Ally tigging

[PCRacer]

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.

 

[Munkul]

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.

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?!

 

[Munkul]

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.

 

[Munkul]

always 3M stuff here - plain green:

https://www.3m.co.uk/3M/en_GB/compa...314+8709339+8710653+8711017+3293943446&rt=rud

 

[minimutly]

I Accept your Scotchbrite differences gentlemen - either way a wipe with cellulose or suitable fluid should sort it afterwards. And maybe I'm not at the stage to worry about this yet anyway.
I gave it another go today, more amps, closer tungsten in the fillet (means more stick out which makes me nervous), and bloomin hell, I managed to set myself alight!!
Had just finished the fillet, went to study my best effort, and smellt it - burning lumberjack shirt! I'd poked myself in the arm with the hot end of the filler rod, and it was actually burning. So now my nice warm overshirt has a hole in the sleeve. Must allways remember to wear my cotton overalls when practicing, which I am still going to continue doing - and ask for you opinions please if I may?

 

[minimutly]

Hmm, don't have any acetone, and IPA would be a waste of good beer no?
I'll see what I can find

 

[minimutly]

Little steps again, fitted my new torch thanks to @FergalFarty for the plug. Also got my new adjustable height swivel stool, it was an ex barroom type thing, cut all the padding and cushioning out of it in case of fire.

 

[zeppelin builder]

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.

always cleaned the wire with wire wool and scraped the edges with a sraper before welding aero spec stuff
avoid grinding of any sort it embeds in the weld area

 

[Alf98]

I’ve always used Methyl Ethyl Ketone for wiping my Ali down seems to leave little to no residue. I’ve also noticed that if your filler wire leaves the gas it’ll become contaminated and leave you with a nasty black patch. I always wipe my filler wire down too just as that can be very dirty from factory. Hope these simple tips can help. Being a newbie to I know how frustrated it can make us

 

[DTS]

Been playing with AC on ally recently. On 2 different machines only electrodes I could get a ‘shiny’ weld was with zirconiated electrodes. Difference was night and day compared to anything else. Touch down with the electrode and the only way back is to snap off the contaminated electrode from the collet down (obvs remove it 1st) and regrind.

 

[minimutly]

I've taken to clamping the ball on the end in the vice and snapping it off, then grinding a chamfered flat end from there - is this correct, or even close to?

 

[Richard.]

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

 

[DTS]

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

Same kit & settings, within minutes. Same on a second different brand m/c. If you’ve got two or three types to hand, say lanth, ceriated and zirc. Be interested to see if you get the same results. Will post a pic if I get a chance to do some test pieces next week.

Got a DGP-3-v2 for grinding/cutting but in a hurry I put them over the edge of the metal bench and whack it. You can just regrind but in my opinion it’s not as good, the ‘flare’ coats the electrode way up and it ends up giving problems, again in my experience. Suppose it depends how bad you stab it in.