finally!!! i can weld aluminum from home

[toyolla86]

i just got my dc tig welder to do aluminum.

im not that great at it yet. ill get pics up of the first successful time it worked.
(ie, it didnt just buzz and spark and kill the arc and burn the material)

camera died when i was trying to get pics. i know most of you are not in utah but if anyone is close and needs some work done hit me up.

 

[IJ.]

HF start?

 

[toyolla86]

yeah i think. im not too familiar with electricity welding. im old school oxy acetylene.
but i have a trigger and a pedal. i wired the pedal up and not too sure that it actually does anything other than start the arc.

i think im going to undertake my own ffim. (when i get good enough)
and ill be doing a custom turbo mani. (although i've already done one before)

 

[IJ.]

Do you have to touch the Tungsten to start the arc or does it jump across?

 

[toyolla86]

Oh yeah. No it's not like match start. It jumps across.

---------- Post added at 08:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:58 PM ----------

However my arc is very radical. It jumps all over the place. I'm assuming this would be fixed with cleaner base material and nice butt welds. Ie no big gaps.

 

[Dimman]

DC Tig aluminum?

 

[jetjock]

^ This. Last I checked mine was AC. Square wave to be exact...

 

[IJ.]

I read it that he bought an ac/dc welder

 

[toyolla86]

NEIN!!! (anybody german). haha. naw its DC. i knew i would have to explain myself on this one.

i figured out how to heliarc weld. not tig weld. you can heliarc with a dc tig welder.

i can also weld stainless and aluminum with my oxy/acetylene setup. however it makes me feel like im going to get cancer. haha.

 

[jetjock]

GTAW, Tig, and Heliarc are the same. Heliarc is simply an old name for the GTAW process...

 

[PureDrifter]

i can wield super glue and JB weld like a boss.....

 

[hvyman]

Tig welding is fun!!!! Alum is easy to get nice beads on a flat surface. Steel on the other hand takes some practice. Ive only managed to get like 2 solid professional beeds on steel tubing with about 5 months on/off mostly off with my spare time at work basically learning by my self. Alum on the other hand is easy. Just stop as soon and it gets hot let it cool for a min and go back at it. You can totoally see when it gets hot as well.

Settings are everything with it too. I dont know all the specifics tho.

 

[toyolla86]

yeah see, with my oxy acetylene you cannot see a puddle at all. so you have to be really good. i've only done a couple of good runs ever with that setup.

i am so new to welding machines that i know nothing about the knobs. i've watched some videos on youtube (hahaha) and thats it. all i know is to turn the power
down if its too much. heres a pic.

2nd time welding with a machine plugged into electricity so go easy

so i forgot to turn on the gas and thats why all the burnt black stuff. woops.

plus there was a fairly big gap. im not good enough with tig to fill gaps very well. but here i had to go just that.

 

[toyotanos]

Gotta start somewhere! Practice a lot and you'll do fine

I would highly suggest starting on flat plates just laying beads down, working into lap welds, then to butt welds. Once you gel that you can try round/irregular surfaces. Worked for me!

 

[toyolla86]

nice thanks for the advice. i do have a nice piece of flat aluminum i could practice on. as you can see this butt-weld had a huge gap so that made it much more difficult. haha.

 

[hvyman]

Try watching these

http://www.weldingtipsandtricks.com/tig-welding-tips.html

This guy has good tips.

 

[Dimman]

Is it an AC/DC Tig machine (Miller Synchrowave for example) or DC only (Miller Maxstar for example)?

You don't weld aluminum on DC. You also use different tungsten types and shapes than steel.

If you don't have AC, don't waste your time on aluminum.

 

[jetjock]

...Practice a lot and you'll do fine...

Not to rain on his parade but I'm afraid in this case it's going to take more than practice. A lot more. Torch manipulation isn't everything. At minimum he's going to need better equipment for doing AL and learn what the knobs do. A little study about plasma physics wouldn't hurt either...

 

[toyolla86]

Is it an AC/DC Tig machine (Miller Synchrowave for example) or DC only (Miller Maxstar for example)?

You don't weld aluminum on DC. You also use different tungsten types and shapes than steel.

If you don't have AC, don't waste your time on aluminum.

its dc. you can weld with dc it just takes a couple of changes. dc current just doesnt have anything to protect the metal on ac one direction welds and the other protects the metal.

thanks for the video's i've seen that guy a lot on youtube.

have you guys heard of ron covell. one of the sickest metal fabricators of all time. i have some of his videos. i've done lots of research about tig welding just never really put it to actual use.

---------- Post added at 05:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:14 PM ----------

Not to rain on his parade but I'm afraid in this case it's going to take more than practice. A lot more. Torch manipulation isn't everything. At minimum he's going to need better equipment for doing AL and learn what the knobs do. A little study about plasma physics wouldn't hurt either...

theres always someone....:nono:
jetjock post up some of your welds.

 

[Dimman]

All day long:

Guy I work with who does this says AC only for aluminum.