Lisa in Alameda emailed Arc-Zone.com with the following question:

I have a Miller Dialarc welder with a Weldcraft water cooled torch. I have been hooked up to city water and it’s worked fine for years. But I am moving my business to Klamath Falls, Oregon and my shop will get below freezing at night so I’ll need a self contained unit to cool my torch. Could you send me more information on just the cooling system/cool kit without the torch kit included as I have that….

Since Lisa already has the water-cooled torch, getting her set up with a water cooler should be pretty simple; all she’ll need is the cooler itself.

The water cooler that comes with the Cool Kit is our Tig-er cooler. It retails for about $500 plus shipping. It is a nice little cooler that runs 2 gallons. It’s solid and compact and would be a great addition to a small weld shop.

Lisa may need a water hose, and AW-431 fittings. She’ll also need the coolant which you can get from us, or from your local welding supply shop.

I’ve said it before but I love this industry and feel blessed that I’m able to meet so many interesting people and learn about what they are doing with metal fabrication.

I got a call from a Greg — he was in need of some technical info — specifically why his TIG hoses popped, and what he can do to keep it from happening. The power cable burst just outside of the handle. “I repaired it with some tubing, heat shrink etcetera, and it just popped again and started leaking,” he said.

His local supplier’s suggestion was to buy a whole new torch package — which he did– but that did not solve the problem. I talked him through the details of his TIG set up, specifically his connections to and from the power supply and the water cooler. I concluded that his coolant pump needed to be replaced.

We always have PROCON® pumps on hand and all the mounting hardware to connect directly to the welding industries most popular water coolers (from manufacturers like Bernard, Dynaflux and ITW). We also offer a nice refurbished coolant pump. It is much simpler, efficient and cost effective than trying to repair a pump yourself. Buy a refurbished pump, with all the fittings and mounting hardware and when you return your old pump core, we give you a 25.00 core credit!

Greg was relieved that we found the problem and I said we can ship your pump to you and you’ll have it tomorrow. “I need it today I got a job to do,” he said, then added, “and I want to come up and check you guys out!”

Turns out Greg is Greg Deering President of Deering Banjo Company located in Spring Valley, California about 40 miles from us.

We had a nice visit comparing notes about our early days as a start up company and how, due to the web we have connected with so many interesting people!

Deering Banjos “The Great American Banjo Company” is the premier manufacturer of banjos. These finely crafted instruments are played by some the best musicians worldwide. Obviously there is a lot of woodwork involved and apparently some of the brasswork is TIG welded! Check out the factory here:

[flashvideo filename="http://www.joewelder.com/VIDS/deeringfactorytour.flv" /]

We’re starting a new regular feature on this site, Ask Joe™

Each week we’ll feature real questions from real customers, and answers from our own Joe Welder. Joe, aka Jim Watson, doesn’t like to toot his own horn, but he has a tremendous amount of expertise in TIG, MIG and Plasma Arc Welding and Cutting products– you can read the details over at Arc-Zone.com or read some of the About Joe Welder posts right here.

And, if you have a welding question you’d like answered, go ahead and Click on the Contact Joe link.

If your question is featured on an Ask Joe™ post, we’ll send you a t-shirt!

Ron in Lindenhurst, New York asks:

I have an HTP invertig 201 and a Bernard 3500ss water cooler. I’m interested in ordering an SF-225-25 Water Cooled PRO torch package. It says it does not include power cable adapter. Which one do I need?

My tig has a dinse non-gas through connector. My air cooled torch has a dinse connector and a separate gas hose.

Thanks for your help, I’m a newbie to tig and all these parts are a little confusing

We get asked all the time about how to connect a TIG torch to a particular power supply. There are a lot of connectors, many you’ll find in the Arc-Zone.com webstore. Often our customer doesn’t know which kind of connector he or she needs (we have a handy reference chart, so give us a call if you don’t know what you need). In this case, Ron knows he needs a dinse connector, and he knows its a water cooled TIG Torch. Which would bring him to the Water Cooled TIG Connectors, but even then, there are a lot of choices.

Ron will need a Weldcraft Q5W which is the large water-cooled DINSE connector.

We also recommended that he go quick release all the way, and get two of the QRW water connectors and one of the QRG gas connectors.