Welding Tips and Tricks

Where do you get your filler rod. The rod I have seems to leave very small spots or bubbles in the weld.

quadrod,
You can buy 4943 from Weldfabulous online. It flows as nice.

Len

Ebay for non-4943, or from Baker's for 4943.

Just a few questions...

Did you recently buy this rod?
What alloy is it?
Are you sure the base metal is clean?
Did you recently change out your argon bottle?
Have you tried welding a known alloy (ex. 6061) of clean aluminum? What was the result?
Have you welded aluminum in the past with good results?
Can you post a clear photo of the offending weld?

The upper bead, started run with no filler rod and then started again with recently purchased 4043 1/16 rod.

quadrod wrote:
The upper bead, started run with no filler rod and then started again with recently purchased 4043 1/16 rod.

The silicon in 4043 will do that if you heat-soak the part, which can happen quite fast with aluminum. You need to puddle quick and move on out fast. Even then you might still see sand-like specks here and there.

quadrod wrote:
The upper bead, started run with no filler rod and then started again with recently purchased 4043 1/16 rod.

1/16 fill rod is probably too thin for what you are welding which looks like 1/8". If you don't have any 3/32 or 1/8 rod try twisting two or three rods together between a power drill and a vise and using that for fill.

Might also want to back off on the AC balance a bit. Your cleaning zone seems bigger than it needs to be and as Oscar says, you need to get heat into it fast and get moving.

I've tried 4043 by several manufacturers, in three sizes, across a gamut of settings - amps, cleaning, gas flow, arc length and angle, lots of different parameters and several material types. Various cleaning methods, too.

Whether I run fast, slow, hot or cold, on plate or tube, the bead winds up looking sandy.

When I use 5356 for the same welding, I get a sweet, smooth bead every time. I'm okay with that - I just stick with 5356 - but it does seem odd.



Kym

I got some 5356 filler rod to try today and it is much better. Flows a lot better too. Thanks for the reply's.

Keep your 4043 as well for castings. For me it seems to work better on a nasty casting repair. I like 5356 for welding 5052 and 6061. I've been meaning to try out some 4943 at some point.

Also try wiping down your filler rods with acetone if you are having contamination problems. Sometimes it makes a big difference.

At some point I too would like to try 4093 but the only stuff I found was a 10# lot. That would last me a very long time and would be and expensive experiment at $85.00.

You can get it for much less if you look at my post

quadrod wrote:At some point I too would like to try 4093 but the only stuff I found was a 10# lot. That would last me a very long time and would be and expensive experiment at $85.00.

It is really worth it to buy filler in 10lbs lots and with 4943 it is well worth it. It does everything 4043 does plus some. Buy it and don't look back I am phasing out my supplies of 4043. Besides aluminum filler might look like a lot but it gets used up quick.

dirtmidget33 wrote:

quadrod wrote:At some point I too would like to try 4093 but the only stuff I found was a 10# lot. That would last me a very long time and would be and expensive experiment at $85.00.

It is really worth it to buy filler in 10lbs lots and with 4943 it is well worth it. It does everything 4043 does plus some. Buy it and don't look back I am phasing out my supplies of 4043. Besides aluminum filler might look like a lot but it gets used up quick.

Absolutely, on all accounts. Something about that aluminum puddle that just eats up filler rod like nothing. I wish I had aluminum projects to work on to phase-out my 4043 filler rod. To those worrying about cost, I bought 20lbs of 4943 for about $110 shipped from Baker's Gas & Supply. They simply drop ship it directly from Hobart/Maxal.

Hobart-Maxal 4943

4943 Datasheet

HI Oscar, I did look at your post and did not find 4943 on ebay and do not know witch bakers you are referring to. Could you post a link. Thanks.

quadrod wrote:HI Oscar, I did look at your post and did not find 4943 on ebay and do not know witch bakers you are referring to. Could you post a link. Thanks.

http://www.bakersgas.com/

call them or email them to ask for a quote. The part #s are in the PDFs I linked.