Welding Tips and Tricks

So I'm starting a new job tomorrow welding seams on the roof of a new rec centre. It's 22ga aluminum done with tig using a water cooled dynasty 350 machine. There's a total of 6800 meters of weld to do by end of October and I'll be paid by the meter so the faster I work the more I can make.

It's gonna be interesting welding tig outside I think.

Anyone with tips or settings to help me be as productive and consistent as possible would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

You're are going to be the thin aluminium tig welding expert of all time when you finish.
I reckon it will be in your dreams for weeks afterwards.

My only tips are:
- use some sort of baffle you can slide along beside the joint as you go to keep the wind off.
- use a number 5 cup with increased gas flow to counteract wind. That's what I do when tig welding pipes outside.

Send us some pics if you can, and a report on your experience will help us all too. Good luck!

It'll be fun I'll be using a gas lens I think I'll see about taking pics once I'm there hopefully the fit up will be decent it's like corrugated. So getting comfortable will also be a challenge

+1 for what Vic said. Turn up the gas a bit and use a wind break. The wind break doesn't have to be very big.

what configuration are the seams?
craig

Forgive me asking an ignorant question... this sounds like a MIG operation. Was that possibility a part of your decision making process?

Not my decision to use tig. When I heard the amount of weld and time frame I thought mig too. But the material is too thin I'm told.

The seams are lap joints on the bottom of the corrugated pieces I believe so on the ?--^--^--^--^ sort of like that looking down the end of the piece

That's .030". How are you going to clamp the joint area ?

One of those power sources with auto tack feature like a kempi would come in handy.

I sure hope we get to see photos of this job.

Have been ion a lot of roofs and never seen anything like it. Lots of potential for it resulting in the longest, most even beads ever!

(And RSI...)




Kym

https://imgur.com/a/elY9z

So first day down here's a few pics took a while but I think I found some decent settings 92amp 250hz 40/60 ac balance 1/16 electrode. Was using a gas lens but had 3 nozzles crack while welding so I just put the regular collet body back on.

Unfortunately can't clamp gotta try to push down and tack. Tho the first seams I did were on slightly thinner material and we're tending to pull down away from the top piece causing gaps. The 3rd seam was alot nicer I turned down my heat a bit and the aluminum was sucking up and closing the gap.

Wind wasn't much of a factor had to stop a few times due to rain figure I got roughly 10 to 11 meters welded not great but I got faster thru out the day.

The building is 285,000 sqft so far so good

Thanks for sharing Chris.

That is one big mother of a job! It looks like what you are welding is almost a flat skin that sits underneath the final, corrugated layer...is that right?

Love the nozzles lying on the roof. "Next!"

Hope this turns out to be a great job for you. Admire your dedication and determination.



Kym

For now we are working on the gutter sections (the flat pieces) I'm not sure but I think the corrugated pieces get welded along the bottom edge to keep em water tight.

I wanted to grab more pics today but left my cell at home. Was working in a much tighter area today so mostly about 45 degrees up hill then the vertical pieces was shown a better way to fit and tack the pieces tight made life alot easier filling 1/4" gaps with tig sucks lol

christhewelder75 wrote:For now we are working on the gutter sections (the flat pieces) I'm not sure but I think the corrugated pieces get welded along the bottom edge to keep em water tight.

I wanted to grab more pics today but left my cell at home. Was working in a much tighter area today so mostly about 45 degrees up hill then the vertical pieces was shown a better way to fit and tack the pieces tight made life alot easier filling 1/4" gaps with tig sucks lol

Would you be permitted to use the 3/32" version of these, drilling the hole on the edge of the overlapping sheet for tacking ?

http://clecofasteners.info/Plier-Operat ... eners.html

Then there's this type, you could put a spring under the nut for speed of installation / removal.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/56 ... 548055.jpg

I dunno if we'd be allowed to drill holes in the roof we're supposed to be sealing :$

I've figure out a decent way to tack everthing up fairly snug on the main panels so they weld up much faster. There's some sections where there's a piece of thinner material with a raised ^ in the middle that's welded to 2 thicker pieces (you can see it in the second picture) it tends to buckle and bubble a bit some times my boss showed me how to tack a piece of filler rod and pull it up to kinda pop it up so it stays tight.

Getting better and faster each day started with 11.8m the first day then 14.5 yesterday and 21.5 today.

So my boss is happy I'm happy I'll be making decent money doin it by next week I hope.

Here's some more pics from today

http://imgur.com/a/o2of9

http://imgur.com/a/A27ww
New pics from yesterday

I've been using an everlast 200dx. A great machine I was blue biased before but this is on my list to buy when I have the $$ and the space.

We got shut down due to weather yesterday afternoon and today (35kph gusting to 60+ and rain on and off)

Hopefully tomorrow is better

That's cool ! Except the wind part. I did some stick work on pipe last fall and we had some high winds 50 plus mph stuff. Every time you came up to the top of the pipe the wind would carry your arc out about 2 inches. Like some kind of science experiment. Is welded roof paneling common there?

That's a pretty cool job, never knew any of those joints were welded, I was thinking spool gun but I've never welded that thin with mig spool before.

Sounds like the Everlast is doing well! Im biased to bleeding a little blue bit I'm looking for something new at home and bang for the buck it looks hard to beat.

christhewelder75 wrote:I dunno if we'd be allowed to drill holes in the roof we're supposed to be sealing :$
[/url]

I use clecos all the time and love them. Filling the hole is very easy and you won't need many to hold it long enough to get it tacked up.

-Sandow

I honestly have no idea how common the welded panels are on roofs. This is the first job I've had in the field. (Usually in a shop doing structural stuff) Sounds like my boss has done a number of them in various locations across Canada.

Today I started on the 22ga corrugated stuff welding down the long seams starting at the apex and working towards the edge. Laying on plywood on ur stomach for hours is a pain... literally lol.

Was using a diversion 180 today was worried it didn't have many adjustments (basically ac or DC and amps) everthing else is preset. But it worked fairly well.

Now that I have the tacking down to a science I can get decent fit up with a couple c clamps and some leverage