Welding Tips and Tricks

Hey everyone.I'm new in tig welding and i'm facing a problem welding aluminium tube 1.6mm thick.when i try to tack 2 tube ends together it melts through VERY fast.If i lower the current a little it takes eternity to make a puddle.my welder is transformer based and quite old.it doesnt have any fancy mods or control pedal.all i can adjust is current and balance.is there any way to make it easier?

Don’t focus the arc on the seam. Instead, light up on one side, then wick across to the other side to get it hot, return to the middle and add filler. Thin walled ally burns back very quickly and any gap or seam will promptly open up due to the “edge” of the material.

the other thing is to have a good sized filler rod and add it quick. that cools it a bit and adds mass.
even if you have to add a dab, stop, let it cool, then do it again.
also make the tacks really large, so you have some mass to start from and stop on as i'm guessing you don't have downslope.

If your fitup is'nt totally tight and there's a little gap then what can also help for tacks is to light up on the filler. Put it on the join and hit the arc.

That should help in bridging the sides of the connection.

Also try to go in hard and fast on the amperage. As Jody has shown a few times in his videos for tacks it's often a good idea to set the machine to a high amps setting and use a short 'blast' to tack. This (very) limited time means the material has less chance to heat up melt away from you.

Bye, Arno.

thx for the tips.gonna try again this weekend

Just to confirm, you’re running A/C? I run my tacks pretty hot but aim the arc to the solid tube and drag it down to the mitred/coped tube. I run an old transformer machine, no pedals, no pulse and find it does a good job. Let us know how you get on on the weekend!!!

heating from side to side and using thicker filler worked well. thx

Also check your torch angle and distance, excessive angle or distance burns metal fast

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk