Welding Tips and Tricks

So I repaired a customer alum fuel tank that he tried to fix himself a couple weeks back.

Now he's called me yesterday to ask if I could stick together a ladder rack for him. He's already got the tubes cut and marked etc.

My problem is the tubing he's brought me has no complete identifiers on it.


Is there a way I can tell what the tubing is without knowing the manufacture etc?

I'll attach photos of the few bits of markings I could find on it.



Not sure if his welds looks like that from improper technique and settings or if it's due to the alloy type.

I've never had the pleasure of trying to weld the UN weldable alloys so Im not sure what a 'weld' even look like on those alloys.


Thanks in advance for any help.


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Improper technique at a minimum, plus completely dirty material, and maybe MIG gas?

Welding that will be a real sh!t show. Don’t envy you at all…

cj737 wrote:Improper technique at a minimum, plus completely dirty material, and maybe MIG gas?

Welding that will be a real sh!t show. Don’t envy you at all…

You got that right the material is filthy Worse part is it's the same story on the inside and he wants a tube welded about 1/3rd down the length. Going to be fun cleaning the backside.


But oh well at least I'm very comfortable with dirty material and what to do with it, I'd say 95% of the time it's dirty parts coming into our shop, but hey that's a rad shop for yah




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There's a real good reason you don't see any commercially made aluminum ladders where the strength members are butt welded together like that. Just sayin'

Yeah don't think I'd ever weld a ladder for a customer or for myself even for that matter, too much liability.

Aparently these are to be bolted to a cube truck so ladders can be strapped to it.

They welded like any other alum I've welded once cleaned up, Little bit of black specks on the tubes that had the large burnup cause I had no way to remove it fully on the backside but oh well did the best I could with what was brought to me

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