Talk:Gas tungsten arc welding

Safety in welding issue

Quick question to anyone who knows more about arc-welding than I do - should the guy in the picture be wearing gloves on both hands? Just curious.

It would be a good idea, but it's not absolutely necessary. That rod of metal does get pretty hot, but not wearing a glove gives him better control, which sometimes is more important, especially if he's only going to be welding for a short time. --Spangineer (háblame) 14:22, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

My girlfriend knitted me a Twig-n-Berries cozy to go with my hood, and nothing more...... you know, when "welding for just a short time". And alone. TTLightningRod

Phosgene is NOT a nerve agent. It is a very toxic gas though, and can cause pulmonary edema which can be lethal. I changed the wording to reflect this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.55.200.20 (talk) 17:02, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Valuable Links for Welding

I would like to add an outbound link to two great guides and resources that deal with the proper preparation and selection of material on tungsten electrodes. The link is at: www.diamondground.com/downloads.html. Do you feel that this would be appropriate? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.112.164.100 (talk) 21:12, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

gloves

Speaking from expirience, wearing both gloves is definantly a good idea. On the note of safety procedure, my friend managed to get a 'sun burn' from the high intensity light.

Electrode "Cleaning",

is commonly performed by grinding (shaping) the tungsten electrode into a fine, burr-less 'pencil point', using a high speed diamond abrasive wheel. The shape, and angle acuteness of the point, also plays a role in the 'focused' shape of the plasma arc. The DC arc largely applicable to ferrous metals, benefits from using 2% thoriated tungsten (or 2% ceriated tungsten, an alternative to the radiological concerns of Thorium), while nonferrous metals such as aluminum and magnesium requiring AC current, are performed best with pure tungsten allowing the tip to melt into an enlarged balled surface at the end of the electrode. A "ball-point" subsequently flares the arc onto a much broader surface of the material, where greater expansion and distortion must then be accommodated, or anticipated as part of the welders job.

This is not the case when you can vary the balance of the AC wave. It is common that you need less than 15-20% of the cycle for cleaning, allowing for the use of 2% thoriated tungsten with aluminum welding.

More Cleaning

There's cleaning or shaping of the electrode, and then there's cleaning or "preparation" of the work-piece to be welded:

As you say, dirt, oil and scale are simply removed from parts for a good weld. Washing, degreasing, rinsing etc, but mechanical abrasion is fast, easy and most popular as shaping a weld chamfer can be done simultaneous to "cleaning". AlumaPrep (or some brand name like that), is simply an acid rinse to remove stubborn anodizing and any last marks of finger print oil from the 'touchy' AC needing metals. But as Triddle pointed out in his explanation of +/- wave form capable machines, the plasma itself will often do a fine job of burning off simple surface impurities. Deep inclusions (ubiquitous in sand casted work) are a frustration all unto themselves. Welder (the person) tolerance, patience, and experience must often judge what level of weld quality exist after cooling. High-tech work, demands that the work piece billet is good stuff to begin with, yet there is a variety of filler rod that can be used to accommodate persnickety base material. Nickle, Bronze and "Everdure" (brand name) are often blended into filler rods, and greatly assist the welder trying to fix cracked engine blocks or other sandy and oil impregnated work pieces.

Reactor vessels of all types, be they nuclear or cellular, are also a field unto themselves. As the physical strength of a finished weld may really be the lesser of engineering concerns. Chemistry plays a role in both questions of what will actually be held in the vessel, and how it may be cleaned between use. Low carbon 316 SS (316L) commonly desired for biomedical applications where autoclaving and bleach will still kick the ass out of Stainless Steel. Titanium and its many grades are like wise a subject for deep thought, but once the decision is made... it works like soft butter, and few other welds can look so nice raw.

As to the safety stuff.

A hot horse shoe is hot, and most animals with any brain will let go of it before they get burned too bad. Therefor, direct and immediate sensible surface heat, is far less of real danger than the intense UV of the plasma arch as Gaiusjuliuscesar talked about 'sun burn', often called "flash burn". Fully covering any skin, just as one might wish to reduce sun burn. It's the same stuff. Welders, responsible ones, will even clear a room of bystanders, even ones who "know not to look into the light with out a hood". Side vision (looking off to one side) doesn't work either, as the cornea and retina damage (not dependent on center of focused vision) is extremely painful when experienced, (ya, I know) and not felt for many hours after excessive exposure. TTLightningRod 05:01, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Who's Cool?

Nathaniel's cool. Great stuff you put together. Sorry i couldn't help out more. Don't forget to visit the new shop Jan1. CNC Centrump, Clausing Coulchester and TIG up the wazo. Erin since it will be more beneficial. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.21.61.142 (talk) 14:00, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Unsourced statements

• Arc length: in most cases this is as close as possible to an eighth of an inch (3 mm).
• The welder attempts to maintain a consistently sized weld puddle during welding; this size, as a rule of thumb, is around 3 times the electrode diameter.
• (in most cases the weld pool is no more than one-half inch (12 mm) across)
• When using metals which melt at a low temperature, such as aluminum, it is important to be fast and accurate with the filler material placement. If the filler material spends too much time near the hot electrode and plasma it can melt before it is inserted into the weld puddle.
• GTAW is often used on sensitive metals which require variable levels of heat input. In these situations the welder is able to control the output of the welding power supply with either a foot pedal or finger controls on the torch. For instance, when welding aluminum, the welder must start out with the full output of the machine. Because aluminum conducts heat so well the area that is to be welded will be substantially hotter than it was initially. Eventually the spot to be welded will be so hot, even though you have moved across the piece that is to be welded, that the output of the machine must be reduced or weld quality will be compromised. As the weld gets closer to the edge of the base materials the heat will build up quite rapidly. In some aluminum welds the operator must reduce the output of the machine to a fraction of its original output or the edge of the weld will be completely destroyed.
• Sometimes, a very small amount (0.03%) of nitric oxide, NO, is added to the shielding gas, in order to minimize the formation of ozone, which is a health risk if inhaled.

I'm not saying that these statements are incorrect; they are just unreferenced—I tried to verify them in my sources, but was unable to do so. Once confirmed to be included in a reputable reference, they can be included in the article along with a proper citation. --Spangineer^es (háblame) 04:50, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

(It took me some time to write this as you may have already added stuff, or there could be stuff already there I missed in the first place)

May I..... Nathaniel, I think you have pointed out one of the most fascinating double edges of the internet, and certainly this frustrating Wikipedia. (please forgive me taking this time here, but for the sake of your welding article case, might I be so bold to attempt advancing a much, much larger cause as well)

You have said yourself, that you are not a highly experienced "welder", save for I'm sure at least some time spent laying down a few good beads, yet you haven't been known to build large constructions where lives might have depended? I have that right about you, yes?

HOWEVER, what you have done through this string of welding articles, I find simply fantastic. It is concise and worded at a level properly aimed at most anyone already competent enough to begin welding, yet simply needs to get the overview. It is as authoritative as any single, or group of books and articles I've read on welding as a hole. (That should encourage, and scare you at the same time). Now we just need to add a bit more about the Art. Yes, that ethereal bane stalking wikipedia bureaucrats who can't stand things which don't come up in google counts.

The list of unsourced statements you have offered, may exist in no small part, to the very lack of "authoritative" sources available for such things. I have never, NEVER come across two welding books which are consistent through a "school of thought" on such a list of interdependent items. It is precisely the effect of deep interrelation, that no two instructors will ever approach welding exactly the same, yet 'miraculously' so many welds hold together and perform their needed functions in our lives. After the instructor has pointed out the canvas, paints and brushes, then he must leave the student to his own devices. To hone a skill set, to practice an art. Practice. For ultimately, the welders experience becomes the most reliable gauge to deciding the finished quality of a weld. So practice and time under the hood is everything "so they say".

X-Ray is really quite impractical for all but the most over-funded projects. Destruction, by cross-cutting open the weld or simply trying to break it, is what the most honest instructor will tell a student he must do if he wants to know (learn) what it takes to make a good weld. Breaking things, is the engineeres absolute best instruction manual, and he/she must hold in great regard and memory, those times where they witnessed failure, so better to prevent it. That is what truly builds experience, and it is only the experienced person who has any hope of mastering any art.

A highly technical, well sourced, and cited article such as this, MUST in some way acknowledge that the details will only go so far before it must address that which I have seen turn the stomach of so many a geekzoid wikipedian..... those chanting the endless mantra of NPOV and that shit-source of false surety, google counts; That there are people out there who know more than google. And there always will be. That these articles, if wikipedia wishes to survive, if wikipedia ever wishes to be more than an ARTIFICIAL intelligence, it must learn to allow by tolerance alone of need be, or better yet, to encourage those who have deep knowledge into feeling more comfortable here. To collaborate, to offer their thoughts and experience here, to celebrate the diversity of opinion, and even the how-tos and what-fors wherein work can be done with great satisfaction and supreme result, for all.

This largely tedious, wasteful, foolhardy, and pointless absolute fixation around which too many wikipedians have styled themselves as NPOV warriors, by demanding citation on every minute single detail, will be this wiki's undoing.

• From my experience, the arc is held simply as close as possible so as to concentrate heat in the shortest possible time, yet far enough to avoid dipping the tip while the hand naturally shakes minutely. The amount of heat, the amount of heat the power-supply can deliver (over time, and becomes and very important factor in calculating "duty-cycle") to the weld pool, and thus how convex or concave the pool is laid with filler, defines (for me) how close I can get to the work. Duty Cycle, is a calculation of the machines ability to deliver a given heat, for a given time, vs. the time it must literally rest idle before it has radiated or cooled the internal workings of the machine, completely irrespective of the work piece. Yet this largely defines the maximum amount of heat, to a given thickness, in a 'shortness' of time that a welder can put into the work piece. Without this thought in mind, the machine may automatically trip OFF, or burn itself up right in the middle of a very important weld.

• Aluminum for example is notorious for its ability to "wick" (conduct) heat away from the pool, thus requiring a tremendous amount of initial "heat" before true welding can begin. Duty Cycle is (honestly) advertised next to a machines advertised ability to weld a given thickness of metal. Economy vs. how much welding is needed to be performed, is a very important question when selecting a welder, OR Duty Cycle is even more important to know so that you do not trip breakers or melt internal machine components trying to weld too much too fast, irrespective to the work piece.

• As a rule, "rules of thumb" need no citation. As the ultimate authority holds the thumb by which the rule is measured. But on a more serious note, I decide FIRST, want I want my weld penetration to be based upon the physical characteristics of the piece to be worked on. THEN, I perform a weld orchestrated to suit. With experience, a welder will greatly broaden the "cited" (safe, reliable, narrow) parameters of his entire welding rig set. Including, performing high-strength and attractive welds using small electrodes on large work, and large electrodes on small work. (boy, we haven't even begun to discuss how the appearance of a weld tells volumes of information)

• Because aluminum conducts heat so well, the area being welded is constantly having needed heat drawn away from the pool by the outlying aluminum body, thus requiring a tremendous amount of initial "heat" before true welding can begin.. The heat "input" can then be reduced once a large amount of heat has been maximally absorbed by the outlying body, tapering off to only that need just at the weld pool. Yes, one must be careful when getting close to thin, hot edges, as the tipping point to molten metal is only a few degrees above that of solidified nearby material. (Plus, as aluminum does not exhibit such visible characteristics like that of incandescent (glowing) ferrous metals.

• Ozone, is far less of a heath concern for the welder, than it is a concern for the finished weld, in which oxidation is the corrosive enemy. NO is added as a component of shielding gas for shielding the work piece. If the operator gets some residual benefit, whoopee!

What was the picture you were still hunting for? I can't get the "through the hood view" until sometime in January... but if you need a CAD, I have a bit of time today as I watch concrete cure. TTLightningRod 17:56, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

You're right, I'm no welder. My formal welding education involves half of a semester of lectures plus weekly two hour labs, with each lab focusing on a different process, which of course isn't enough time to really learn much at all.

I agree with you that these articles don't delve very much into the "art" of welding. While that's partly due to my ignorance, I think it's also in line with the core principles of Wikipedia and other encyclopedias. One does not turn to the Encyclopedia Brittanica to learn how to weld—to learn how to weld, one must take a class, maybe read a textbook, watch someone do it, and then practice and gain experience. An encyclopedia's goal, however, is to provide summary information of the topic. It should allow a non-welder to sit down and read for 15 minutes or so and learn what the welder is doing along with background information like materials, equipment and such. But it's not an encyclopedia's job to teach someone how to weld. A better way to start would be through another wikimedia project, called Wikibooks, where users write textbooks on a variety of subjects (though no one has started a Welding textbook yet—I'm game if you are).

While I agree with you that some things can never be written down and that the welding technique ultimately is based on the welder's experience, there are certain principles that are commonly accepted and written about. One of the books I'm using as a reference, the one by Minnick, talks in depth about technique. It talks about how it's a good idea to use a pointed thoriated electrode when you weld stainless steel, and also contains step-by-step instructions on how to perform different welds. The first thing is great, because that's a general welding principle. However, the purpose of an encyclopedia is not to explain in depth how to join a 3/32 inch thick piece of aluminum with a 3/32 inch thick piece of stainless steel. I was somewhat surprised that the above statments weren't in any of my welding books, because they seem rather general and could be included in the article. Out of intellectual honesty and simple practicality (articles generally aren't featurable if they aren't fully sourced), I didn't want to leave them in the article. I think it's likely that we'll be able to find references for at least some of them. When I get back to school in January, I can do some more checking.

I agree, rules like WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR are a nuisance sometimes. But I think that overall they have helped us write better, more accurate articles. Hopefully all this makes sense. Let me know what you think. --Spangineer^es (háblame) 19:30, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Your response sounded a bit more apologetic than need be. I was certainly not suggesting that you have fallen short in any way... Yet as I do not think of this wiki as encyclopedic as others do, it is on that bases I feel we have much more ability to bring in such additional concepts as the "Art" into the very article itself. You did touch on that in a very eligant way already.... Me, I just like to keep pushing. Maybe a more in-depth wikibook will come of this regardless. These are pretty crappy photos, but maybe you could use them as place holders until a better one shows up. Take care, Erin.

I've got my own two cents to throw in here. I agree that Wikipedia is not Wikibooks and that there is only a certain amount of detail that is proper in a Wikipedia article, however I believe that the vast majority of the prose I added is in line with those goals. By no means would those 3 paragraphs even come close to beginning instructions on how to join two pieces together. However what they do accomplish is to introduce the non-TIG welder to just how hard TIG welding is. Putting a 3 foot rod that is 3/16" thick into a puddle 1/2" across 3 times a second while traveling across a plate, keeping the bead the same size, keeping the rod in the shielding gas, and reducing power as you hit the end of a plate, is *hard*. To not explain this to the casual reader is actually leaving out a significant amount of information about the art. I don't know what the balance between cited sources and actual practical knowledge should be but I would certainly like some kind of compromise that adequately explains why TIG welding is considered the most difficult. The edited text is good but lacking in explicit details. Triddle 18:02, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I found a more detailed description of the operation. While I still don't have a reference for all of the details, what do you think of the section now? --Spangineer^es (háblame) 20:27, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

It is definitely coming along. I broke out my own copy of Welding Principles and Applications but it is the fifth edition (different ISBN than the current Jefus reference). I found a reference for

When using metals which melt at a low temperature, such as aluminum, it is important to be fast and accurate with the filler material placement. If the filler material spends too much time near the hot electrode and plasma it can melt before it is inserted into the weld puddle. Pg 378 reads all though aluminum resists oxidation at room temperature, it rapidly oxidizes at welding temperatures. If the filler rod is not kept inside the shielding gas, it will quickly oxidize, but because of the low melting temperature of the filler rod, the end will melt before it is added to the weld pool if it is held too closely to the arc. I'm not sure how to cite this in the article.... do we want to have two different versions of the same book listed as references?

I would really love to see the following also added in:

• Arc length: in most cases this is as close as possible to an eighth of an inch (3 mm).
• in most cases the weld pool is no more than one-half inch (12 mm) across

Unfortunately I can't find a mention in Jefus on how big a weld puddle/bead should be. I always went by big enough to get the job done, fit all the beads in if they are to be stacked, and not so big that the puddle is difficult to work with. (my quote). Any idea how we can work the small size of the puddle in to the article? As for arc length, how about we add a blurb that states it needs to be as close as possible while accounting for the hand wiggle that can lead to contamination? I have not been able to find a reference for electrode distance either..... Triddle 20:54, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

According to Amazon [1], the ISBN number in the references is the fifth edition. I tried to google the quotes you gave from the book, but couldn't find them. The only thing I used Jeffus for was the nitrogen shielding gas thing, which is probably in your version as well. If it's not, it's probably not necessary to include, since nitrogen is so infrequently used anyway. So I guess I'm saying let's use your version for now, though I'm confused about the ISBN/version number thing. Regarding the arc length, we could say something like "arc length should be minimized to allow for increased welding speed and improve the efficiency of the shielding gas, thereby improving weld quality" but I don't have anything for backing up the 1/8 inch limit. I do have a source that is giving me voltage numbers (9-12 V for DCEN w/ argon and 16-18 w/ helium), so if those can be easily coverted to arc length, that could work. As for weld pool size, again, I don't have a number, but an explanation of the factors influencing the size could be added (though I think I already mentioned that electrode size and current make a difference). Maybe "a larger weld pool does x, x and x but decreases the welding speed and x". --Spangineer^es (háblame) 21:42, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Air cooled TIG torch disassembled

Air cooled TIG torch with some electrode sizes, cups, collets and gas diffusers

Clarification

The following doesn't make much sense:

To strike the welding arc, a high frequency generator provides a path for the welding current through the shielding gas, allowing the arc to be struck when the separation between the electrode and the workpiece is approximately 1.5-3 mm (0.06-0.12 in).

I think this may be trying to say "High voltage is required to strike an arc at the 1.5–3 mm range. Before the arc is struck, the power supply provides a high-frequency high-voltage potential to the electrode. This creates an inital spark which conducts electricity much better than the gasious inert gas. From there the full "flame" expands." Does this sound right? If not, what's actually going on? The phrase "a high frequency generator provides a path for the welding current" makes particularly little sense. —BenFrantzDale 20:32, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Vandalising of Quality Section

Some-one knowledgeable please revert the vandalization in the Quality section of the page Khalil Sawant 13:34, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I just reverted a couple of vandalisms in the lead. I thought FAs were edit-protected to keep them from being vandalized during their feature period. Apparently not. Applejuicefool 16:18, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

See User:Raul654/protection for the reasoning. --Spangineer^es (háblame) 17:16, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

The guy in the picture is missing a glove

Great article, but I would appreciate an image of a person with more respect for their health :-) mstroeck 14:22, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it's a great article. But.. Have you ever tried arc welding? It's difficult enough to keep the working head steady enough to achieve a clean joint without having to worry about the filler rod. --Jdedmond 20:36, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

What is welding?

I notice that in the lead section, it doesn't say what welding is. Nor does the single article about welding that it links to. Sure, everybody has a general idea of what welding does, but I think it's just technical enough that a sentence might be devoted to its purpose. -Freekee 15:18, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

That information is available in the first sentence of welding, which can be accessed from the first sentence of arc welding, which is linked in the first sentence of this article. I wouldn't be opposed to linking to welding instead of arc welding here, but adding description of welding would be overkill considering how well the topic is already covered on wikipedia. --Spangineer^es (háblame) 18:31, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

GTAW in the stricktest sense is not something that is commonly known as TIG. GTAW is the American terminology and TIG is the British terminology for exactley the same welding process. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 1cassy1 (talk • contribs) .

I'm not sure what you're getting at—I don't think the current wording suggests that GTAW and TIG are different processes. GTAW is the more accurate name (since you don't need an inert gas to perform the process), and both names are used on both sides of the ocean (I have a British welding manual that uses TIG as the default but mentions GTAW as an alternative). We have to pick one for the article name, and given the accuracy consideration, GTAW should get it. --Spangineer^ws (háblame) 14:35, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

TIG is the British term? I'm sorry, but I've never heard GTAW used in America. TIG is the only term I've used. --Sable232 15:50, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

TIG is certainly more common in everyday usage (hence the previous wording of "commonly known as TIG"), but lately GTAW seems to becoming the "official" name (recent textbooks use it, for example). I've removed the geography sentence from the lead (since there really isn't much of a distinction anyway), but I left the modified wording—"also known as TIG". --Spangineer^ws (háblame) 17:05, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

MATERIAL SUITABILITY

guys, what a fine job u guys did here. i learnt alot. anyway, im doing a research and fabricating a gokart frame. i plan to use mild steel as the base material. and i would like to check with you guys if it is ok for me to use TIG to join the metals since it doesnt mention anything about the suitability of mild steel. thx much!! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 210.187.49.65 (talk) 22:43, 18 January 2007 (UTC).

Bug in SVG

Minor problem with the SVG of "anatomy of a torch" - some of the arrowheads point the wrong way (straight right) when viewed via Firefox as embedded images, and also when "not full size", but the arrowheads magically flip around when I click on the full size image. I have no clue why this happens or how to fix it. --User:Dr. Crash

There are still some bugs in the WM rendering of .svg images. Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-10-13/Technology report claims a fix, but problems remain. Compare File:Indicator diagram steam admission.svg with its .png version; an editor asked me to leave the failed rendering on file as a example to the devs, but nothing's happened yet. Changing to .gif should also work. --Old Moonraker (talk) 14:35, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

References and Notes are not optimally organised and could be merged in a single reference section

The way in which references are cited in line and given in a list at the end of this nice page is not optimal and could be improved. Most often, notes here are manual citations referring to chapter or section of books given in the list of references. The citation templates and the citation rules should be better used. See to WP:Cite. Shinkolobwe (talk) 12:57, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

WP:CITESHORT gives the examples as plain text. Nowhere in WP:CITE does it state that the citation templates must be used. If you wanted to change them yourself I'm sure that no one would stop you. Wizard191 (talk) 14:03, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your rapid answer. I agree CITESHORT is also one of the multiple ways to proceed and I overlooked it before posting my comment. I will respect this convention when contributing to this page. Best regards, Shinkolobwe (talk) 21:23, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

The main advantage of using a citation template is that the bibliographic metadata are directly embedded in the HTML code of the WP web page and that the citations can be autodetected as COinS by references management softwares such as Zotero. Hereafter a reduced variant of the citebook template I have now applied to the list of references present in the article. Cheers, Shinkolobwe (talk) 23:49, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

* {{cite book |last= |first= |coauthors= |year= |title= |publisher= |location= |isbn= }}

How to best move references out of the body text of an article ?

This is an old question that triggered my first reaction on this talk page. Proceeding with two independent lists (Notes and References) is a first step in the good direction and has as main advantage to avoid to clutter the body text of the article page. This page is easy to read thanks to this trick, but I was first surprised by the fact it was necessary to use two lists in cascade: it could be simplified to use only one list.

See some suggestions made here:

strategy:Proposal_talk:Move_references_out_of_article_text#Update

Shinkolobwe (talk) 18:16, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

It's much easier to use a reference section that is separate from the list of notes, simply because all the works are in a simple list. But while I prefer the current structure, I'm not opposed to someone going through and reformatting all the citations... seems unnecessary and not particularly helpful, but not worth arguing about. --Spangineer^ws (háblame) 18:49, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Featured article quality has deteriorated.

This article was promoted in 2005 and while I've seen other articles in much worse condition this one does have issues. It's failing the Featured article criteria in some areas. The problems are:

• 1a The overall impression I get when reading the article is the same as reading an instruction manual on how to weld with TIG. The prose first appeared to go against WP:NOTMANUAL but a more thorough and careful reading shows that prose is ok. Brad (talk) 22:53, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
• 1c There is an overall lack of citations throughout the article.
• 2a Based on the amount of article text the lede section needs to be expanded to better cover the article content.
• 2c needs work. There are bare URL's and sources missing publishers, locations and retrieved on dates.

If the issues cannot be addressed and solved within a reasonable amount of time or if it appears there has been no effort expended at all, the article will be listed at Featured article review. If you have any questions or need help please ping my talk page. Brad (talk) 20:04, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Re 1a, could you be specific about what makes you think this, and why it's a bad thing?

Re 1c, this was a complaint on Welding, I addressed it by removing some unsourced material but primarily by repeating existing references (i.e., where entire paragraphs were supported by one source there is currently only one citation). I can do the same thing here, unless you think something else/more is necessary.

Re 2a, no problem.

Re 2c, I'll look into this as well. --Spangineer^ws (háblame) 03:24, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Firstly, thank you for your civil reply and willingness to fix the problems. Re: 1c, it's pretty much standard to have at least one cite per paragraph. The article is straightforward and not a controversial subject by any means. I don't see a need for more sources; just more cites. Brad (talk) 22:53, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Wolfram

I read this bit: " in parts of the world where tungsten is called wolfram, it is known as WIG." I live in Sweden where it's called Wolfram, and I have never heard the term WIG before, we've always called it TIG. Can someone confirm that WIG actullay is used?

90.228.206.65 (talk) 18:08, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

FAR ?

There is considerable uncited text, and unattributed opinion. Spangineer, are you able to tune up the article to avoid a Featured article review? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:54, 10 March 2015 (UTC)