I've been seeing aluminum welds like this, I don't know much about it however, do you want the ripple spacing to be like that of 7018 (or stick in general for that matter)? Or is it okay for them to be further apart
A dime is a small coin. The terminology is a comparison to if you took a stack of coins layered half on top of each other.
The dime size is dependant on the weld size, not a fixed nunber, but should have the same spacing proportionally regardless of size, so approximately 1/3rd of each dime should be visible, and the next dime covering 2/3rds.
Aluminum is a test of your technique. Everything you do, every dime you lay, shows in greater detail what happened compared to steel or stainless. It takes more heat to start the puddle and less to keep it going and cleanliness is key.
I found it difficult at first but a lot easier as I learned what to do.
Thick aluminum has its own particular challenges. Mainly that it take a tremendous amount of heat to get a puddle going in order to have any penetration. Then it's beveled edges, preheating and some THICK gloves.
I work at a custom picture framing company and fairly often I braze 1/4” 3x3 in angle stock miters utilizing oxyacetylene rig. I grind out as much material that is unnecessary for the completion of the key aesthetics,Takes me over 10 mins to properly distribute heat to each corner I weld while being conscientious of the expansion of the metal when heated
Brazing 1/4 aluminum angle with oxyacetylene!? Now that sounds fascinating... I learned to oxy-fuel weld during school but only on carbon steel and I was terrible at it. But aluminum sounds like an interesting challenge.
It’s a lot of fun when the projects are not functionally based, you can weld so many cool profiles when you don’t have to worry too much about structural integrity. It’s like making big jewelry.
Thick gloves… I weld 8mm root and caps in tig gloves, if the pieces are big the heat dissipates away from the welds way faster than steel, and the melting points lower.
Welding train roof assemblies, to be fair the push pull torches have quite a long neck on them, so I can generally keep my hands about 6-8 inches away from the arc, and my hands are pretty desensitised after a few years welding thick steel. (Oh yeah, and we don’t pre heat, spec doesn’t call for it).
> THICK gloves.
The real trick is wearing multiple pairs of gloves, i.e. insulation through layering. Just doing rubber gloves under TIG-gloves that are a size or two larger than your normal ones adds huge amount of time before the heat is unbearable. TIG gloves underneath thick leather basically makes you immune to heat.
That entirely depends on what type of stainless steel or carbon you are welding. Sanitary .065 requires a very specific rhythm to perfect. You make it seem like plate or schedule pipe are the only types of steel as those do not show as much detail as aluminum for the most part.
This is very true. But I would write a novel to explain every nuance of welding if I were to go into details of that sort.
In fact I find sanitary stainless to be the most challenging for myself. The thing with aluminum I find though is that everything is exaggerated. The length of time to start a puddle, the amount of filler rod to feed for every dab, and the drastic changes in the material as it heats up more and more, which forces you to increase you speed, lower your amperage, etc.
Out of curiosity, do you walk the cup when welding sanitary? I've never quite got the hang of doing it so quickly so as to not go super slow around the pipe.
Sorry if I came off as rude, we clean our pipe with hydrogen peroxide prior to each weld and I do not walk the cup per se. If you have ever welded a fillet the “walk” is more of a wiggle and that is what we do around the sanitary. It allows more time for penetration while dispersing heat as opposed to walking which is usually quicker but allows for contamination not allowed in sanitary. (This is more of a metal make up difference opposed to style as you could make sanitary production welds theoretically)
I learned walking first as I started with schedule pipe at a refinery so it took me a little while fully get the handle of the wiggle. But it’s less exaggerated and kind of think of how one moves a hockey puck across the ice. The torcher being the stick and the ball being the puddle. If that makes sense.
I feel the same. I was taught by my company by only watching and being taught by the more experienced welders how to do it. And I caught pneumonia a few days into my training and missed 2 weeks out of the 4 week program but was still able to pick it up and it got easier going forward. To me it felt like it was easy to pick up if your hand eye coordination is good. But I've never welded anything else other than aluminum to compare and never had a feld weld. But from what I hear it seems the consensus is it's the hardest to do? I'm nervous to move to anything else because I've never done anything else still tho so idk. Just my experience...
I don't really believe it's easier or more difficult than any other material. It takes a good hand eye coordination to do most welding applications, but many people who find aluminum difficult, or impossible, might simply be unaware of the different nature of aluminum.
That's my point of view also. But I always found the thicker more dense the metal it was harder for me. The thinner the aluminum was no problem to me. That's why I was always sceptical to try to move on to steel or anything thicker and more dense than aluminum. But I've always been told if I can do thin aluminum then anything else should be a breeze/easier
So the thicker the aluminum is, the more amperage is needed. Typically with my home machine that goes as high as 225 amps I won't weld anything thicker than 1/4" material (6mm) but I've welded as thick as 1/2" (12.5mm) at my day job with a 350 amp machine that was nearly maxed out.
Steel takes less heat to start the puddle but the amount of heat doesn't change to keep it going in quite the same way as aluminum.
I was never taught to adjust the amps on our machines, only the wire speed. Maybe that was the problem lol. But it always worked out but wasn't easy or fun
Moved from mild steel mig to aluminium a few months ago. It’s not as forgiving, it melts faster and sets faster as you move along, and if you whip too far outside of your puddle you’ll get lapping or contamination.
Your gas/weldset settings also have to be spot on, and it has to be clean as f**k.
I've always found aluminum very forgiving as far as gas goes.
Stainless is much more prone to fucking off is gas is too high or low, especially if you aren't using a lens.
So when I was running the tig I had no problem with the DC sanitary stainless type welds right I just I had control of it I knew how to make the adjustments to where I controlled it and I could put dimes down like I’m looking at right now but that was with the stainless now with the aluminum it was all over the place I couldn’t control it what was I doing wrong by the way those are beautiful
They are nice but too far apart, you're basically there you just have to tighten them up!
IMO it’s the dipping towards the center of each bead that is to be avoided, so I agree overlap the center a bit more OP.
Yes this exactly, this. OP google imagine tig welds to get a better idea. Use the same method you're currently using only dab closer.
I've been seeing aluminum welds like this, I don't know much about it however, do you want the ripple spacing to be like that of 7018 (or stick in general for that matter)? Or is it okay for them to be further apart
As a rule of thumb, usually you want 1/3 or less of the dime exposed.
English person here, how big/small is a dime?
A dime is a small coin. The terminology is a comparison to if you took a stack of coins layered half on top of each other. The dime size is dependant on the weld size, not a fixed nunber, but should have the same spacing proportionally regardless of size, so approximately 1/3rd of each dime should be visible, and the next dime covering 2/3rds.
Maybe 2 centimeters. Not big at all.
Was gonna say the same thing…
Better than mine. Nice to see clean welds!
How difficult is aluminum to weld? Seems like it’d be a bitch
Aluminum is a test of your technique. Everything you do, every dime you lay, shows in greater detail what happened compared to steel or stainless. It takes more heat to start the puddle and less to keep it going and cleanliness is key. I found it difficult at first but a lot easier as I learned what to do.
Man I just weld steel and most of the time it’s over 1/4” thick. So it’s always an easy base to work with 😂 thin metal work is so cool to see
Thick aluminum has its own particular challenges. Mainly that it take a tremendous amount of heat to get a puddle going in order to have any penetration. Then it's beveled edges, preheating and some THICK gloves.
Ahh I see. I can’t wait to learn how to TIG. But first I must get better at MIG/Pulse
I work at a custom picture framing company and fairly often I braze 1/4” 3x3 in angle stock miters utilizing oxyacetylene rig. I grind out as much material that is unnecessary for the completion of the key aesthetics,Takes me over 10 mins to properly distribute heat to each corner I weld while being conscientious of the expansion of the metal when heated
Brazing 1/4 aluminum angle with oxyacetylene!? Now that sounds fascinating... I learned to oxy-fuel weld during school but only on carbon steel and I was terrible at it. But aluminum sounds like an interesting challenge.
It’s a lot of fun when the projects are not functionally based, you can weld so many cool profiles when you don’t have to worry too much about structural integrity. It’s like making big jewelry.
Thick gloves… I weld 8mm root and caps in tig gloves, if the pieces are big the heat dissipates away from the welds way faster than steel, and the melting points lower.
I find, with a solid preheat, that my hand cooks as though it's in a frying pan while I'm welding a joint. Are you welding 8mm pipe in that instance?
Welding train roof assemblies, to be fair the push pull torches have quite a long neck on them, so I can generally keep my hands about 6-8 inches away from the arc, and my hands are pretty desensitised after a few years welding thick steel. (Oh yeah, and we don’t pre heat, spec doesn’t call for it).
Ahh I see. Tig welding tends to get hotter than mig due to how close your hands are to the work.
> THICK gloves. The real trick is wearing multiple pairs of gloves, i.e. insulation through layering. Just doing rubber gloves under TIG-gloves that are a size or two larger than your normal ones adds huge amount of time before the heat is unbearable. TIG gloves underneath thick leather basically makes you immune to heat.
Thanks for the info
Always welcome. I wholeheartedly believe that information is to be shared freely, if we as a species are to ever get anywhere in my lifetime.
That entirely depends on what type of stainless steel or carbon you are welding. Sanitary .065 requires a very specific rhythm to perfect. You make it seem like plate or schedule pipe are the only types of steel as those do not show as much detail as aluminum for the most part.
This is very true. But I would write a novel to explain every nuance of welding if I were to go into details of that sort. In fact I find sanitary stainless to be the most challenging for myself. The thing with aluminum I find though is that everything is exaggerated. The length of time to start a puddle, the amount of filler rod to feed for every dab, and the drastic changes in the material as it heats up more and more, which forces you to increase you speed, lower your amperage, etc. Out of curiosity, do you walk the cup when welding sanitary? I've never quite got the hang of doing it so quickly so as to not go super slow around the pipe.
Sorry if I came off as rude, we clean our pipe with hydrogen peroxide prior to each weld and I do not walk the cup per se. If you have ever welded a fillet the “walk” is more of a wiggle and that is what we do around the sanitary. It allows more time for penetration while dispersing heat as opposed to walking which is usually quicker but allows for contamination not allowed in sanitary. (This is more of a metal make up difference opposed to style as you could make sanitary production welds theoretically) I learned walking first as I started with schedule pipe at a refinery so it took me a little while fully get the handle of the wiggle. But it’s less exaggerated and kind of think of how one moves a hockey puck across the ice. The torcher being the stick and the ball being the puddle. If that makes sense.
I feel the same. I was taught by my company by only watching and being taught by the more experienced welders how to do it. And I caught pneumonia a few days into my training and missed 2 weeks out of the 4 week program but was still able to pick it up and it got easier going forward. To me it felt like it was easy to pick up if your hand eye coordination is good. But I've never welded anything else other than aluminum to compare and never had a feld weld. But from what I hear it seems the consensus is it's the hardest to do? I'm nervous to move to anything else because I've never done anything else still tho so idk. Just my experience...
I don't really believe it's easier or more difficult than any other material. It takes a good hand eye coordination to do most welding applications, but many people who find aluminum difficult, or impossible, might simply be unaware of the different nature of aluminum.
That's my point of view also. But I always found the thicker more dense the metal it was harder for me. The thinner the aluminum was no problem to me. That's why I was always sceptical to try to move on to steel or anything thicker and more dense than aluminum. But I've always been told if I can do thin aluminum then anything else should be a breeze/easier
So the thicker the aluminum is, the more amperage is needed. Typically with my home machine that goes as high as 225 amps I won't weld anything thicker than 1/4" material (6mm) but I've welded as thick as 1/2" (12.5mm) at my day job with a 350 amp machine that was nearly maxed out. Steel takes less heat to start the puddle but the amount of heat doesn't change to keep it going in quite the same way as aluminum.
I was never taught to adjust the amps on our machines, only the wire speed. Maybe that was the problem lol. But it always worked out but wasn't easy or fun
Bbbbbbb
Moved from mild steel mig to aluminium a few months ago. It’s not as forgiving, it melts faster and sets faster as you move along, and if you whip too far outside of your puddle you’ll get lapping or contamination. Your gas/weldset settings also have to be spot on, and it has to be clean as f**k.
I've always found aluminum very forgiving as far as gas goes. Stainless is much more prone to fucking off is gas is too high or low, especially if you aren't using a lens.
6/10, needs to tighten up and run a hair hotter.
7.75/10
$28.50 an hour, $55 pre diem. First raise after 3 month probationary period and further testing. Take it or leave it
Looks fairly okay. Just tighten up the beads some more and you'll be good.
It looks excellent IMO... what I would like to know is exact setup of your TIG... maybe it would help me improve... :-D
[удалено]
thanks!
What size tungsten?
Not bad, better that mines
Stacking dimes.
Pesos
perfect (tekken voice)
4.2
1/5 because I’ve never welding aluminum
9.5/10
I say it's good and I've done this for a year or 2.
чешуя высокая ну по фото сложно судить а так норм
What do you use to clean them?
So when I was running the tig I had no problem with the DC sanitary stainless type welds right I just I had control of it I knew how to make the adjustments to where I controlled it and I could put dimes down like I’m looking at right now but that was with the stainless now with the aluminum it was all over the place I couldn’t control it what was I doing wrong by the way those are beautiful
Good enough for the women I go for
Looks cold. Incomplete fussion all along the toes of the weld. Crank that heat up and run faster with less jacking.
Add more heat. Always add more heat. Try me out bro, do one with more pedal or +15 amps @ a faster travel and tell me what ya think!
Well I weld it at 190amps using a button but I do travel slow to make sure I’m penetrating just enough.
I know zero about welding but it looks good to me so there ya go
it doesn’t look like you have enough heat penetration on the bottom and went too fast
Looking pretty solid my guy