Welding Tips and Tricks

Ok guys , I'm having a problem with the 6061 breaking in the haz . I'm using 5356 .047 wire . 100%argon . I'm running around 130 to 160 Amps on a xmt 350 . Everything has been cleaned with acetone and stainless steel wire brush . I've also tried to use a helium argon mix and even did inter pass temps of letting it cool to below 150 before the next pass . Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated as always fellas .

Can't directly help, but perhaps two bits of info about brakage on HAZ that may be helpful:

http://www.thefabricator.com/article/al ... 6-or-4043r

http://www.esabna.com/us/en/education/b ... -alloy.cfm

Bye, Arno.

Are you pre- or post-heating this weld?

6061 will have a very abrupt hardness change near the edge of the weld if it's not annealed to some extent across the HAZ.

Pre-heating to 275-300F will help broaden the HAZ on the 6061 side so the hardness change is not so abrupt. I generally don't post heat, but I'm usually welding large enough sections that air-cooling takes a while.

Just some thoughts...

Steve S

We tried pre and post heating to no avail . I did figure out the problem they were having . The bender they were using to test the test lives was not correctly setup .

duckhunter27 wrote:We tried pre and post heating to no avail . I did figure out the problem they were having . The bender they were using to test the test lives was not correctly setup .

Too tight a bend for the thickness? That'll do it. 6061 has radius limits other alloys don't suffer from.

Steve S

Exactly what is was . To small of a bend radius by 3/8ths . They called me in to figure out why they failed the test. When I walked in the aluminum was sitting on rusty work table , grinder with a regular wire wheel , and a couple grinding wheels . No stainless brushes and no acetone to clean with .