Welding Tips and Tricks

I finished up welding an aluminum housing for a 2" water pump today. The casting was full of electrolysis as well as somebody in the past had tried to glue it together possibly with JB weld type stuff. I scraped the crap off, bead blasted it, brushed it, heated it up with a map torch and brushed it again. I began running a bead and the weld starts to look like the La Brea Tar pits. It held a decent bead on each side of the crack so I went ahead and finished out the crack line then welded the 2 beads together after brushing it out again. I flipped it over and started on the inside of the casting and got pretty much the same results so used the same procedure. It ain't pretty but It's going to work!

Picture!!

Major ugly but I saved the price of a new pump.

I've never had the pleasure of welding on a casting but I've watched the boss do it more times than I can count. Almost all of them weld the same.....just like crap. Looks like you were running a little cold but that could just be the photo.

Couple of suggestions. V grove the Crack on both sides before welding. Drill a hole through the end of each Crack. Looks like maybe you did this. Hardtotellon my phone. Did you MIG weld it? TIG it. Get a big Tungsten and make a couple passes without filler and the cleaning turned up high. Low amps and cook the contamination out.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

RamboBaby wrote:I've never had the pleasure of welding on a casting but I've watched the boss do it more times than I can count. Almost all of them weld the same.....just like crap. Looks like you were running a little cold but that could just be the photo.

I tried hot, cold, balance up ,down, frequency up and down too. The problem with running any hotter was that the consistency of the aluminum sucked. It would run OK for a second or 2 then start to fall out. It seemed to boil up the contamination worse. I finally zeroed in at 125-130 amps 125 hz at 75%. I have one tiny crack along one of the welds to next to one of the ribs. I will weld it with the casting cold tomorrow. I think the heat mass was cooling too quickly next to the rib.

soutthpaw wrote:Couple of suggestions. V grove the Crack on both sides before welding. Drill a hole through the end of each Crack. Looks like maybe you did this. Hardtotellon my phone. Did you MIG weld it? TIG it. Get a big Tungsten and make a couple passes without filler and the cleaning turned up high. Low amps and cook the contamination out.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

Get a better phone.

John Chamorro wrote:

soutthpaw wrote:Couple of suggestions. V grove the Crack on both sides before welding. Drill a hole through the end of each Crack. Looks like maybe you did this. Hardtotellon my phone. Did you MIG weld it? TIG it. Get a big Tungsten and make a couple passes without filler and the cleaning turned up high. Low amps and cook the contamination out.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

Get a better phone.

Send me $600 and I'll be happy to

soutthpaw wrote:

John Chamorro wrote:

soutthpaw wrote:Couple of suggestions. V grove the Crack on both sides before welding. Drill a hole through the end of each Crack. Looks like maybe you did this. Hardtotellon my phone. Did you MIG weld it? TIG it. Get a big Tungsten and make a couple passes without filler and the cleaning turned up high. Low amps and cook the contamination out.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

Get a better phone.

Send me $600 and I'll be happy to

Too funny. I hate my phone. It's named correctly. It is damn sure smarter than I am.

If you can grind it back and go over again, you can get rid of much of the porosity. I've had to weld more electrolysis than I care to. Sucks the big one.

aeroplain wrote:If you can grind it back and go over again, you can get rid of much of the porosity. I've had to weld more electrolysis than I care to. Sucks the big one.

There's no real porosity in the welded crack area. I know we are supposed to be proud of our work and cosmetically beautiful work is like a business card but in this case, the pump is mine, nobody will ever see it and if it is seen by anyone they are going to be damn glad it works. It is the booster pump for my wildlands fire wagon. I live in fire country. This pump could be the difference. SO , I don't care what it looks like I just care that it works.

Remember there's nothing wrong with doing a cleaning pass or two with the tig torch prior to actually welding the casting. It seems to really help on some of them.

griff wrote:Remember there's nothing wrong with doing a cleaning pass or two with the tig torch prior to actually welding the casting. It seems to really help on some of them.

Wish I could find a torch to hold the piece of 1/4" tungsten I have. Would be perfect for high balance cleaning passes. Got it and some 5/32 and 3/16 tungsten with a machine I bought off Craigslist years ago.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

soutthpaw wrote:

griff wrote:Remember there's nothing wrong with doing a cleaning pass or two with the tig torch prior to actually welding the casting. It seems to really help on some of them.

Wish I could find a torch to hold the piece of 1/4" tungsten I have. Would be perfect for high balance cleaning passes. Got it and some 5/32 and 3/16 tungsten with a machine I bought off Craigslist years ago.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

Would sticking it in an air arc work? Swap out the compressed air for argon and stand back. It would be entertaining if nothing else,,,,,,

I clean out those cracks with an 1/8" drill bit and pin tack it.



Works well enough.


It was welded from two directions to center at the corner to keep it from distorting the gasket surface, hence the double beat at the corner. They were going to grind it flush and paint it.

That is a nice freakin weld, bro.