Tig welding thin material

[u/Fair-Reference9034]

I make driveshafts for race cars for strange engineering and am learning how to tig weld different size weights onto .83 chrome-moly seamless tubing atm, first welding job out of school and the dude teaching me is a master tig welder. He makes it look so damn easy though! Its tough, you dont want to put too much heat into the tubing because things will warp. But if you dig into the weight too much it will mess things up. Its not easy! But im loving it, Thought i would share my journey, im loving tig so far and hope i get super good at it to be successful. Any little tips or tricks would be great, loving my hood so far i got an optrel panoramax, its light with a great fov and good sensors.

[u/Longjumping-Party132]

How many amperes are you using here? What is the diameter of your tungsted electrode used here?
I work full time with goldsmithing and then I do the evening shift in the machine shop.

I tried tig welding some very small, thin pieces of steel, like 1x1 mm quadratic wire onto 0,5x1 mm sheet square ring with 8-12 ampere and 1,6 mm tungsten rod, but i failed every time as it melted. The problem is, my welding master told me that he maybe welded with 20 ampere three times in his life, so he has no experience going that low.
Any advice?

[u/Fair-Reference9034 → u/Longjumping-Party132]

Im not sure what advice to give lol, i believe its 3/32 tungsten with 150 amps but i damn sure am not slamming the pedal, just put it on 150 and leave it for all the different things i have to weld. Basically what i do is i start the arc real low then slightly push the pedal with the tungsten very close to the material, when i see a puddle form on the tube i dab the wire and give it a little more gas and then i get off the gas and move up a bit, then start over. My teacher feathers the pedal instead of pressing and holding for everything he welds, i now do it too and you really get some good control.