Practice practice practice. Take your time to get control of the pool before you start adding filler.
1. Get comfortable
2. A good heavy bench with a clean surface to allow a good earth.
3. Clean the material with a light scotchbrite if its old material. Avoid using wire wheels and brush's. (these add contaminants)
4. Weigh down the work piece with a scrap metal. This helps earth the job and keep it from moving.
Keep practicing. Get some new 2mm sheet and just run straight welds until you've got used to how adjusting techniques and settings has an effect.
Keep it simple to start with otherwise you may get frustrated and stop trying. Hope you enjoy it.
Scotchbrite is an absolute no-no if you want sound aluminium welds. Many have soaps and detergents built in to combat clogging.
There are no problems to using stainless steel wire brushes as long as they are dedicated to aluminium.
It depends on what level you’re working too. Are you regularly having your welds subjected to X-ray and micro examination?Really? Not what I've been taught. Green scotch-brite has always worked for us for aluminium, people all over the world use it for aluminium, and looking on the 3M website there's no mention of detergents? It's just an abrasive?!
ah i see nah none of our stuff is code, it's mostly sheetmetal ductings and guards etc. Never had any problems with porosity or anything though, always came out clean shiny solid welds. Using 1050, 4043 and 5356 filler on various grades of pure, 4000 and 6000 alloy.
Needs to be something that evaporated quickly leaving no residueHmm, don't have any acetone, and IPA would be a waste of good beer no?
I'll see what I can find
It depends on what level you’re working too. Are you regularly having your welds subjected to X-ray and micro examination?
Like I said it’s not all scotchbrite, but some do contain soaps/detergents.
You can see it if sometimes when you start getting smears, then the smears come off with solvent.
We used to have parts some parts acid dipped before we welded them, but then they started dipping, then carrying out the finishing stage ready for paint, which was basically, DA with 80-120 grit and then a go over with a scotchbrite pad, then they’d get us to weld, then they would just knock the outside corners off.
Constant problems with porosity. Fairly large voids at all different places in the weld.
Obviously we were blamed for the rework.
Tried different filler, welding slower, faster, hotter, cooler. Made no odds.
Until they went back to scotchbriting the part after welding. Which took longer, because they had to work around tabs and fittings.
I’ve never snapped a lump off the tungsten after a touch down. I just regrind it back up. Perhaps it’s the expectation for high critical x ray work but certainly never found it necessary for what I do
If your insisting on doing it then snapping in the vice isn’t a good method. Tungsten is extremely hard and brittle and there is a good chance that snapping them could lead to hair line cracks running down the length. The method best would be to cut them on a little diamond wheel then you don’t risk cracking them. Personally I wouldn’t bother at all and just grind the tip back.
I’ve never heard of a particular tungsten grade producing shinier welds than another. That’s a new one for me. The shine on the weld is usually down to a few things but tungsten type isn’t one that I know of. Usually things like :
Consumable type
Consumable cleanliness
Material cleanliness
Balance setting
Heat input