Welding Tips and Tricks

Ran some more practice plates while waiting for some milscale to pickle off of some other cut up plates. More heat and going twice as fast definitely helps. Torch arm and feed arm got hung up on the edge of my table a few times. The last T joint I finally ran a bead without any bobbles.

Looks pretty good. Just keep your consistency, and you’ll be owning Instagram before you know it

We'll see about that, lol.

Hopefully I can get a job welding again to get more practice time in...at least something other than some ghetto ass structural stuff. Last job I got left me at the job site with only 50ft of ground cable because he thought all the tag anchors were connected inside the concrete. By the end of the day I had 100ft of rebar welded together to get actually reach everywhere.

More questions, though now Aluminum. Too lazy to cut up steel tonight.

I've only ever welded Aluminum once before so it's foreign to me. Man is it hard to get a puddle started. My hood doesn't seem to do well with aluminum so the few stops and starts were me being flashed.

Anyway, so I was messing around with the balance and frequency and pulse settings each bead. Thing I finally got it somewhere that works since by the end I wasn't needing to go full pedal to get the puddle going (which was waaaaay to hot, the filler would ball up before I was anywhere near the puddle). By the end I was between 240 and 250hz and maybe around 75-80% balance, and DCEN and somewhere between 70 and 80 amps.

The issue I'm having is the arc is all over the place when lighting up. Once I get going it's much smoother and controlled, but initially it's uncontrollable. Just ran 5 filler rods worth of practice beads and it was only the startup giving me a fit. Holding a really tight arc too.

I am running a 1/8" tungsten which part of me thinks is the issue, but I'm nowhere near sure on that. I'm out of 3/32" and can't get to the store until the weekend.

I didn't try going at the surface with some sandpaper or scotch bright to knock down some of the oxide layer which is another thing I'm thinking it could be since it's the cheapo "6061" from Homeless Depot.

Any things I should try changing or doing?

Normally I wouldn't ever have a need to weld aluminum but all the jobs around here seem to be aluminum welding, and I'm sick of my current line of work and want out.

Demented wrote: I've only ever welded Aluminum once before so it's foreign to me. Man is it hard to get a puddle started..............

The issue I'm having is the arc is all over the place when lighting up. Once I get going it's much smoother and controlled, but initially it's uncontrollable.


Any things I should try changing or doing?

its looking good

don't sneak up on it. don't be afraid to step on it. pour on the amps to start then back off.
you want it to puddle quickly and get moving.

keep the arc tight and watch the torch angle. to much angle or to long an arc and the filler will ball well before you get to it.

tweake wrote: don't sneak up on it. don't be afraid to step on it. pour on the amps to start then back off.
you want it to puddle quickly and get moving.

keep the arc tight and watch the torch angle. to much angle or to long an arc and the filler will ball well before you get to it.

^^^^
This...

Alu welding really profits from basically 'stomping' on the pedal at the start of the weld to get the nice and shiny puddle as quick as possible and then getting going with the weld and backing off on the pedal to keep things under control heat-wise.

Unlike steel the aluminium draws heat away much more rapidly so gently lighting up on a low amp setting only starts heating up your whole part and by the time you get a puddle going it's already all getting super hot and ready to melt away from you in a hurry.

Jody's rule of getting a puddle going in a few seconds and then getting going is what you should aim for. On most alu pieces this means mashing the pedal down quickly

Once you try this a few times (on test pieces) and burn/melt through a few you start to get a feel for the amount of startup power you need to give it and how fast to back off to keep the puddle nice and molten and stop your work pieces from overheating under your hands.

Bye, Arno.

Arno wrote: Jody's rule of getting a puddle going in a few seconds and then getting going is what you should aim for. On most alu pieces this means mashing the pedal down quickly

For the most part thats what I was aiming for.

I'll see what happens tonight now that I had some time to sleep on it.

I'm just confused on the arc jumping all over at first. Not sure if it's normal or not.

Think I got it. Machine set to more amperage than needed. Full pedal, puddle starts, add dab of filler, back off to welding amps, and go.

Turns out my issue was bad grounding. Was having a hell of a time getting anything going on the first practice pad. Peppering, no puddle starting, melted tungsten, broke my #8 cup, everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Nothing changed from yesterday except the actual pad. At least I learned what an intermittent grounding issue is like now with HF on. Clamped the pad down and like magic, the angry pixies flowed.