Welding Tips and Tricks

So its a cold rainy morning here in San Antonio . Im practicing aluminum gtaw today . and im having a hard time . I know the old saying clean and clean again then when your done cleaning clean again. ive done all that and still cant seem to start off that nice shinny puddle . So the big problem im having is as soon as i do manage to get the puddle going i feed in the filler metal and it just globs up to a ball before it reaches the puddle ?? whats up with that ?? ive bought like four brand new stainless steal brushes just for aluminum so i dont know whats going on here im using some old snipes i used at the start of the mod ive given those a nice clean scrub to try and avoid cross contamination. any way hope i can get some new advice besides just to clean it lol

Dab faster, that was My problem when I started out. Don't hesitate.

Reduce arc length and torch angle. Use a thicker filler rod. When your not dabbing keep the filler tip far enough away from the arc that your not preheating it, but it should still be in the argon. Dab fast and be sure to connect the filler with the molten pool. Sliding the tip of the filler on the hot part only seems to work ok with steel. It helps to back up the torch and then add filler, but your probably not ready for that technique yet.

When starting out, don't worry about how to clean the material, grind the tungsten, replace the gas etc. Do those things matter? Yeah sure. But that's when it's already basically working for you. In your case it's just the basics. You're holding too much torch angle and arc length.

Turbo wrote:Reduce arc length and torch angle. Use a thicker filler rod. When your not dabbing keep the filler tip far enough away from the arc that your not preheating it, but it should still be in the argon. Dab fast and be sure to connect the filler with the molten pool. Sliding the tip of the filler on the hot part only seems to work ok with steel. It helps to back up the torch and then add filler, but your probably not ready for that technique yet.

Turbo nailed it...With a bad torch angle you are aiming the heat at the filler and melting it. If the filler is too small it will melt off before you get it near your puddle even with a good torch angle. Steep torch angle and short arc length. Clean is a great thing but it won't help with bad technique.

and give it more pedal too. Classic symptoms of all the above diagnosis plus too little heat. Don't be scared.

Thanks everyone for your input I'm in a class with 20 other guys and I guess it's kinda hard for the instructor to get to everyone all the time anyway this was all sound advice . When I started this module I told myself okay aluminum is pretty hard i hear but if I start now I can be good later haha so I'm trying to knock it out and learn to stack dimes lol so just to be clear the touch angle is too much and preheats and melts the filler even before I dab that sounds right

Also my instructor says to start the arc right in the t joint right in the middle but I'm having a hard time doing this the arc ether pools up and the top plate or the bottom plate does anyone have a idea of what I'm talking about like the arc jumps from plate to plate when I'm trying to get it to stay right in the middle !!!

A Tee or inside corner is the hardest weld of all on aluminum because your arc wants to wander. The solution is a very tight arc length and steep torch angle. Like Oscar said...don't be afraid to step on the pedal..you can always back off. If you have a gas lens set up you can extend your tungsten a little further than a regular collet body to see what you're doing and still get good gas coverage. Arc wander is a pain in the ass but you can control it.

When you initiate the AC arc, it will wander until you get it cranked up and stabilized. Either more pedal faster, or wait until it stabilizes to before you panic.

A "steep angle" is the cup as close as perpendicular to the line of the surface (to be clear). When you lay the cup back, in a "push" angle, the heat cone pre-heats/melts your filler wire. Avoid this, or change the angle of introducing your filler wire (some circumstances require the tungsten angle laid back). Add wire from "above" not from "in front" when you get into that situation.

In those circumstances, I pull the tungsten even to the cup to avoid contaminating it with the puddle. Allows a tight arc and awkward angle, but you need to adjust your wire angle and have a good line of sight to your puddle. (Don't know if that makes sense?)