TIG Welding a Fire Pit Project — No Foot Pedal Needed!

Scroll Down for Videos

Let’s build a fire pit while TIG welding using ONLY the torch switch! I’ll break down how 2T and 4T work, and show real examples of welding 11ga steel corner joints using upslope and downslope settings. No foot pedal? No problem!

The pieces for this firepit welding project were cut for me on a CNC plasma table by my good friend Matt Hayden - Welding Instructor at Polk County College And Career Academy.

Since this fire pit welding project is intended more for an educational welding video than a project, I decided to use both MIG and TIG welding to make it more educational and entertaining.

So I used TIG to tack weld and to also weld some outside corners and then for part 2, I will switch over to mig welding.

TIG welding goes a lot better with clean metal so the first step was to clean the plasma dross.

After cleaning the plasma cut edges with a flap disc, I decided to make all the tack welds using a tig torch with an on/off torch switch so that the tack welds would be small enough to weld over without any humps or bumps.

With the start amps, upslope, downslope, and end amps all set to zero and the 2t 4t switch set to 2t, the torch switch is simply an on/off switch that comes in handy for when you need lots of small tig tacks or when you are moving around a large project tack welding.

There are lots of fabrication tools from fireball tool, magswitch and other companies that could be used to make the fit up easier on a tapered corner project like this fire pit but I found that using a single  Jumbo MagTab from stronghand tools to make the job quick and easy to align and tack weld.

Once all the corner joints were tacked using ER70S-2 1/16” rod, it was time to switch over to 4t mode.

With 4t mode, I set start amps to zero, upslope to 2 seconds, downslope to 3 seconds, 

Amperage was set to 105 for the 11ga .120” thickness carbon steel corner joints.

I knew exactly what amperage setting would work because all I had to do was refer back to a previous video I made tig welding 11ga outside corner joints

I used a ceramic jazzy 10 cup set at 25CFH flow rate along with ER70S-2 filler rod.

Part 2 MIG Welding the Rest of the Fire Pit with the PrimeWeld MTS200

After TIG welding 4 corner joints using a torch switch on the primeweld tig225x, I decided to weld the remainder of the corner joints with the primeweld MTS200 mig tig stick welder.

I have welded this same joint settings as low as 18.1 volts and 150 inches per minute with good results but travel speed is pretty slow using that setting.

 Mig settings for a task like this can be very forgiving and lots of different settings would work just fine.

If I wanted to get the fire pit welded a lot faster,  I could easily bump  up the wire speed  to 200 inches per minute or even higher using .035” ER70S-6 wire.

I decided to weld it nice and slow.

Once all the corner joints were welded, the only thing left was to tack and weld the legs.

There are some vent holes cut in the bottom plate that serve as guide marks for the legs and eyeballing the legs was easy.

But just to make sure all the legs touched without teetering, I only made one tack weld on each on the inside area so that I could make any adjustments easily after flipping it over.

The primeweld welding table is a really flat surface and the fire pit didn’t teeter a bit so I went ahead and made the final tack welds in place before flipping it over and welding the legs out.

Why Short Circuit mig welding?

This project could have been welding using TIG, MIG, or Stick welding...

Short circuit MIG welding is a great choice for welding 11-gauge cold rolled steel outside corners: low heat, excellent control, clean results, and versatility. Whether you’re fabricating structural pieces, artistic projects, or mechanical enclosures, short circuit mig method allows you to get strong, professional-looking welds with minimal clean up.