Walking the cup?

[bikecollector12]

I was reading a thread in the motorsports side about some very nice tig welds someone did on some suspension parts made of 4130.. They mentioned using the "walking the cup" technique... Could anyone give me a quick idea of how to do this technique?

[fun4now]

i figured some one who dose it would have jumped in to explain, but as they dont sem to have found ya yet . you might try the TIG book on the Miller home site in the lerning section. its the same book as is in the student packet. it has a small section on walking the cup. it might be of some help to ya. the book download is free, just a lil time consuming if you are on dial up.
i'll see if i can find the page and load it for you later if i get some time but it will likely be tomarow as we are off to the drive in tonight, leaving soon. but i will find it if you dont.

[HMW]

I read an article on it once. The guy was welding pipe and it was beveled pretty good. He was walking the cup by resting the cup on the pipe and walking it back and forth. Right on top of the vee. Im not sure how you would do this on other types of joints. It would seem it would be sitting on top of the weld bead. In this case it looked like a root pass on pipe so the bead was not above the pipe but rather in the vee. I'v always been curious about the technique too so maybe somebody on here will know more or will have used it

[MAC702]

I posted a link in that forum for you which was to Miller's GTAW textbook and gave you the page number that discusses and illustrates it.

[jamscal]

http://www.weldinginspectionsvcs.com/misc/WalkingTheCupVid.htm

Here's a video. I think the home page might have something on technique (w/o video, if you're on dial-up)

-James

[bikecollector12]

Thanks for the link... I noticed that they used it on the pipe welding but I think it would be a little difficult on corner welds and that's mostly my situation. I've had some trouble getting comfortable lately on that type of joint. But I'm still a rookie

[Bob the Welder]

bikecollector1220, if you mean fillet welds when you say "corner welds" walking the cup will work quite well and is fairly easy with a little practice. With a lot of practice and the right size and type of cup you can walk just about any weld.

[Fat-Fab.com]

Just as the name says. You retract the electrode back into the cup some and rest the cup on the work and walk it by rotating it and twisting it the same time.
Imagine a a sheet of 1/2" plate 2' wide and 60" tall to heavy to pick up but not so to rock or tilt.


You have it erect with the 2' wide end on the floor you tilt it to the left and rotate the right side away from you. You then set it back down tilting it to the right and rotating the left side away from you. You just walked a large hevy plate with easy the same trick with the cup.


When practiced nothing can compare to a cap laid down on stainless pipe than that of the cup being walked. Smooth even spacing width and height of bead.