problem in the middle could be because of radiative heat transfer.  Just for grins, I made a temporary heat shield last night for the heat diffuser from a piece of ceramic fiber insulation covered in two layers of aluminum foil.  It improved things substantially.  My middle and far end are roughly equal in temperature.  My hopper end is roughly 16-17 degF off from that.  I need to find a more food safe permanent solution for a heat shield and am still working on that. 

My next thing to do is try and bring the hopper and far closer together in temperature.  I thinking of creating a sheet metal replica of the auger box and placing it inside the completely open end of the heat diffuser.  I am hoping to equalize the airflow out from under both ends of the heat diffuser.             

[Canadian John]

 Joe - looks like you are at the top of the welding game and are getting closer to dialing in your pit..Thanks for sharing..I find it truly interesting.