I’ve never TIG welded before, and I really needed to learn, so i tried today on my lunch break.
Practice 1:
Practice 2:
Then I thought I was competent enough to weld a mounting bung to my new catch can. It was a good thing to start on because you can’t really see it, but it came out OK for a first try:
Not bad. The first one has a spot that looks like you taught birds to shit in unison, but the others are damn nice for a first timer.
good stuff!
just takes time.
for a first time its a good fucking job
Looks good:tup: Wanna weld my wheels when I widen them;)
Def real good for a first time. TIG welding is fun. :tup:
Nice :o
What kinda machines do they have at your work? (you work a derrick, right?)
Looks pretty good though.
Aluminum is pretty tough to learn on though…
Get some scrap carbon steel, grind the mill scale off of it…
Also, You could clean that up if you want to make it look better and weld a shitload easier (doesn’t look like you cleaned it first, or you did then waited a while to take the picture)
Quick metallurgy lesson here for anyone who wants it… I know a lot of you guys weld aluminum in shops and such.
Aluminum has a surface coating, called Aluminum Oxide.
The second Aluminum is expose to the atmosphere gasses it begins to oxidize.
Aluminum Oxide melts at approx 2.1k degrees Celsius… (2072C to be exact I think?)
Cool beans, right?
Right.
Aluminum melts somewhere around 700C. (661 IIRC)
Sooo when the Oxide gets melted through, all that heat will carry right the fuck though and… well, you get the picture.
It’s kinda like a shield in a game, ahaha. Like Lots of shields, and not very much hull/armor or whatever. As soon as the shield is gone, youch.
Anyway, enough of that, lol.
Sooo just Scrub teh shizzle out of the Aluminum with a Stainless steel wire brush that has not been used on Carbon steel ever before (If it has been, bits of carbon can get embedded in the Aluminum, which will cause some contamination when welded… Doesn’t really matter for just dicking around, but for Xray specs, it does).
For just dicking around I mean… you don’t have to, depends on what kinda machine youre using.
But it only takes a few secs to scrub it up, and really really makes a world of a difference.
Even after you scrub it you’ll know when you’ve scrubbed enough.
The part you scrubbed should be very dull and not reflective.
The part you didn’t scrub, should still be like… Aluminum ;p all shiny and reflective.
gotta weld it up pretty soon after you’ve scrubbed though, because it’ll start to oxidize right away (even as youre scrubbing). So don’t like… Scrub, go to lunch then come back and expect it to have done any good.
A stainless wire wheel on a grinder would work just as good as well.
Provided once again, not used on CS.
(this wasn’t directed at you newman, just everyone in general who welds aluminum and can tell that they didn’t clean it first)
Oh yeah, TIG welding Alu with 100% Argon is a must. No mixing Oxygen (Sometimes Helium is k), considering that will just oxidize the aluminum and bend you over.
Really depends on the machine tbh.
If it’s a modern day one, with good AC features (so you can balance the +/- AC wave, timing, etc…), you may not even have to clean it -.-
I still always do.
But hey, what’s my D1.2 Cert mean anyway. :S
hahahahahahaha, that’s great, I’ve never heard that one before lol.
Looks better than some of the crap floating around out there…
:tup:
I need to do this.
Red Scotch Brite pad and acetone seems to work pretty good before welding aluminum to take the oxide off and remove and oils
I just used a wire wheel that had certainly been used on mild steel.
Nice work… So why did you “need” to learn TIG?
Because welding aluminum with a spool gun fucking sucks, and I’m sick of asking the guys at work to do all my aluminum stuff.
And it’s a LIFE SKILL. haha
Someone give me the cliffnotes on what makes a good weld or not
Well, what makes a good weld isn’t aesthetic, it can only be determined by xray or destructive testing, factors include penetration, solidity and a few other factors.
However, in the car world a “good weld” is something that’s clean and straight and consistent.
It’s also something that 98% of people can’t do even a little bit, but are internet experts and critique the hell out of anyway.
ahh, :tup:
Those look good Newman, only going to get better. I just learned how to TIG weld myself. Certainly harder then I expected.
Not bad Newman. Learning on aluminum is much harder than learning on steel first then going to aluminum.
