Welding Tips and Tricks

New to aluminum tig only burnt about 6 rods, boy do I have a lot to learn.

While welding, every thing sounds fine then I start to get pops and snaps for a bit then back to sounding normal. Any ideas on what causes this?

AHP 201
#6 standard cup 15cfh
3/32 2% lanthanide

Lots of contamination in the base metal? The heat from welding ally will cause the base metal to off-gas. Hit some embedded schmegma, and you'll get air pockets of crap flying out. It can also be attributed to a poor ground, dipping your tungsten, or impeded gas flow, breeze blowing your shielding gas away, etc.

By the way, drop your CFH to 10-12. 15 is much higher than it needs to be.

Thanks

that metal doesn't look clean.
the golden rule with tig is "clean, clean, and clean".

the cleaning action only cleans a small amount of oxide off. if the metal is weathered at all it will have a thick coating on it which really needs to be cleaned manually. plus the amount of dirt etc that sticks to it that needs to be cleaned off.
also if your dealing with scrap that may have been sitting in a puddle of oil or coolant etc. you may have to cook it out, use solvent to clean it off with.

Not a bad weld for just starting, I've seen a lot worse so congrats.

When all the planets are aligned the bead should be shiny with no pepper sprinkles

What was you AC balance and AC frequency?

4043 filler?

Richard,

You didn't say anything to me about the planets being aligned when welding aluminum. Is there a published schedule of planet alignment?
Here I was, thinking that I was doing something wrong.

I can't remember everything, just don't spend too much time looking up

Thanks for the encouragement.
the rod 3/32 4043
Metal was 20 or so years old but never used.
I wire brushed with a hand stainless brush and wiped with acetone. Never saw any change in the finish after brushing. From what I have read and watched sanding with aluminum oxide disks can imbed impurities into the work so i didn't do that. What methods do you use to prep?

I forgot to add
120hz and I believe 40% positive amps, on a petal so not sure max petal set at 170

mpete53 wrote:Thanks for the encouragement.
the rod 3/32 4043
Metal was 20 or so years old but never used.
I wire brushed with a hand stainless brush and wiped with acetone. Never saw any change in the finish after brushing. From what I have read and watched sanding with aluminum oxide disks can imbed impurities into the work so i didn't do that. What methods do you use to prep?

old metal will have a thick oxide coating on it, especially if its been in the weather at all. a brush will have a hard time getting through it.
sanding with disks is not great but its okish for this sort of thing.
if you really want it good, file it. you will notice the difference in the finish.

I get quite a bit of "snap-crackle-pop" when welding aluminum.
Most of it seems to be attributable to arc length/distance to work piece.
If I start to hear it - I'll focus on where I am and close the gap between the tungsten and whatever I'm working on.
Of course you close it too much and you end up dipping it or bouncing the rod off of it.
But when I hear a lot of it - I'm usually holding too long of an arc. The other thing which seems to do it is not giving enough heat. Combine too low amperage and too long of and arc and it can got noisy - and dirty too.

I'm a super-noob as well - so learning all of this as I go.
I'm using this kit almost exclusively now for aluminum - https://weldmongerstore.com/collections ... t-17-18-26

It makes a big difference in the results for me.

try getting yourself a bigger coupon. I started out with small pieces and got flustered bc I got heat soaked and couldn't keep up. Just try to run a bead without filler and work up to filler after you learn to watch the puddle. Start the puddle with higher heat and use the pedal to adjust heat. I only use 25 to 30 on the cleaning action and lower freq. Try cleaning the base metal before brushing, then brush to a shine. I believe it was cj that mentions the cup size will dictate the gas flow,,i.e., twice the cup size...cup #6 will be about 12 cfh. just a little bitty stick out of the tungsten. Make sure you are getting gas flow without drawing atmosphere into the gas flow...be sure the cup is tight to the torch. Torch angle and distance from work is important. Push the puddle for the most part. Don't get flustered and have fun with it.

studioq wrote: But when I hear a lot of it - I'm usually holding too long of an arc. The other thing which seems to do it is not giving enough heat. Combine too low amperage and too long of and arc and it can got noisy - and dirty too.

This is usually the thing that's happening.

On alu with AC you hear the arc and it's a red flag if the volume gets louder. This usually means you are increasing the arc-length, the machine is bumping the voltage up to keep the same amps and the arc starts to wander and 'jump'.

It's quite common as a reaction/precaution while learning/training to have a tendency to 'long arc' as the alu puddle tends to grow/rise a lot more than on steel when adding filler so it's (much) easier to dip the tungsten.

Jody shows this several times and he (automatically, as he has the experience and muscle-memory) does a kind of dip-and-lift where he increases the torch distance just a fraction as he dips/adds the rod when welding alu.

A good test if you have issues is to just do a 'no filler' run on a test piece. This allows you to focus only on moving and keeping a short arc (like the master teaches ) and should also make is clear if any oddities happen.

If that all works smooth/even then the issue is usually 'the nut behind the wheel' getting jittery when adding rod..

Bye, Arno.

Anyone have a tank of argon go funky mid tank?

I used up the tank and got a replacement, things got much better. I ran 6 or 10 rods using up the old tank so I did get a little hood time in but nothing that I would call half way good. With the new tank the puddle forms better and cleaner.

Just for kicks I took some of the same aluminum I used in first photos and preped the same and tried again and it came out much better.

lookie there Pete....you're gettin R done. the only thing I can really advise is practice and patience. Every day is a learning experience. I was working on a project and the folks in here were able to help me even without pictures, they knew what I was doing wrong....and they continue to help. Now you can teach me how to insert pictures. This electronic age is making me old..R. I'm presently working on my 3rd retirement.

If an Argon tank is contaminated with moisture then it usually tends to get worse as the tank pressure drops.