Welding Tips and Tricks

do any of you do any DC TIG on Aluminum at all, if so i got a few questions on it.

1 can you get away with pure argon and just turn up compansating for the lack of heat the helium brings to it?

2 could you use a argon helium mix and still do it?

ryanjames170 wrote:do any of you do any DC TIG on Aluminum at all, if so i got a few questions on it.

1 can you get away with pure argon and just turn up compansating for the lack of heat the helium brings to it?

2 could you use a argon helium mix and still do it?

while you can DC tig aluminum its more of a work around. for the cost and hassle on getting helium you might as well go borrow/hire an ac tig machine.
every time i see a video on it its just ewwwww.

ryanjames170 wrote:do any of you do any DC TIG on Aluminum at all, if so i got a few questions on it.

1 can you get away with pure argon and just turn up compansating for the lack of heat the helium brings to it? No

2 could you use a argon helium mix and still do it?Not in my experience.

It has to do with how the DC current uses the shielding gas to "amplify" or "optimize" the arc within it. Helium is far more effect (for lack of a better word) than Argon and you can not achieve the needed heat on DC to weld aluminum with Argon.

As for how it looks, the lack of AC and the cleaning action is the cause of the "Ewww!". It does weld, it is strong, and it does penetrate, but, it does not look like normal beautiful AC TIG welds.

You might like this , I had for many years a DC tig only machine and the only way to use it was the use of aluminum electrodes
of a usual stick welder . With pure argon I establish a DC tig arc with argon flow and when base metal melted I added the electrode , the paste melts and broke the surface oxidation so electrode will fuse together with base metal .You could do an almost decent weld.It was mainly for thicker parts not for details.It works well and easy not for exhibition though... Some times it foams due to paste accumulation so you must stop and clean it a bit ...

cj737 wrote: As for how it looks, the lack of AC and the cleaning action is the cause of the "Ewww!".

for me the ewww is more about the gear required than the look.
there is a couple of different methods depending on thickness of the aluminim.
but they all need special setups.
by mem running electrode negative on thick parts but requires helium.
the other is running electrode positive but only on really thin parts and requires huge tungsten and torch as it heats the crap out of the torch.
both ways are less than ideal and require things most of use do not have.

if you have to go get special stuff to do a poorer job, why not just get the right welder and do a good job.

tweake wrote:

cj737 wrote: As for how it looks, the lack of AC and the cleaning action is the cause of the "Ewww!".

for me the ewww is more about the gear required than the look.
there is a couple of different methods depending on thickness of the aluminim.
but they all need special setups.
by mem running electrode negative on thick parts but requires helium.
the other is running electrode positive but only on really thin parts and requires huge tungsten and torch as it heats the crap out of the torch.
both ways are less than ideal and require things most of use do not have.

if you have to go get special stuff to do a poorer job, why not just get the right welder and do a good job.

main reason is i have a 300AMP DC TIG capable welder right now.. and i really dont want to run out and go buy a AC Tig welder right now.. something for the future but not a right now thing.. also knowing how to do the DC tig with helium might be a decent thing to know.. ive been told it dose get called out on prints.

as far as DCEP.. the welds ive done with it at school the only way my instructor beleaved they were with DC was because he saw what i was doing.. its like running AC on 100% cleaning action. and yes it dose heat the torch up and the tungsten balls up like none other but it works.

i would just like to get good enough with the other way to do it to pull off the odd job i need to do with out spending alot on a tig welder i may not use.

Doesn’t your Everlast PowerMIG have the option to run ally? It would be a LOT easier... And probably look better too. Or just grab a Sooolgun for one of your other machines

cj737 wrote:Doesn’t your Everlast PowerMIG have the option to run ally? It would be a LOT easier... And probably look better too. Or just grab a Sooolgun for one of your other machines

it can but i got all the tig stuff already and im not overly sure how well the everlast spool guns are/ i kinda have been meaning to save up and get a miller one.. i know u can retro fit them to that welder, alot of people do it to the point everlast's help desk sent me a digram for how to wire it up.. so im not sure if there spool guns suck that bad or if people dont trust them.

Well a Spoolgun also allows you to weld thin ally where DC TIG with He won't. I understand your desire, but from a practicality perspective, a Spoolgun would be more flexible.

A friend of a friend used to work for NASA and said that Nasa specs out a lot of DCEN aluminum welds, he showed me some of the pictures that he had done with that process, they were amazing looking welds. He said thay used UHP Ultra High Purity Helium as his shielding gas. I tried it years ago and it definitely takes some getting used to, the puddle doesn't get shiny when it's ready to add filler, but when it is ready you better be ready to add filler has it is a very hot running arc. There is no cleaning action so the base metal has to be extremely clean.. I'm sure the guys that regularly use this process could be more help.

Pete