Thin Sheet Aluminium MIG Welding

[galaxysivtek]

I am interested to know about the MIG process to be adopted if I wish to weld Aluminium sheets of thickness 2mm or 3 mm.

What precautions should be taken while carrying out this welding?

Thanks in advance for your guidance.

 

[aametalmaster]

I am interested to know about the MIG process to be adopted if I wish to weld Aluminium sheets of thickness 2mm or 3 mm.

What precautions should be taken while carrying out this welding?

Thanks in advance for your guidance.

Use a spoolgun if possible with argon gas and move real quick that thin of alum won't take much heat to burn a big hole...Bob

Some good reading here. http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/aluminium-welding.htm

 

[superls]

ive welded 2.5mm alu sheet with my mig, im using 1,2mm wire and pure argon gas, take what you read with a pinch of salt though, im using an oldish murex 130 mig welder and the settings i used for 2.5mm plate and 3mm tube were very comparable to the settings i use for steel, wire speeds almost identical, so are the power settings, before i tried it, i read up and people said you need almost double the wire speed and move quickly, i found this NOT to be the case, maybe its because im using 1.2mm wire???

you will need pure argon tho, not steel mig mix, i tried it with a mig mix first and it was almost like welding without the gas on.

you will need an oversizes tip, dont use a 1mm tip with 1mm wire it will get stuck, i didnt have any 1.2mm tips so i got a spare 0.6mm one and drilled it out to about 1.3mm i think, hardly ever got stuck. you will also need a teflon liner.
i had to make a new roller for my mig, only because the one in there is for 0.6 and 0.8 wire, and i was too tight to buy one and i had the facility to make one.
whatever you do dont have the roller tension set to tight, as WHEN the wire gets stuck in the tip it will just kink the wire at the roller, i made my roller and adjusted the tension on it so that whilst pressing the trigger i could stop the wire coming out of the tip with my fingers but the rollers would keep turning and not kink up.

hope this helps, scott

 

[Sir Sidney Roughdiamond]

I saw this on eBay and was wondering what the opinions are on here.

I have only ever TIGd ally but I have a 250amp mig that has been tucked away which would be handy for ally if it had one of these. It seems a lot cheaper than the Sealey ones that are usually found on there which is the reason i'm asking.

 

[awemawson]

I saw this on eBay and was wondering what the opinions are on here.

I have only ever TIGd ally but I have a 250amp mig that has been tucked away which would be handy for ally if it had one of these. It seems a lot cheaper than the Sealey ones that are usually found on there which is the reason i'm asking.

Yes I actually bought one of those spool guns the other day but haven't played with it yet! Need to rig up a variable voltage drive for the motor first.

AWEM