Welding Tips and Tricks

Then I tried to fix the other side. It looks to me like bad argon flow, but what I'm curious about is where did the blue come from?

Let me try to maximize the spot.

Did you use a chemical to clean the aluminum before you welded it? That blue is not something I've seen, but it certainly looks as though the start of that weld is rather wonky. No gas, or tungsten touching the alloy, or both...

This happened on the second pass. i.e. All the ugly welding along the long end was already cool. I was starting a weld on the short side when this happened.

The metal has been welded and cut several times, I do that practicing. The partial weld along the right side of the spot may be from a previous weld.

I was thinking maybe if you hit the tungsten it could be vaporized filler wire? If you didn't then maybe a spot of contamination within the parent metal

Today's practice felt like it went well.

Here is a full size cropped area of the bottom weld. I need to see if I can get the picture to post of a close-up.

I'm working on keeping the filler rod close to the puddle and making even ripples.

Strange blue. Your practice looks good to me, even and structural. Those craters are an easy fix if you want. You using pedal, 4T or 2 T?
Nelson

I'm on a pedal. Don't have 2T or 4T.

Had another practice session today.
I'm working on watching the key-hole and dabbing on the top.

There I was minding my own business when this wasp attacked me. Well, not exactly me but the arc! All I knew was that the arc went funky just as I started. When I looked, there was a wasp laying right there.

Better him than you.

Insects love TIG arcs, it's UV light after all I have them play Kamikaze all the time whenever the shop door is open. They never get all the way down before they get zapped though.

This thread is a great idea!

I'm also soon to be a hobby welder, so it's nice with a thread like this to learn from others that's just starting.

Which size tungsten and filler?

How many amps do you set on the machine?

Gene.243 wrote:I'm on a pedal. Don't have 2T or 4T.

When you stop your car you lighten up on the brakes just before you stop to prevent that lurch when the wheels stop but the cars still moving a bit.

When I weld I do the same and dab a bit extra filler before the pool cools.

The thin aluminum is my toughest problem. If I haven't in a while I have to practice a bit before doing the actual parts.

Futterama wrote:This thread is a great idea!

I'm also soon to be a hobby welder, so it's nice with a thread like this to learn from others that's just starting.

Which size tungsten and filler?

How many amps do you set on the machine?

I'm glad to see someone likes it. I'm welding 1/8 inch Al with a 3/32 Tungsten and filler, with a 90 amp starting point.


No pictures today because Fido's butt.

nelson wrote:

Gene.243 wrote:I'm on a pedal. Don't have 2T or 4T.

When you stop your car you lighten up on the brakes just before you stop to prevent that lurch when the wheels stop but the cars still moving a bit.

When I weld I do the same and dab a bit extra filler before the pool cools.

The thin aluminum is my toughest problem. If I haven't in a while I have to practice a bit before doing the actual parts.

Many of my welds that I don't photograph get wide at the end. There is a point after about an inch that sometimes I remember to back off the pedal a bit. Sometimes I can get a button on the end, right now I am pleased if it does not crack as it cools. Yesterday I narrowed the width of my lap joints to about 1/4". Getting close. Today, Fido's butt.

I finally remembered what I changed on my power supply. I wanted to play with the cleaning balance and moved it toward more penetration. The result was not enough cleaning to see what was going on.
The good news is I'm back to my normal skill level.

Found this on the inside.

Back to my normal place to improve from.

That one looked a little cold so I tried 95 & 100 amps.

Try reducing the amount of filler rod you add each dab, and increase your travel distance between dabs. This will help even out your beads and flatten the fillet some.

A trick I've found helpful when approaching the end of a weld, is to begin tapering the foot pedal so I have to hold longer to get the same penetration. This does 2 things: it greatly reduces the cratering at the end, and it keeps the puddle from spreading out too flat due to accumulated heat in the base metal.

You can practice this on flat beads. Just make a 3-4" bead, get the start hot, dab, slide, dab, slide and when you reach the approximate end, ease back the pedal and make yourself hold there until the bead soaks in to be as wide as the rest of the bead. It's a very good practice drill to help with aluminum welding.

Your latest pictures show a tendency of over-filling and I would suspect that the root of that weld is probably cold or even hollow. You're melting the top of the plate (upper toe) which tells me you have lots of heat, but your arc length is either long, travel too slowly, or you're not pointing the arc into the joint. Or all of the above But you are doing pretty good work for being self taught on challenging alloy!

cj737 Thank you for your input. That was very constructive advice.
I'll give those things a try.
I can't take credit for being "self-taught," I did take an evening class at the vo-tech and the teacher still gives me advice.