I recently had ali tig lessons with Richard which went quite well. My intention was to weld up some end tanks for an intercooler. I had some 2mm ali sheet cut out and assembled with hot glue. They had been tacked at Richards but I needed to break them apart to clean all the glue off as it wasn't welding well. So I finally got around to doing that this evening...
I filed them down and cleaned everything with acetone. When it came to welding, it didn't go too well. I'm finding that I get a lot of black stuff (soot? oxidation?) around the welds and even in the welds themselves. The weld puddle looks **** and grainy (almost porous?) and I keep burning through. There appears to be contaminants floating around in the weld pool, and I can't find a happy medium between tickling it and burning through.
I had one section that went well but the rest was a total disaster!
I haven't changed any of the settings on the tig except setting the amps to 140. The unit is a CEA Matrix 200 AC/DC, and I'm using a foot pedal. Argon flow rate is 6-8lpm.
I will add though, Richard did notice this black stuff happening at the start of the weld, but not to this extent! Possible cause was my hose from the bottle to the machine. I will be changing this asap. I will also be changing my torch. More pics to follow.
I filed them down and cleaned everything with acetone. When it came to welding, it didn't go too well. I'm finding that I get a lot of black stuff (soot? oxidation?) around the welds and even in the welds themselves. The weld puddle looks **** and grainy (almost porous?) and I keep burning through. There appears to be contaminants floating around in the weld pool, and I can't find a happy medium between tickling it and burning through.
I had one section that went well but the rest was a total disaster!
I haven't changed any of the settings on the tig except setting the amps to 140. The unit is a CEA Matrix 200 AC/DC, and I'm using a foot pedal. Argon flow rate is 6-8lpm.
I will add though, Richard did notice this black stuff happening at the start of the weld, but not to this extent! Possible cause was my hose from the bottle to the machine. I will be changing this asap. I will also be changing my torch. More pics to follow.