question

[Richard.]

Yeah she still sits there. I have been taking on a few little jobs to justifie it's position which is good because it's a real pleasure to use. The bad thing is a big % of the jobs I take on are related to motor bikes which keeps reminding me why I wanted to sell the bl00dy thing in the first place. Oh well needs must en all. I may try again later in the year. (When it's colder and the bikes are cheaper)

 

[optima21]

I tried doing this a couple of weeks ago with dcep and argon and 3.2mm electrodes, and failed misersably, but that is probably more to my lack of experience and never having tried to tig aluminium on AC before. I was trying with 1.5 mm thick aluminium.It was ok in the middle of a panel, but found it very difficult on edge joints as one would tend to melt back and the other wouldnt melt (but could do it if I was filling along a slot cut to a stop with tinsnips and welding from the solid end). another issue is that you are limited with the current you can push though an electrode using dcep as most of the heat energy will go into the electrode now as opposed to the workpeice.

I think I'll try and find alternative methods if I need to join aluminium in future

 

[Richard.]

I'm surprised it worked at all. If I only had one polarity choice it would be neg not pos. as you rightly said you can't put any current down that electrode in positive polarity as it will melt it like it's consumable.