I've recently stepped up my teach yourself tig welding. On alluminium it's allways been hit or miss, dirty, oxidised pool one minute, clean the next, with dipped tungsten, filler rod all over the place.
I made a cube out of 2mm sheet just for practice, I'll put up a pic. It wasn't bad, but not good either, holes at the ends, not consistent allong its length.
Anyway, undeterred I went ahead with an inlet manifold build. Tubes extruded tube, flanges (engine side) a cut off cast Honda inlet, (carb side a pair of Toyota flanges from a 1600 twincam). Using a jig to hold the carb sides together, with the tubes squeezed to match the honda flange I set to.
I ran out of gas half way allong, but this gave me a chance to connect up my Lincoln footpedal. What a revelation! Set the max amps to 190, pre gas to 2 seconds, post to 6 and away to go. I soon found the footpedal wasn't as easy as I thought, but gave much better control of the pool, especially given the dissimilar thicknesses of the flanges to tubes. One other thing had improved since starting this job - I have read the ally tig welding tutorial on this forum, so thanks to, Richard was it?
I've come to understand the burning and oxidising I was experiencing was from too low amps and too long a stick-out - up the amps on a shorter tungsten and keep the arc short works well. I've got good enough to be able to weld inside the flanges with longer tip, which is no mean feat since the join is at least 20mm inside.
Anyhow, I'll post the pics, you experts won't be impressed, but believe me I am!
Some things still to urgently fix though - the welding bench is a chest freezer and I can't get my legs under it! My stool is a fixed wooden one, and the welder is too far away so the cables pull. Oh, and I really would like a turntable.
So thanks forum, you've been really helpful, pics to follow.
I made a cube out of 2mm sheet just for practice, I'll put up a pic. It wasn't bad, but not good either, holes at the ends, not consistent allong its length.
Anyway, undeterred I went ahead with an inlet manifold build. Tubes extruded tube, flanges (engine side) a cut off cast Honda inlet, (carb side a pair of Toyota flanges from a 1600 twincam). Using a jig to hold the carb sides together, with the tubes squeezed to match the honda flange I set to.
I ran out of gas half way allong, but this gave me a chance to connect up my Lincoln footpedal. What a revelation! Set the max amps to 190, pre gas to 2 seconds, post to 6 and away to go. I soon found the footpedal wasn't as easy as I thought, but gave much better control of the pool, especially given the dissimilar thicknesses of the flanges to tubes. One other thing had improved since starting this job - I have read the ally tig welding tutorial on this forum, so thanks to, Richard was it?
I've come to understand the burning and oxidising I was experiencing was from too low amps and too long a stick-out - up the amps on a shorter tungsten and keep the arc short works well. I've got good enough to be able to weld inside the flanges with longer tip, which is no mean feat since the join is at least 20mm inside.
Anyhow, I'll post the pics, you experts won't be impressed, but believe me I am!
Some things still to urgently fix though - the welding bench is a chest freezer and I can't get my legs under it! My stool is a fixed wooden one, and the welder is too far away so the cables pull. Oh, and I really would like a turntable.
So thanks forum, you've been really helpful, pics to follow.