APPLETON, Wis. 4 June 2007—To provide welding operators with the accuracy and verrsatility needed to prepare tungsten for both orbital and hand-held TIG applications, Weldcraft offers its new Triad™ (TTG Plus) tungsten grinder. Featuring precision-drilled entries, Triad accommodates six different tungsten electrode diameters—0.040, 1/16, 5/64, 3/32, 1/8 and 5/32 inch—and offers four different grinding angles (15º, 18º, 22.5º and 30º) to ensure reliable arc starting and good weld penetration.

Triad™s robust industrial-grade motor also provides consistent cutting and facing capabilities (up to 5/32-inch) to eliminate the need and cost for additional tungsten preparation tools.
READ MORE ABOUT WELDCRAFT’S TRIAD TUNGSTEN GRINDER HERE….

Arc-Zone.com is adding to our industry leading lineup of precision tungsten electrode grinders with the Triad Tungsten Grinder from Weldcraft.

As you may or may not know, Arc-Zone.com introduced the first low-cost, high-quality portable tungsten electrode grinder 7 years ago (the Sharpie™ Hand Held Tungsten Grinder). Since that time we have continued to bring to market new products that offer additional user benefits, whether it’s, adjustable grind angle, dust collection, cut-off options, or heavy-duty motors.

The new Weldcraft™ Triad model fills a void for a portable, semi-hand-held model and was designed for the precision TIG/GTAW orbital welding market by Georg Fischer. This new grinder offers several “fixed” grind angles which may be important to welding engineers that don’t want the operators constantly tinkering with the tungsten grind angle (or taper). Additionally, and more importantly it offers a precision tungsten cut off option, important for orbital welding equipment that use short tungsten electrodes.

The Triad is priced at the high end of the portable grinders, $895, just below the high-performance bench top models, and will sharpen tungsten electrodes in diameters from 0.040″ to 5/32″. The machine can be used in the weldshop or in the field and has a durable long-life motor.

The Weldcraft Triad Tungsten Grinder is not yet available, but you can reserve yours today– they should be shipping, complete with rugged carrying case by the end of next week. Give us a call:
800-944-2243 (toll free US) or
760-931-1500 (worldwide) or
email triad at arc-zone.com.

I met my friend and former driver, Mike Sweeney at the USAC/CRA Sprint Car races last Saturday night at Perris Auto Speedway, a sticky 1/2 mile clay oval an hour or so from downtown LA, at the base of the Lake Perris dam.

Mike was in town, from Crescent City California where he is now Husband, Dad and full time Surfer. He comes to SoCal a few times a year and works on a couple movies to keep up on his studio union benefits. He called and told me that he was bringing a couple guys with him that used to watch us race at Ascot Park in Gardena California.

We all met at the track and like always, the night was filled with greeting old friends, competitors and a lot of hand shaking and bench racing, some true stories and well, some kinda-sorta close to what really happened…

It was cool because the guys that Mike brought are serious So Cal surf icons: Tyler Hatzikian of Tyler Surfboards, and Jason Baffa Director of the famous surf movie Single Fin: Yellow. Note: Baffa’s latest film, One California Day, premieres July 7.

Turns out Tyler and Jason are also antique hot rod guys, so Mike said, “Hey you guys need to talk to Jim about welding products for your fabrication shop!” (it’s always nice to get referrals!)

I knew Tyler was a famous surf board shaper and owner of a retail surf shop, but I had no idea that he also digs the full custom hotrod lifestyle, Tyler drives a 1959 El Camino and a 1932 Ford High Boy roadster with a flathead Ford engine (similar to the one pictured here).

We had a good time and I’m always amazed at how many people I meet are into fabricating–
it’s bitchen!

Mario Lozano, aka Super Mario from TSR Fabrication stopped by last week. We first met him last year when he called and wanted directions from Los Angeles– 90 miles away!

Aside from owning his own fabrication shop, Mario was on the Monster Garage TV show with Jesse James from West Coast Choppers. He was selected because he’s a TIG Welding expert specializing in turbo-charging cars, general fabrication and building racing Datsun 510s and the Monster Garage crew was building a drift car.

Mario heard we had some cool TIG torches, tungsten grinders and state-of the art argon purging cups and he wanted to see for himself, and pick up some items. That’s pretty cool when a guy drives by 10 to 20 “Welding Distributors” to get to Arc-Zone.

Mario represents the majority of our customers — he wants the good stuff and he wants to know how, and when to use it. Does he need a $1200 liquid tungsten grinder for a one man shop? Maybe not but he has one because it provides the best possible diamond ground tungsten finish… and part of it is where he is located — in the heart of the SoCal automotive performance hot bed, South Bay LA. All the sport import tuners stay in touch and are always checkin’ out what’s new in each others shops.

His recent visit was to solve an application problem he had. He and his tuning sidekick “Turbo Kevin” asked if we had something to help them TIG weld aluminum turbo intercooler fin spacers, that were about .012″ thick and also to get inside of a turbo inlet they were fabricating.

You should have seen their eyes light up when we busted out the Weldcraft WP-125, water-cooled Micro TIG torch Pro package customized with a cable cover and front end parts — Ready-to-Weld. With that tiny water-cooled TIG torch you can TIG weld inside of a 5/8″ diameter tube! That’s so cool when you can help someone to build something better and faster!

I was back in the shop last week looking around the storage area where I have archived some products that we have collected over the last 25 years. There’s some really interesting stuff back there, from the first TEC brand TIG torches to the first Weldcraft Micro-TIG torch, and the first Crafter Series prototypes and more.

I was looking for a specific Plasma gas distributor for a recent post, when I found something that brought back some great memories and made me laugh — the prototypes for the Weldcraft Plasma Cutting torch! Did you know Weldcraft had a Plasma cutting torch? Well they did and it was a real market innovation — (that’s my favorite word).
It was some 15 years ago… I was Director of Manufacturing at the time, and we decided it was time to leverage the outstanding worldwide brand name that we had built at Weldcraft. We had an excellent group of skilled guys and we identified the Plasma Arc Cutting market as an area that was greatly under served (as it is now).

So Randy Haberman our lead Mechanical Engineer took the concepts and created a blockbuster product line — a universal Plasma Arc Cutting torch that would fit all the popular Plasma Arc Cutting machines and used basically one set of parts! Think about it –one torch — one set of parts regardless of machine type. It was a real innovation.

Weldcraft’s PC-30 Plasma torch was the first to use a sculptured ergonomic handle with a built-in trigger switch located on the bottom of the body — and get this — it was completely rebuildable.

We created a dedicated facility across the street from Weldcraft with a dedicated engineering staff, machinery and sales force, we began to expand into all types of high quality aftermarket Plasma Arc Cutting parts and that’s when the trouble began.

What happened to the Weldcraft PC-30 product line? As the Product Manager I was told to relocate it to our sister company Bernard and rename it PlazCraft.

It seems companies like Hypertherm and Thermal Dynamics didn’t appreciate the competition, and because our division President was trying to buy one or both of those companies we were told to shut it down!

I said I had to laugh because now you see all the new Hypertherm torches with a similar comfortable handle style, and Thermal Dynamics is spending heavily to promote their “One Torch” one torch that fits a variety of Plasma Arc Cutting machines… Been there. Done that! Even Abicor Binzel is in the game with their Abicut Plasma Arc Cutting torch.

That’s been my experience in this industry a lot of copy cat’s — few innovators…

The Plasma Arc Welding process is an interesting and technical process, it can be considered very basic, but that said, there are many things that can go wrong.

We get a lot of calls from customers using Plasma Arc Welding torches that have failed. So we developed a check list that we go through to determine what caused the torch failure.

Generally the PAW torch body arcs out internally, which can be caused by low quality replacement parts, inferior tungsten electrode, poor or inconsistent tungsten electrode grinding, dirty parts, gas leaks in the supply hoses, worn out power cable leads….

Most commonly, however, plasma arc welding torch failure is caused by incorrectly installed replacement parts.

That’s right, operators consistently install the ceramic electrode insulator/gas distributor in the wrong direction, or worse yet they modify it by breaking of portions of it! This is common on the Thermal Dynamics 3A series torches.

The part #9-2240 (photo) is a technical ceramic molded piece that has a series of strategically placed gas channels and distribution ports which optimize the inert gas that flows through the torch and directs it to the constricting tip which then forms a superheated column of Plasma gas. It is absolutely necessary that this piece be installed with great attention to cleanliness and that it is positioned correctly.

Note: there is a newer version of the part #9-2240, pictured below.

Pictured here (left) is the new style of the 9-2240 insulator / gas sheild.

The end pointing to the top left corner is the sleeve or collar end which is directed up to the top of the torch toward the collet / insulating cap.

Pictured here (right) is the 9-2240 insulator / gas sheild with the sleeve or collar pointing to the bottom right corner of the picture.