Rant: I think fluxless forge welding is way overrated

I tried it for a solid two weeks back in March, and of the 15 welds I attempted, maybe 3 actually held. All these guys online saying you just need clean steel and the right temp are leaving out the part where you spend an hour grinding every speck of scale off. Am I the only one who just sticks with borax and doesn't see the big deal?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_pat7d agoMost Upvoted

Switched my whole opinion after trying it. Spent a weekend pissed off at borax splatter ruining my work. Clean steel is key but that's the easy part. Found out my temp control was way off the whole time. Once I dialed in the heat and stopped rushing, my welds actually held. Not going back to flux unless I'm joining weird alloys.

henry_martinez7d ago

Yeah I was the same way honestly. I thought flux was just the easier way and anyone switching to tig was overcomplicating things. Then I tried doing some thin wall tubing with flux and it came out looking like a mess compared to what I saw online. Borrowed a buddies tig setup one weekend and couldn't believe how much cleaner everything looked even with my shaky beginner welds. Now I'm hooked too. The control you get with heat is night and day once you figure out the pedal and torch movement.

rileyellis7d ago

Man oh man your story is basically exactly what happened to my buddy Dave. He was the biggest flux defender I knew, swore by it for everything including thin wall exhaust tubing. Then he spent an entire Saturday welding up a roll cage for his offroad buggy using flux core and it looked like someone sneezed bird poop all over the metal. He borrowed a tig setup from his neighbor and first pass on some scrap .065 wall tube came out so clean he literally just sat there staring at it for like five minutes. Now he won't shut up about foot pedals and gas lenses and I'm pretty sure he's spent more on tungstens this month than on groceries.