Welding Tips and Tricks

I was told there is no such thing as a stupid question so here goes, is there any way to fuse aluminum to steel? Either welding or brazing?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

With conventional welding processes I'd answer no, I have read a little on the aluminum brazing fillers, but don't recall any mention of Al to steel, and that is something I'd remember...I think

What are you trying to do? (question presumes the obvious answer isn't what I mean)

Braze brass to steel or SS with 45%silver. Then use this to solder aluminum to the brass.
https://www.harrisproductsgroup.com/en/ ... 78-22.aspx

LtBadd wrote:With conventional welding processes I'd answer no, I have read a little on the aluminum brazing fillers, but don't recall any mention of Al to steel, and that is something I'd remember...I think

What are you trying to do? (question presumes the obvious answer isn't what I mean)

Nothing big, just had a friend ask me if it’s possible. I was 99% sure it’s not but I figured I’d try it out anyways. He’d tried to weld these aluminum parts to a vice and it didn’t work. Now he wanted me to give it a shot




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I was curious to see what actually happens. On AC with no filler the alu just melts onto the steel doesn’t fuse at all. I tried adding some 70S-6 on AC, same results. On DC I actually get em fused, but obviously took a while to melt through the oxide layer, to the by then gooey aluminum. It did fuse with a lot of pops and farts and spits but a really brittle weld that pretty much instantly cracked apart.



Shorter one was AC, longer one was DC.

So yeah, it’s not possible [emoji4].


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You could try this stuff alumasteeltigrod.com . I just found it on the web, no actual experience.

Only thing I thought might have a slight chance of working is brazing but. Nope.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

VA-Sawyer wrote:You could try this stuff alumasteeltigrod.com . I just found it on the web, no actual experience.

I did see that on YouTube. I honestly thought it was a joke. Like that welding porcelain video on obsession motor sports channel. But I see you can actually buy the stuff on Amazon


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I almost didn't post about it, because I haven't actually used it. On the other hand, it might be worth a try.

On a different, recent thread about welding cast iron, Coldman made a post about a magic tig rod he uses for cast iron. He said it really worked great, and he made a point of keeping it on hand despite the high cost. He is one of the welders that I really respect here, so I checked out the website. Guess I will be ordering some, to have on hand.

If you try the Aluminum to Steel rod, please let us know how it works out.

I always believed it's not possible using conventional welding - it can be explosive welded ( not redneck with tanerite though ! ) the big question is why would anyone want to snot a Lansky knife honing jig the wrong way up to a vice ?

And even when they are joined by some method like explosion welding, it's very likely to crack very soon afterwards as the thermal expansion between both materials is very different and this puts immense shear stresses on the area where they meet where the internal forces will simply start to rip the material apart.

Sometimes when one of the dis-similar layers is extermely thin and used as a 'skin' (think of it like a thick coating) can it be a suitable process as the thin material will have the capacity to deform and stretch more without the bond being broken.

Bye, Arno.