Welding small tpiece advice

[joelively]

Hi all, looking for a bit of advice and I wondered if anyone would be kind enough to help me out. I currently use a lot of straight alloy tube that i bevel myself and use to join hose together.

I also use alloy t-pieces like the one below but I have to buy these in, they're quite expensive and i'm restricted on what sizes i can use. ideally i would like to be able to make the tpieces myself, i have all the tube in so its a case of learning the best way to join the two sections together. The wall of the tube is 1.5mm and they are very similar to the one below.


I'm prepared to invest the time and money but would this be too advanced for a novice to learn with no direct help or any prior experience?
Is the below quite an advanced technique?
Does the fact that its small scale make things easier or more difficult?
I gather that tig is the most suitable method?

Appologies for all the questions but any advice would much appreciated.


Thanks.

 

[Country Joe]

Hi there,
It's probably quite a tall order to expect yourself to start by doing this type of weld, especially if you mean to use aluminium.
The item you show looks to be Tigged, which would be a much tidier way to do it.
If it is aluminium, you'll need an ac/dc tig set, as you can't get an "ac only" unit, as far as I know.
More folk with better answers will be along soon, but they might need more info - what grade of material, application, usage, will you need to form beads on the ends, as shown in photo, etc.
Some folk pick up Tig very quickly, so it's possible but tricky, but would get easier (& better?) the more you did, I imagine.
Hope this helps,
CJ

 

[Luke]

Have you any welding experience at all?

To produce something like the above, you need an AC TIG welder, which will weld aluminium.

A weld that is visually pleasing will take practice and good technique, both of which come with time.

You could look at taking a TIG welding training course, or buy the kit and teach yourself.

 

[hotrodder]

That sort of thing is easy and quick to make if you can weld ally.
If you've never welded before could be a long time before you're able to get neat, air tight results and the cost of a cheapnese AC TIG, gas and consumables will buy many hundreds of hose joiners. Probably nearer to thousands of hose joiners if you'd want quality kit

If that sort of thing is all you'd need a TIG for then the cheapest solution would be to find a tame welder, make the bits yourself and pay them to weld 'em together. Hose joiner in the pic would take a couple of minutes to weld

Hmmm, should proabably keep my mouth shut and open an ebay shop...

 

[langy]

As the other have said.
I make my own but only because i need custom Tee's and Y's but if i needed a standard unit i would buy them in a heartbeat as they are not that expensive.

 

[busastars]

You could always ask to see if a forum member is local to you who does Ally welding, over a coffee and chat they could show you the ropes.

 

[joelively]

Thanks for the replies guys.

The aluminium i currently buy is 6082 T6, i have the equipment to bevel the ends as i currently do this for straight bits.

I have looked at courses and there is one locally that covers mig/tig/mma, its the one in Burton which i know has been mentioned on the forum in the past.

hotrodder, you have a point and i had wondered wether the cost of setting up may outweigh the savings. Having said that i often need tpieces that aren't available off the shelf and i would save myself a lot of hassle if I could make one myself. Especially as i have all the aluminium sat in the workshop.

There is a welder local to me who i sometimes use for bits and bobs, i mentioned aly but he didn't seem keen on doing it which started me off on having a go myself.

Thanks again for the advice

 

[Ian D]

Prep it yourself, and get someone else to weld it.

 

[scott0031]

You would either have to anneal the tube you have 6082 T6 or buy a more suitable material that naturally has a lower T state. T designates the hardness of the material. T6 will crack trying to form those swages or at least will give some very bad surface stress cracks, which is not what you want.

I have been asked in the past to look into making these in volume. I designed a fixture in my head to do the positional welding. You don't really want to be sitting there propping parts together and it all moving while trying to tack etc. A universal fixture to suit different tube sizes would eliminate those small frustrations. Its OK if you only have a few to do, but doing hundreds would prove frustrating in my view without proper fixturing.


The rest of it has already been said.



Kind regards,


Scott (ward engineering)