Gas welding aluminum???

I use a Prince spool gun on my Lincoln welder. It works fine for 1/8 and heavier. I built a roof rack for my Scout using 16ga. tubing, i would not reccomend using a MIG for material that light. I didnt get the welder dialed in untill my last welds.

Also note, aluminum MIG welding using a spool gun is not like MIG welding steel. Hold the gun at a 15* angle pushing the weld rather than dragging it.

Hope this helps

 

there on sale here,, pretty cheap,, i jsut might pick one up after xmas and give it a shot. thanx.. be worth it to try and build an intake?

 

The whole works has pretty well been covered here.
Flux coated rod.
Super clean area to be welded.
Cobalt lenses.
Carburizing oxy acetelyne flame.

No one mentioned using hydrogen instead of acetelyne.
It burns with a MUCH cleaner flame and thus does not contaminate
the puddle as much. It was used in commercial gas welding aluminum
almost exclusively in the "olden dayz".

I spent a couple years welding 4 inch irigation pipe over log yards to
keep them cool in the summer..You get pretty catty at it after awhile.
You don't dare "goober" for fear of starting a fire.

Oh, one other thing. If you build something like a race car nose that you are
going to have to hammer weld, gas welding works a whole lot better than tig.
The welds will stand a lot more hammering without annealing.

 

The only thing I would add...you need lots of tacks & a good fit for a good gas weld ...Ron taught me that...And the dillion/henrob is nice , but not near as nice to have as the low pressure smith regulators....I would skip the henrob & get the regulators first, and use new , proper size tips in my standard torch(I have a dockman ) and run 2-3psi. on 16 ga 3003...works just fine...

 

Was wondering when hydrogen was gonna come up. Thats how I was taught to do it years ago. Used the cobalt blue lens too, never had any eye problems because of it, but didnt do it that often.

 

i have tried a couple of times and it did not turn out good. i prob need to clean better. i used the coated rod from a welding supply. the weld in that video was pretty impressive.

 

Found this on ebay. What do you all think about it?
http://cgi.ebay.com/Aluminum-Weldin...984?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35ae4531b8

 

Just figured this out today at school! First step, is getting a pair of goggles for aluminum torch welding, there is a guy who came up with the design...they are like almost $150...pretty steep but it really makes the difference of seeing the puddle. I tried it out with a shield and regular goggles just to tell the difference, its worlds apart. Second, for your settings you really want to starve the acetylene..set at about 2 pounds, oxy at 5. When you are setting your flame you want the acetylene soft with a lot of soot still coming off of your flame, mix the oxy in and you don't really need the cone to be as close to the tip as if you were welding steel. Slightly heat the panel, (this process is similar to tinning before you lead) brush on your flux, then lightly wave the torch over your flux, you want the flux to look like a glazed donut that has been sitting out for a coupla days. If your flux blows off too much you probably got the aluminum too hot and it didn't adhere right, you will know because your rod will not penetrate at all, it will just sit on the surface while you continue to blow holes. From there, its pretty much the same as steel only you travel faster and dip your rod in the puddle much more. You can literally feel the rod traveling through the metal to the other side, so the only thing keeping you from blowing holes is the continual dip of the cooler rod into the puddle. Hope my 2 cents helps!

 

i hear its better for people who are making full panels(ie if you made a belly tank) because it anneals the metal before you start forming it and metal finishing.

 

You need some of these to gas weld aluminum. I have my set on the cl***ifieds you see here. I never had the time to devote to gas welding aluminum even though I did enough to know I needed a LOT of practice to get it right. These colbalt blue gl***es I ordered from somebody back in the 8o's, made it real easy to see what was going on.

 

Memory isn't what it was, but cobalt lenses are what I...we...used to gas weld aluminum. And, as a side bit of advice if attempting to gas weld it, by the time you SEE the puddle, it's too late. Here's the tricky part.....just before you see the puddle, move the flame and dip.
Practice, practice.....oh, yeah, and patience.