Welding Tips and Tricks

You say the word Aluminum tig and people stert running for the hills . your talking to someone and you say , I can weld Aluminum. Then they go no that's inpossble . the awnser sounds like this. If you worked for NASA on the Appalo Mission .and have a PHD in chemistry then just then mabey you might be able to Weld Aluimimun? Its simple to do just take some Tungsten ,some argon A Tig torch a ac-dc welder with O say 100.000 Amps . one big ass foot pedal .The biggiest filler rod you have evere seen then you can weld .032 Its a bunch of hype Al tig or stick is not that bad . what Im trying to say is to someone Just starting relax . Good luck.

Yup. Just takes practice and a clear understanding of what you are trying to accomplish.

zank
if that is so then you have a way better understanding than most....
craig

I struggle with lighting up on aluminum soda cans with my Eastwood Tig 200 without blowing a huge hole in it.

jwright650 wrote:I struggle with lighting up on aluminum soda cans with my Eastwood Tig 200 without blowing a huge hole in it.

Use a needle sharp 1/16" 2%La tungsten and use the lay-wire technique to get the first tacks in. Firmly place a 1/16" filler rod in the joint and aim the tungsten tip directly at the end of the filler. The added mass of the filler will take a chunk of the arc "hit" and save the walls of the cans. You won't need a lot of current for the actual welding, but for the initial tacks on aluminum, I like to use [relatively] high power speed tacks. Just takes practice and experimenting.

jwright650 wrote:I struggle with lighting up on aluminum soda cans with my Eastwood Tig 200 without blowing a huge hole in it.

Just a thought, I remember someone in the Forum pointed out that some of these new inverter machines have a default start current setting that's around 35A and you have to go into the f******g menu to dial the start current down ( or off ) to eliminate the problem you're having.

Worth a call to the manufacturer's service agent if the manual doesn't provide enough/any info.

Found it ! http://forum.weldingtipsandtricks.com/v ... rt=30#wrap

Postby RichardH » Sat May 31, 2014 7:41 pm

CBPayne wrote:Me too. At 10amps and it blows a hole as soon as I push the pedal.


Depending on your welder, the HF startup amps are set separately from the main arc. On mine (Everlast 210EXT inverter), it's set in the hidden menu and it defaulted to about 35 amps. Not a problem for most welding, but was a real problem when trying to weld an 0.045" wire structure at 7amps.

As for a more general suggestion, pulsing works wonders to get/hold a puddle on thin material without it getting so hot that it blows through. Even 1-4 pulses/sec is plenty fast enough, so you could do it with a pedal.

Cheers,
Richard

I've never tried the beer can trick (yet), but I love TIG aluminum.

I can make fine looking welds despite the fact my vision is shot and I shake like Miley Cyrus twerking...

It's not hard at all. Its just different.

Steve S

I learned tig with aluminum on an old miller high frequency box with a Lincoln tombstone. I remember the first time I got on the newer syncrowave and couldn't believe how easy it was to weld.

I think aluminum TIG welding gets into peoples heads they think about it too much. you have to read the puddle it tells you everything

Agreed.

When it's going right, and you're watching the puddle, it's almost hypnotic.

When it's going wrong, however...

Steve S

Otto Nobedder wrote:
When it's going wrong, however...

Steve S

You have cyro babies....lmfao

When it goes wrong, that's when newbs give up and pros get their cheap welders on craigslist.

Welding and weldability.... Two different things.

I agree that welding aluminium is not that hard, when welding is referred to have a nice bead and little penetration. Specially it's not hard, if you have watched Jody's videos and follow instruction how to use once a second rule and how to set your machine right. At least that was how I learned to lay nice bead on aluminium.

However aluminium's weldability is a different story. This is when metallurgy comes in. First of all some aluminium grades are not weldable, despite someone may say that they have welded that grade and it was "easy" Also aluminium have a great tend to create porosity when welded wrong. This can be done with just changing your amps a bit.
What a about strength then? Some grades loose even 50 % of their strength when welded. Loosing strength can also be done by just cutting aluminium with angle grinder, due to it's heat which grinder will create.

So now those things in mind I would consider that welding aluminium is not that easy. In fact it can be compared to titanium welding. Titanium is easy to weld too, but when done wrong. Then your weld won't have any purpose anymore on critical places.

Fits the old saying "just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

kiwi2wheels wrote:

jwright650 wrote:I struggle with lighting up on aluminum soda cans with my Eastwood Tig 200 without blowing a huge hole in it.

Just a thought, I remember someone in the Forum pointed out that some of these new inverter machines have a default start current setting that's around 35A and you have to go into the f******g menu to dial the start current down ( or off ) to eliminate the problem you're having.

Worth a call to the manufacturer's service agent if the manual doesn't provide enough/any info.

Found it ! http://forum.weldingtipsandtricks.com/v ... rt=30#wrap

Postby RichardH » Sat May 31, 2014 7:41 pm

CBPayne wrote:Me too. At 10amps and it blows a hole as soon as I push the pedal.


Depending on your welder, the HF startup amps are set separately from the main arc. On mine (Everlast 210EXT inverter), it's set in the hidden menu and it defaulted to about 35 amps. Not a problem for most welding, but was a real problem when trying to weld an 0.045" wire structure at 7amps.

As for a more general suggestion, pulsing works wonders to get/hold a puddle on thin material without it getting so hot that it blows through. Even 1-4 pulses/sec is plenty fast enough, so you could do it with a pedal.

Cheers,
Richard

Thanks guys...I figured something was up with the startup amps on that welder...that first zap of the arc is way too much for those thin walled cans. I thought, OK let me light it up on the tab or the rim where it is a lot thicker...buzzap!...huge hole. I'll have to try the lay wire and see if the extra thickness of the rod laying there helps. This cheap machine has some adjustment, but not sure it has a way to turn down the initial start down. I'll see if I can get some me time out in the shop over the holidays and test out a few things. It welds thicker aluminum just fine, but I was envious of the pics of the tig welded soda cans on the interwebs, so I prepped one up and had a go....LOL, what a mess.

zank wrote:Yup. Just takes practice and a clear understanding of what you are trying to accomplish.

And in your case; magic.
Merry Christmas!

"There is no such thing as magic... There is no such thing as magic... There is no such thing as magic... There is no such thing as magic..."

I'll keep repeating this until my welds look like Zank's... or TamJeff's!...

Yes, there's some magic there.

Steve S

Otto Nobedder wrote:"There is no such thing as magic... There is no such thing as magic... There is no such thing as magic... There is no such thing as magic..."

I'll keep repeating this until my welds look like Zank's... or TamJeff's!...

Yes, there's some magic there.

Steve S

+ 1 !

You guys are cracking me up. Merry Christmas!

You guys are cracking me up. Merry Christmas!

Does that mean I'm a bit crazy since I find joy in doing Al and Ti? Keeps you on your toes.

You have to have pictures of these easy welds to really bring the point home. I know a few people who can weld aluminum well. One guy I know, all he welds is little 1/4" flat bar tabs on tubes and he does them beautifully. Put him on some uphill open root 3/8", or overhead passes and the cuss words (and even tools and welding hood sometimes) fly. I call him "new shirt" because he has caught some molten meteorites on his shirt on more than one occasion in my presence.

Then there is the matter of distortion and fitting. There's a lot more to it than just throwing beads down. How to weld something out of rack, and then weld it back to where it is supposed to be, along with that sure-footed consistency in which to do it over and over again across a broad range of materials and constructs.

The last guy that told me welding aluminum was easy, also said that pretty beads are not strong enough. lol
After a day of putting him through the paces at our shop, he admitted his error, and said. . ."My god, I really suck!" Then there's that job applicant, who comes with a pedigree of all out scientific, and matallurgic perfection, and when you go to show him what you need by giving him a lesson of the process you are using, and you go to flip your hood up and he is gone.

I weld a LOT of aluminum of many different stripes, and I still have to focus intensely most days on some things, at least. So yeah, when I get a stretch of welding the same metal and the same types of joints, sure, it becomes easy. But in general terms, "aluminum" is not really "easy" to weld. At some point, you have to be able to consistently make money at all of it and that is seldom easy.

zank wrote:Yup. Just takes practice and a clear understanding of what you are trying to accomplish.

I agree. When I was in school, we mainly concentrated on carbon and stainless. The aluminum was intimidating! It didn't help that the aluminum practice material was only about .070 thick. Real fun for a new student. I now do mostly aluminum. I love it! Aluminum makes you move fast. If I weld carbon-it seems so slow I get bored.

I prefer to get in and run the bead and get out.

Being I just got back behind the hood after a two and a half year lapse.Im gonna ask where I'm going wrong with my aluminum drill here.
Machine is a Miller SD 180 witha water cooler. 3/32 ,2% lanthinated tungsten ( I found a stick in my tig box this morning )
1/16 filler 130 amps,I run it just a bit hotter.15 CFH .just doing some drills like Jody says to do .
After a bit the aluminum started looking bit crudy ,like little pin holes in it .The first couple of beads I did looked nice.
Is it that I snapped the tungsten ? ,It looked looked like it was starting to split .not sure on this .
Or did the aluminum get hot .I know my heat control is a an issue ,I was just starting to get the hang of that puddle when wifey called me in to eat .
I'm welding in an uncomfortable position ,work bench (welding table soon to come) .
Any critiques as to where I'm going wrong.I will try and post pictures tomorrow .

tamjeff
i weld aluminum often and find that fit up, weld position, and different
shapes make it he most difficult of material to weld constantly.
your work alway is impeccably fit and welded.
the work you post makes all of us amateurs strive to weld better.
thank you for your insight and photos..
craig

TIGging aluminum is like golf, anybody can do it, few do it well. You can do it many years, getting better all the time. In some cases you can do it many years and see little improvement.

Tam Jeff talks about running a successful business doing it. That's where the magic comes in. That part ain't easy.