Whenever I’m sat at home and I turn on the TV, my first port of call is almost always The Discovery Chanel. Many of their shows feature experienced mechanics running beautiful welds as they build custom cars, bikes and such.

Unlike the splattered messes that I’ve been making with my arc welder, this weld is a thing of beauty:

Example of a perfect TIG welded bead

To achieve welds like this, a process called TIG welding (Tungsten Inert Gas) is used. As far as I know, TIG welding is also the only suitable method for welding alloy (the material which is being used to build the mountain wheelchair frame).

The only problem with this is that TIG is generally considered to be the most difficult welding process to learn.

Last week, Dan from Coastal Welding very kindly gave up some of his time to help set up my welder and get me started with TIG welding.

It was clear from the off that Dan is a very skilled craftsman and he was instantly able to get perfect results. The same couldn’t be said for my efforts:

My first attempt at TIG welding

My first attempt at TIG welding

My first TIG welded joint

In amongst all of this mess, there are actually some welds which aren’t too bad. For a brief moment I almost felt like I knew what I was doing :)

Lots more practice required but this a big step towards building the actual frame for the mountain wheelchair.