welding aluminum

Gearhead · ELORA, ONT

welding aluminum

Gearhead · ELORA, ONT

In general, your wire feed will be much faster than welding steel and if you don't move fast enough you will blow holes in thinner sections. The welding characteristics are also very different than steel. The weld puddle is almost lava like as opposed to more fluid like steel welds. The lack of colour in the weld puddle may throw you.
Like IR said; clean...aluminim has an oxide coating you can't see. Scrub well with a stainless wire brush, not steel. Clean, clean, clean!

Forget welding thin and cast materials altogether. You need TIG for that, or use mech fasteners. Match your wire to the alloy as close as possible. 4043 wire for 3003 series alum or 5356 for 5052 wire for 6061 alum. Argon for gen purpose, lighter materials or helium for heavier especially if you have s lower output machine. Consider preheating. Spatter and smoke cleans up easily with a rag. Pull over push nets you less birds nests and ruined tips.... Need to know more about your machine...lots of stuff to discuss depending there too.
Ok, iPhone typing sucks... Ask away here or pm me for more tips

-- Edited by Gearhead on Friday 18th of January 2013 09:45:39 PM

Beachcat · WASAGA BEACH, ONT

Got a new mig welder and going to try welding aluminum. Any pointers? Any help is appreciated.

IR Mechanik · INGERSOLL, ONT

Patience. I thought I was a decent welder, something just past gorrilla welding (big, ugly, strong) but aluminum is a bit of a different animal.

Argon sheild gas, spool gun and clean. Check your grinder discs as well. There are different ones for aluminum.

what welder did you get?

Beachcat · WASAGA BEACH, ONT

Hobart 190 with a Hobart 100 spool gun. Could be welding various thicknesses.

hemi43 · ONTARIO

I would rather weld aluminum than steel (TIG). I just find it easier !! I have never used a spool gun (MIG) for aluminum. I never liked the way the welds looked, and other than being faster than TIG and only needing one hand, I can't see any other advantage to using it. Probably just as well, because my older Lincoln 215 machine won't accept a spool gun.

-- Edited by hemi43 on Monday 21st of January 2013 10:06:18 AM

carta · GUELPH, ONT

I,ve been welding aluminum for 40 years. The best advise I give to anyone starting with it is to completely forget what you know about steel. Play with the temp and settings. Make sure it,s as clean as possible, even new stuff. relax and enjoy the experience.

Gearhead · ELORA, ONT

Like Hemi, I much prefer TIG for aluminum. The problem with the higher amperage TIG welding is that it requires a water cooled torch as you will kill an air cooled torch fairly quickly. I've burnt out a few not to mention that they get too hot to handle. It doesn't take long to sink $4-5 into an new 250Amp AC/DC TIG set up with cooler.

Spoolguns while much better than the chunky versions of 20 years ago are still much more awkward to control than a standard MIG gun. Try putting the cable wrap over your shoulder if you feel the weight strain or want better control. Personally I hate them. I'd opt for a push-pull gun if I was setting up to do any heavier, production style aluminum (has drive rolls in gun head as well as cabinet - hence the name push-pull). It's much, much lighter and less cumbersome. Spoolguns can be great for reach away from the machine, but also has drawbacks in tight space restrictions.

You never did say what you are going to be welding...whatcha got planned?

Beachcat · WASAGA BEACH, ONT

Gearhead wrote:

You never did say what you are going to be welding...whatcha got planned?

At this point, I'm just wanting to learn.

I have plans to modify a prowler. Prowlers are aluminum intensive, not only the frame but many of the panels and components. I think even to this date, they are the most aluminum intensive production car made. So this is at the root of my desire but I've always wanted to have the ability to weld aluminum, just in general. The impresion I get from people is that you either get it or you don't with aluminum welding. Some say it's very difficult to do master, while others say it's easy. So I need to find out. The guy I bought the welder off was using acetone to help clean the surface before welding. Do you buy that? Seems to me to be just another impurity you are adding to the mix.

Pint and a Pound · AJAX, ONT

You should be able to enlarge this to make viewing possible, or use the link in my earlier post to take you there.

-- Edited by Pint and a Pound on Monday 21st of January 2013 09:50:25 PM

Gearhead · ELORA, ONT

Acetone is a poor solvent for degreasing. Some use MEK but that stuff is too dangerous for me. Toluene is probably your best bet but will do nothing to remove the oxides. You still need a stainless bristled brush to remove oxides (make sure you use this brush for nothing other than aluminum!!!! Washing with solvents periodically is also a good idea)
If you haven't used your machine yet, you might want to consider a TIG setup...you can weld anything this way...might be close in o/a costs but much more precision and thickness versatility.
That of course is just my suggestion. My prefs might make me biased

hemi43 · ONTARIO

Beachcat wrote:
Back to material prep, does it help at all to preheat the piece?
And does aluminum move around a lot like steel when its being welded?

The only time I will preheat aluminum, is if it's thicker than 1/8. If you have access to an acetylene torch, then "soot" the part so it's covered in black. As you heat the part, the soot will magically disappear at the right temperature.

As far as the aluminum moving around,the answer is yes and no !! I'll try to explain;

Let say you have a piece of 1/4 X1 piece of steel, and you tig a bead of weld on the 1" flat section. The piece will warp upwards quite a bit because the molten bead of metal you just put on it will shrink more than the flat piece because it was so much colder, and the shrinking bead generates a lot of force.

If you have piece of aluminum on the other hand and lay the same size bead, the aluminum flat piece will heat up so much more because it takes more heat ( and expand) so that when the bead of weld solidifies and shrinks, the flat piece will shrink more than if it was steel. Also the force of the shrinking bead is a lot less than if it was steel

So what I'm trying to say ( I'm no teacher by the way) is that the aluminum will expand more than the steel, but it will have a lot less warping than steel after it cools because it will go back fairly close to it's original shape.

One thing to consider when welding aluminum, is that the area around your weld will get annealed, and become very soft. This is no big deal if you're making a fuel tank, but it is if you're making a suspension part from 6061-T6. The only way around this is to have the part artificially hardened by heat treating, or leaving the part for a while so that it naturally age hardens.

I hope I made sense !!

-- Edited by hemi43 on Monday 21st of January 2013 11:26:07 PM

hemi43 · ONTARIO

Be carefull mig welding aluminum !! If you don't get your base metal hot enough, you may end up with a half decent looking weld but it will have no penetration. This is true for steel also. You should be OK with a 190 amp machine, just make sure you run it hot. My 2 cents

I use acetone for degreasing too, because it doesn't leave any residue. Lacquer thinner is not good either !! Toluene is awesome but way, way too hazardous and the smell makes me want to puke !!

I've never heard of MEK solvent!! I thought it was fiberglass catalyst.

My TIG was air cooled when I first bought it, but soon changed it over to water cooled. Being frugal, ( OK, cheap) I built my own cooler from a unit out of some medical machine. It's been on there since 1998, and has never given me any issues. I know there's special coolant available, but I just run water with a bit of anti-freeze in it to prevent rusting.

A dedicated stainless brush is a must to break the surface (aluminum oxide), but I also have a 3" dia stainless wire brush on my cordless drill. Another nice tool is a tungsten sharpener is nice to have but they are big bucks !! I converted a dremel with off the shelf parts and keep that on my welding table. It only cost about $30 including the diamond wheel.

Beachcat · WASAGA BEACH, ONT

Just a heads up that Toluene is highly carcinogenic.

hemi43 · ONTARIO

FYI;
Sometimes, when I used to TIG I would get an awfull sickening smell and it took me forever to find out what caused it. Sometimes it would get so bad, I would have to get out of the shop. I traced it down to "clorinated brake clean" !! Even if I had used the brake clean 2-3 days prior, the fumes still lingered and I had no idea. I thought I would pass this on, because when welding these fumes turn into chlorine gas, and that's what I could smell.

Pint and a Pound · AJAX, ONT

I've have read some nasty stuff about cleaning parts with Brake Clean and then welding on that part. Apparently it could VERY easily lead to death or permanent crippling. I do not know if the Break Clean contents have been changed to a "greener" list of ingredients, but I'd be steering VERY far away from using anything like that.

I won't wipe down any part I weld with ANYTHING liquid before welding ... sanding disc, sand paper, paper towel, wire brush, air blast etc but never a liquid.

Gearhead · ELORA, ONT

Wow...very serious tip about the brake clean turning to chlorine gas during a welding operation!! thats pretty scary stuff.

A neat trick to ball the end of your pure tung for aluminum welding (without grinding) is to break off the contaminated section, turn your machine to DC+. Strike or initiate an arc on a copper scrap and the tung will ball up - A foot control is the best way to fine tune the formation of the ball so it doesn't get too large

Gearhead · ELORA, ONT

hemi43 wrote:
Toluene is awesome but way, way too hazardous and the smell makes me want to puke !! I've never heard of MEK solvent!! I thought it was fiberglass catalyst.

Agreed, Toluene is pretty harsh

MEK is a solvent. We have it to reduce a line of epoxy paint we used once - my guy didnt want anything to do with it for obvious reasons.

Beachcat · WASAGA BEACH, ONT

It doesn't seem to have affected Hemi though. He definatly knows his stuff. Maybe that's his secret.

hemi43 · ONTARIO

Beachcat wrote:
It doesn't seem to have affected Hemi though. He definatly knows his stuff. Maybe that's his secret.

I'm definitely no expert, but being a tradesman for the past 30 years has taught me a lot.

hemi43 · ONTARIO

Gearhead wrote:
Wow...very serious tip about the brake clean turning to chlorine gas during a welding operation!! thats pretty scary stuff.

A neat trick to ball the end of your pure tung for aluminum welding (without grinding) is to break off the contaminated section, turn your machine to DC+. Strike or initiate an arc on a copper scrap and the tung will ball up - A foot control is the best way to fine tune the formation of the ball so it doesn't get too large

I'm way too impatient to go through all that work to get a ball !!!! biggrin biggrin Unless I have the A/C balance knob all the way back to "maximum cleaning", I just grind my tungsten with a 90 degree point and start welding. It will usually ball up within seconds.

Another thing I do which is probably frowned upon by the welding "Pros", is I use 2% Thoriate (red) for everything including aluminum. I really can't notice any difference from using pure tungsten.

Beachcat · WASAGA BEACH, ONT

hemi43 wrote:
Gearhead wrote:
Wow...very serious tip about the brake clean turning to chlorine gas during a welding operation!! thats pretty scary stuff.

A neat trick to ball the end of your pure tung for aluminum welding (without grinding) is to break off the contaminated section, turn your machine to DC+. Strike or initiate an arc on a copper scrap and the tung will ball up - A foot control is the best way to fine tune the formation of the ball so it doesn't get too large
I'm way too impatient to go through all that work to get a ball !!!! Unless I have the A/C balance knob all the way back to "maximum cleaning", I just grind my tungsten with a 90 degree point and start welding. It will usually ball up within seconds.
Another thing I do which is probably frowned upon by the welding "Pros", is I use 2% Thoriate (red) for everything including aluminum. I really can't notice any difference from using pure tungsten.

Are guys speaking martian? What balls are you talking about? We must be talking TIG stuff.

Pint and a Pound · AJAX, ONT

Are guys speaking martian? What balls are you talking about? We must be talking TIG stuff.

Yeah, the ball they are talking about is strictly tig speak. In a tig torch there is a small rod of tungsten (this is a comsumable and this is where the arc originates from), for regular welding (mild steel for instance) the very end or tip of the tiny rod is ground to a point similar to the end of a pencil ... for tigging aluminum, common knowledge (I word it this way because I have never actually tigged aluminum myself) suggests that a "ball" shape rather than a pencil tip shape works best. The "2% thoriated" is also speaking about the tungsten rod itself.

hemi43 · ONTARIO

Beachcat wrote:
Are guys speaking martian? What balls are you talking about? We must be talking TIG stuff.

Yeah, sorry!! These discussions always go off on a tangent, and not knowing everyone, it's difficult to know what experience they have (welding for example)

If you don't plan on TIG welding, then ignore us, cause we're just babbling !! LOL biggrin biggrin biggrin

Pint and a Pound · AJAX, ONT

Read this article regarding liquid cleaners and welding. For some reason I can't copy/paste the article itself but the link below will take you there.

www.brewracingframes.com/id75.htm

Beachcat · WASAGA BEACH, ONT

That is very scary!

Beachcat · WASAGA BEACH, ONT

Back to material prep, does it help at all to preheat the piece?

And does aluminum move around a lot like steel when its being welded?

Beachcat · WASAGA BEACH, ONT

Thanks, that made a lot of sense!

hemi43 · ONTARIO

I was curious about Beachcat's question, and this is what I found on Wikipedia;

Welding6061 is highly weldable, for example using tungsten inert gas welding (TIG) or metal inert gas welding (MIG). Typically, after welding, the properties near the weld are those of 6061-O, a loss of strength of around 80%. The material can be re-heat-treated to restore -T4 or -T6 temper for the whole piece. After welding, the material can naturally age and restore some of its strength as well. Nevertheless, the Alcoa Structural Handbook recommends the design strength of the material adjacent to the weld to be taken as 11,000 psi without proper heat treatment after the weld. Typical filler material is 4043 or 5356.

I didn't want to give the wrong information as far as time for "age hardening" because the 3-4 week time frame I gave is just from my experience, and not necessarily the correct answer. Unfortunately Wikipedia didn't give a time frame either, but I think I'm close. I guess I should have mentioned before that the material "6061-T6" (aircraft aluminum) means that "6061" is the type of material it is, and the "T-6" designation is the hardness with the higher the number, the harder the material is.

Beachcat; if you're concerned about weakening the aluminum frame on your Prowler from welding, don't be !! More than likely the frame components are made from extrusions which typically use soft aluminum ( 1000-3000 series). That frame IMO was never heat treated after manufacturing.

-- Edited by hemi43 on Tuesday 22nd of January 2013 09:35:24 PM

hemi43 · ONTARIO

Hmmm.. You better make sure that whatever you plan on welding, is in fact aluminum and not magnesium. Usually if a part is made from magnesium, it will have "magnesium" cast into it, but I would double check. I've never done it, but I think you can buy a small bottle of a certain type of acid from a welding supplier that will react with magnesium and not aluminum to let you know what type of material you're working with.

Edit; From what I'm finding on the net, vinegar will bubble on magnesium, but not on aluminum. I have an airplane rim in the shop that I know is made from magnesium, so I will try this test tomorrow and let you know the results. Too late and too damn cold to go out now !!

-- Edited by hemi43 on Wednesday 23rd of January 2013 12:30:54 AM

Beachcat · WASAGA BEACH, ONT

hemi43 wrote:
. The only way around this is to have the part artificially hardened by heat treating, or leaving the part for a while so that it naturally age hardens.

When you say age harden, what kind of a time period would you say? And would you end up with the same strength as the heat treating?

Pint and a Pound · AJAX, ONT

hemi43 wrote:
"leaving the part for a while so that it naturally age hardens."

I have two problems with that statement ... first off I can't seem to leave it alone biggrin and second, if anything, age seems to be making it softer cry

hemi43 · ONTARIO

Aluminum will age harden over time 3-4 weeks, but it will never go back to T-6. To achieve this will require heat treating.
After I weld aluminum, it's extremely difficult to machine it right afterwards (even after cooling) because it will be dead soft ( annealed) and the aluminum will just bunch up on the cutter. If I leave it sit for a few weeks, the part and the weld will machine nicely.

Actually, I re-read Pint's post, and I think he was talking about something totally different !! LOL It took me a while, but I got it !! Thank God for emoticons !!

Beachcat · WASAGA BEACH, ONT

Here's a blurb on it. The magnesium instrument panel was made in Ontario I think.

During the initial development and production of the Prowler in the 1990s, cars were made almost exclusively from steel. "There were very few applications for aluminum," recalls Abouzahr. "We decided the Prowler was an opportunity for us to actually develop some of this technology on a vehicle. The technology was new – how do you do an all-aluminum frame? We knew a lot about how to join steel, how steel manages energy, but in regards to aluminum, it was all-new."

"We had to come up with a concept to do a frame; the way it was made was called extrusion in casting, which was an all-new development process for us. When you put aluminum together using a process like arc welding, in some areas of the frame you weaken the material. We developed solutions to address these issues. After building the Prowler frame, we put it in a machining fixture and machined all the critical points, suspension points, body mounts. It was, and still is, the largest machined automotive part in history."

The use of magnesium instrument panels was also a first on the Prowler. Benefits of using magnesium included the ability to integrate 25 parts into a single casting, at half the weight of the previous structure. This technology was carried into the Viper SRT-10 where over 25 sheet metal stampings were integrated into a single magnesium casting to form what is called the "Toe Box." This part remains the largest magnesium casting in an automotive application.

DaveM · ONTARIO

The C6 ZO6 and ZL1 have aluminum chassis, with some magnesium components. The cars are 3100lbs. And all the upcomming C7 chassis are aluminum.

http://www.corvette.zorly.com/2008/08/new-chevrolet-corvette-c6-modernized.html

-- Edited by DaveM on Wednesday 23rd of January 2013 02:09:20 PM

hemi43 · ONTARIO

Here's a small video I made today. It's difficult to see, but the magnesium does bubble quite a bit;

-- Edited by hemi43 on Wednesday 23rd of January 2013 07:52:31 PM

Beachcat · WASAGA BEACH, ONT

Cool video hemi! There have been a few times where I have wondered what I had. With the Prowler, the inner dash is the only magnesium part and not something I would be in danger of welding on. Here is a shot of it.

Here's the aluminum tub.

-- Edited by Beachcat on Wednesday 23rd of January 2013 08:23:18 PM

Pint and a Pound · AJAX, ONT

Quote from Beachcat: "Prowlers are aluminum intensive, not only the frame but many of the panels and components. I think even to this date, they are the most aluminum intensive production car made".

Taken from Wikipedia regarding the Acura/Honda NSX: "The NS-X was the first production car to feature an all-aluminium monocoque body incorporating a revolutionary extruded aluminium alloy frame, and suspension. It was equipped with a mid-engine, rear-wheel drive layout, powered by an all-aluminium V6 gasoline (petrol) engine".

Not trying to start an argument but I think the Acura NSX is actually the most aluminum intensive car made. Aluminum body, frame, suspension, and engine/trans.

As far as aluminum regaining some/most of its strength just with the passage of time, I had never heard of that before ... very interesting.

Beachcat · WASAGA BEACH, ONT

Pint and a Pound wrote:

Not trying to start an argument but I think the Acura NSX is actually the most aluminum intensive car made. Aluminum body, frame, suspension, and engine/trans.

Not sure if you are right or not but the Prowler weighs less than the NSX and also has an aluminum tub, frame, most body panels, suspension and engine/transmission also. Body panels that are not aluminum, are SMC. Could be that it was the most north American AIV.

Point is it's aluminum, I have 3 1/2 of them and I want to weld on them.

hemi43 · ONTARIO

I would love to engineer something like this!! I'd be all over it like a fat kid on a Mars bar !!

-- Edited by hemi43 on Wednesday 23rd of January 2013 10:37:42 PM

hemi43 · ONTARIO

Was this a production car?? It almost looks like a "body in white". You mentioned you had 3 1/2 of them. Are 3 in running order? It's a very rare car, and it's odd to see one being worked/modified . It would be cool to have one with a 6.1 in it !!

Beachcat · WASAGA BEACH, ONT

hemi43 wrote:
Was this a production car?? It almost looks like a "body in white". You mentioned you had 3 1/2 of them. Are 3 in running order? It's a very rare car, and it's odd to see one being worked/modified . It would be cool to have one with a 6.1 in it !!

3 of them are running. One has no front suspension but it only has 18000km on it. One other one is stock and I'm pretty sure it is sold. The 3rd one is my baby and has about 20K on it.They were a production car from 1997 to 2002 ( no 1998 model). 11,702 were made.

The tub I posted was not electro coated which was a process that hardened the panels from T4 to T6. Normally the tub would have a black appearance.

It is rare to see one heavily modified.There are a few superchared and 5.0 strokers out there. I would say there are under 10 hemi prowlers out there. One is in Lucan, Ontario and I think is a 5.7. The guy I did the FB page with just completed a 6.1 conversion with a shaker hood. The problems encountered are the small engine bay of the prowler and therefore cooling issues although some manage to overcome that. I have yet to see an open engine Prowler but that could be done. The other issue is the transaxle ( in the rear on a Prowler) which is the weak link. WOT into 4th with a 6.1 will kiss the tranny goodbye. The ultimate conversion would be a hemi with a traditional transmission and IRS set-up.

Some more pics:

DaveM · ONTARIO

Beautiful cars.

There was one at the Ajax cruise a few years ago that had an LS7 in it. I believe LMC built it.

Beachcat · WASAGA BEACH, ONT

Beachcat · WASAGA BEACH, ONT

In 1999 Chrysler built a one-off modified prowler called the Howler. It never made it to production but it was designed primarily to address some of the issues the some customers had with the 1997 Prowler. It was basically a Prowler with a pick-up truck box to address the lack of storage space and also had a manual transmission, a 4.7 liter V8 and a dana44 rear end. At the same time, Chrysler came out with the new aluminum block 3.5 liter which boosted the hp of the 1999 Prowler to 253 and 250 ft lb torque. So the Howler went by the wayside. None the less, the Howler was a nice torquey V8 that sounded awesome.

hemi43 · ONTARIO

That look pretty cool!! I've never seen one before.

DaveM · ONTARIO

Must be a few LS7 swaps out there, The one I saw was silver orange and black.

That hardtop on yours looks good.