Welding Tips and Tricks

Hello. I am new to the welding process, and I am currently working on a 48" round aluminum frame design for a tabletop that uses 1/4" rolled flat stock and 1-1/2" angle stock. The welder I am working with explained that where the square part of the frame meets the circle, it is too tight of an area to weld. Is there a way to weld the frame so that the gaps are minimal? The welder isn't TIG welding and tends to have messy welds because of large gaps with black soot and spatter. Any advice about the design, or for the welder that I could forward would be greatly appreciated.

The type of welding you are describing from your Contractor are aluminum MIG welds. The black soot is from the MIG process burning off the surface oxides of the aluminum.

Because he’s using MIG, the gun end is much larger diameter and therefore needs more space in order for him to get the proper distance to the work with the arc. In that scenario, TIG is the better process because you can use a longer tungsten stick output a much smaller diameter cup (even a “snout-nosed” cup which is a small orifice and long tubular cup).

There’s nothing wrong with the design, and unless you alter the design considerably, no way around the tight intersection of frame and hoop.

i assume the top is on the flat back side. where do the legs fit? just looking at what handles the loads.
how much load does the circle part take? if the load is small then a small weld would be fine and easy to do. maybe a bit of fine tuning the mig set up so its not quite as messy. however a few bb's and soot is easy to clean up.
also what grade of aluminum is it?