Tig Welding Secrets: An In-Depth Look At Making Aesthetically Pleasing TIG Welds by Shawn McDonald

Author:Shawn McDonald [McDonald, Shawn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-06-12T04:00:00+00:00

Aluminum Technique

Aluminum is a tricky material to weld. You will notice immediately that it does not turn red like steel or stainless steel do when it gets hot, instead it gets really shiny. The problem most people have with aluminum is they weld too slow. As I discussed before, you want to minimize heat input on your parts, with aluminum if you weld slowly, that aluminum is absorbing all that heat, and it is dissipating it very well. So, people will notice that even after just a couple of tacks, the entire part will be hot. So, the issue a lot of people experience, is the aluminum will get too hot, and the whole part pretty much will just melt, or a large portion of it. And it happens quickly. One second you are waiting on the puddle to melt, the next second you are starting from scratch because half the part melted away.

With aluminum, I typically use a pretty methodical system. It works for me, so it’s what I do. First things first. When you weld aluminum, you are fighting a layer of oxides that melts at almost double the temperature that aluminum itself melts at. So, you need to remove the oxide layer first. You can sand this layer off with a DA sander, or a piece of sand paper. You can use a wire brush and some scotch bride, that has been my preferred method lately. Run the whole joint with a wire brush, then go over it with a scotch bride, and wipe clean with lacquer thinner or acetone.

Make sure your pieces are as Tightly fit as possible. While it is possible to fill gaps with aluminum, I don’t recommend it unless you have absolutely no choice. If you can spend a few minutes getting your fit up perfect, you are better off. It will weld much nicer.

If you are welding thin aluminum, make sure to tack your parts together often before welding. Aluminum does shrink when you weld it, and not tacking it completely can cause some unfavorable distortion. You’ll find gaps opening where there weren’t any, and all sorts of bad things. So, make sure you spend some time and puta good amount of tacks around your workpiece to make sure everything stays right where you want it. This is especially true with butt joints or outside corner joints.

Say you are welding a couple pieces of .040” aluminum. It’s a butt weld, its about 12” long, and you’ve tacked it at both ends with a Tight fit. If I start my bead at one end, the two pieces can move freely between the two tacks as I weld, you will find that about half way through the weld, the pieces start to separate because the heat has caused them to bow out and open a gap. To avoid situations like this, don’t be afraid to put a tack every couple of inches or even less. Just be mindful of the fact that you will

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.