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Fabrication and Metalworking Get welding advice, discuss different alloys, share pictures of your first fabrication attempts, as well as welds you are especially proud of

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Old 12-23-2004, 12:21 PM
Allen Allen is offline
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Tigging Aluminum

When I started a new job back in August, I had only Tigged aluminum twice, which was about 11 years ago, and it looked awful.

Here's my 6th or 7th try.

Just recently the aluminum welding started coming to me. It's a tough change after nothing but various steels for 12 years.

These welds are far from perfect, and I still have a long way to go until I'm satisfied with my aluminum TIG skills, but I think it's a decent start.

It doesn't help either that the guy I'm working with isn't much help. He can't tell me why he uses a certain cup or electrode size, or really much of anything. In fact, he never changes anything. He just struggles through it, or says he can't weld it because of the machine. In fact, he uses a 1/8 pure electrode, #7 cup, and 250 amps. That's it. never changes cups, electrodes, machine settings, anything. So it's been a struggle. I picked up a very good book though, titled "Welding", by the Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical sales company. It's an old book, but it's been immensly helpful.

I see some aluminum projects in my future.





I'll get some more and not so blurry pictures in a few weeks. I'm on vacation.
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Old 12-23-2004, 03:56 PM
Darrell C Darrell C is offline
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Allen, you've critiqued my welding before on here, so you know I'm no red-hot welder myself, but I think those welds look darn good. I'd be proud to call those mine.
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Old 12-27-2004, 07:05 PM
helander14312 helander14312 is offline
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i have been a welder by profession for about 10 years and those look like a darn good aluminum weld to me. the passes will look like those on an ideal aluminum pass. its not like standard steel and trying to achieve a smooth look to the bead. aluminum will not penatrate and likely fail if they appear smooth.
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Old 12-29-2004, 12:20 AM
chef chef is offline
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pretty sweet man. I'm looking for optioons to weld aluminum right now, as i'd like to build new tool boxes for my truck and jeep, but want to stay away from steel. nice looking beads, although i'm far from one to critique.
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Old 12-31-2004, 12:32 PM
AprilzWarrior AprilzWarrior is offline
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They look really nice to me too !


I have not welded Aluminum in a few months... and they didnt look quite that nice !


AW
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Old 12-31-2004, 01:36 PM
Allen Allen is offline
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I know I'm being overly critical and anal, but I see a few problems that I am going to work very hard to correct.

Puddle size is inconsistant. It's "close enough", but I'm not happy with it.

Also, my filler rod feed is inconsistant. Sometimes I feed more into a puddle than necessary, thus the high and low beads.

I do appreciate the compliments though, especially from those of you who have done aluminum. You know just how difficult it is to work with, and especially how hard it'll be to get my welds where I want them.

Basically, almost all of my MIG welds are perfect. In most instances it looks like a robot did them.

That's how I want my aluminum TIG welds to look. Perfect.

Anyway, I've got a lot of experimenting to do. Different cup and tungsten sizes, different tungstens, different machine settings, and different metal thicknesses.

I've got a lot of reading to do, and then a lot of applying that knowledge to the applications.

If anyone has some tips, advice, pointers, or whatever, I'd love to hear it!

Allen
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Old 12-31-2004, 10:11 PM
DanB98TJ DanB98TJ is offline
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Geez, I'd be happy if my welds on steel looked that good...hate to see how I'd do on aluminum.
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Old 01-01-2005, 03:45 PM
Jeff Weston Jeff Weston is offline
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Not bad Allen, though your puddle size and filler rod feed appear to be a bit inconsistent.

If only my mig welds on steel looked half as good.
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