Just bought the aluminium spool gun for my Millermatic 140. Holy shit welding aluminium sucks. Has any else tried mig welding aluminium? What were the results. My welds were horrible it boogered up or just burnt right through. Could not get a solid bead.
Yep, aluminium welding sucks. Aluminium needs to be clean to weld. I usually hit it with the 80 grit sanding disc before I weld it. It also has to have the right gas, needs to use straight 100% Argon. Also need to fee the wire in pretty fast, I feed the wire at about 2X the wire speed of steel wire the same guage. Welder polarity has to be correct also. Then after all that, not all alloys of aluminium can be welded. Other then that, practice, practice, practice. Gene
i weld aluminium all the time im my opinion its easyer tHen steel to weld.yor using a spool gun did you switch your gas to pure argon? or did you keep the 75 / 25
I just bought the gun and gas yesterday (100% argon). I sanded down my test(18 gauge) piece, but maybe I need to use some thing to strip the metal. Will break cleaner in a can work? I'll keep at it, but Im almost wondering if I may have better spent my 380 bucks. I tried several different wire speeds, with mixed results...none of em good. How bout the wire tensioner? I never thought about pre-heating...I'll give it a try.
Welding aluminium is easy once you get the right settings-wire speed and amps,start welding and turn the controls while your welding and you will soon see which way to go,wire size will only require a different setting
"Clean enough to eat off of" isn't clean enough for welding aluminum. Aluminum Oxides melt at a higher temperature than the bare metal, which makes burn through more likely.
We used to weld with a miller spool gun quite a bit. The gun we had was very fussy about the way that you held it,If the spool was resting against the spool cover it always welded bad. If you flipped it the other way and the spool layed against the gun it worked pretty good.I dont' know maybe ours was just worn out. We only use Tig now.
i weld Aluminum tankers all day. try doing 2 passes. a high wire speed very fast first pass, then turn the wire down very low until you get spray transfer, and the trick is to weave the gun back and forwards about a quarter inch as you go. i don't know if that makes sense to you, but pretty much move forward 1/2 an inch, then go back a 1/4, and so forth. you'll avoid burn through and get a nice even bead that looks kinda like a tig weld. hope that helped ya. Cheers EDIT. The time honored rule for aluminum is also, Hotter-Faster.
Thanks guys, Im going to keep plugging away at it and see if i cant improve my skills. Sounds like I may need to clean the shit outta the aluminum.
paint thinner! thats what we use to clean our stuff. also don't forget you need to push, no drag technique with Alu. http://www.millerwelds.com/education/articles/articles10.html might help.
Aluminum wire feed in my opinion is one of the hardest forms of welding there is. It is ment for high speed production work and uses very high heat levels. The wire speed is commonly 4 to 5 times as fast as the wire speed on steel mig welding ...Also If you are trying to weld material under 1/4 inch thick? Its going to be tough... Just getting the fragile aluminum wire to feed at a high speed through the long lead is damn near impossible with out jamming every 20 seconds. This is why most aluminum wire feed welding is done through a spool gun like an Airco Midget..... You should try Gas welding it....Or borrow sombodys TIG machine.... what are you trying to weld?
i weld Aluminum for a living. Aluminum Oxide melts WAY hotter then Aluminum, the outside will oxidize and the inside will become liquid aluminum, almost like a bag of hot metal. thats why you can't oxy fuel cut aluminum, an dyou need a plasma cutter. 3/8" Alu is welded at 28 volts with wire speed set at 7 on miller cobramatics. 3/8" Steel is welded at 31 Volts with 4.5 wire speed on miller cobramatics.
Cleaning Aluminum.... * Make sure you Scotchbrite off the film left from the Kilning process. This film is super hard to melt and will give you trouble starting your weld puddle. *Use Acetone Only(No oil base cleaners i.e. paint thinner or Laquer thinner) *Clean your welding rod(you'll be surprized how much crap is on a brand new piece of rod) *Dont use carbide wheels or sanding disc's to clean Aluminum, Carbide will impregnate itself into the Aluminum and never come out. Makes for a crappy weld. *Clean gloves on clean hands. *Clean welding surface...Aluminum or copper surface works best. *Aluminum welding will suck in all the impurities around it so make sure everything is clean.... Just my 2 1/2 cents......
Some of my tricks.... something I avoid is using is a steel type wire brush. Stainless wire brushing seams to work. Also... with every type of spoolgun I have ever used I notice that they get hot and you will experience what is known as burnback where the wire will melt inside the tip and plug it up because it gets too hot. I have been told that some folks will stick the tip of there spoolgun in a cup of water in between welds.
I learned how to gas weld aluminum in the late 60's, I learned how to anneal it, shape it and gas weld it,... I learned from Frank Mack,... maybe you should Google Myron Stevens,... He built the Miller aluminum bodied race cars,...... I guess you can learn something new every day ,......
well, you learn something new every day, i was always told it wasn't possible. sorry to doubt you, i guess it's just a rare art form not many people use. i haven't been welding for 25 years, but i do weld aluminum all day with mig on large tankers.
Kinda hard to pop off pic's of myself welding... But!.... Here's some pictures of the 10" tree stump I shot through with my S & W .500 Mag. from 50 yards away.... ENTRY.... EXIT....
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