Welding advice

Have you welded aluminium before Sam?. It is not the easyist of things to do, you can MIG weld it (using a special welding wire and gas) but it is far easier to TIG weld it. But TIG welding it's self is not easy!. I used to be a welder by trade and although the majority of our work was steel, the odd bit of Aluminium work came in. I was crap at it, spent a whole day practising and in the end gave up and let my mate do it....who has been welding for 15 years or so and made it look sooooo easy!!!!!.

Dom J

Hi Dom, no i have not welded aluminium before but i fancy giving it a try, would be with a mig as tigs are a tad on the pricey side..i have heard from other people that it is not easy, what are the problems likely to be encountered ? is it burn through or warping ? im quite a patient person and have a few odd bits of aluminium lying around that i can practice with, so low settings and take my time ? i didnt realise you needed different gas also, argon i presume or mix...hmm, ok maybe i wont bother ;o)

On or around Tue, 27 Jan 2004 21:18:13 +0000 (UTC), "sam" enlightened us thusly:

yep, pure argon. ally wire forever jams in the liner, aluminium melts to nothing quicker than you can say pfft.

seriosuly, I'd not bother - get a second hand panel or a pattern one from Paddock or other suppliers. And I'm a welder too...

welding thick ally is bad enough, welding thin panels... nah. (and the original LR panels aren't plain aluminium, either, they're an alloy known as birmabright)

You need Argon gas and aluminium wire. You will, likely as not, need a new sleeve for your wire feed and a VERY good wire feed mechanism. Use a fresh tip and shroud as well. A sleeve that has been used for steel tends to be rough and contaminated and will add small quantities of iron oxide to the wire and make it difficult to feed which is bad ! Aluminium wire is a real pain to feed and most "hobby" migs aren't consistent enough or smooth/gentle enough to feed more than a few feet between snarl ups. Shops that weld ali and steel regularly usually have a different torch and feed for each material, hence the ease of the "eurotorch" setup for swapping the torch when you swap the wire.

The benefit of aluminium welding is that it teaches you the optimum position for the gun both in angle and distance as anything more than a few mm away from that and the weld is abysmal where in steel it can still look good :-)

If you can afford the Argon etc... then it's worth having a go. Then you can find someone local with a TIG welder to do the job properly afterwards ! Go for one of those small disposable gas cylinders first - it'll give you about 15 minutes welding by which time you'll either love it or hate it...

Cleanliness is crucial, even more so than steel welding, and you'll find that the aluminium itself is far more likely to be inconsistent. Just when you get a nice run going you'll hit a part of the material that has a slightly different structure and the whole lot goes to the dogs.

cheers

Dave W.

Decent aluminium welding needs high frequency AC TIG. Its a bastard metal.

What SECTION are you welding - aluminium needs a lot of heat, because its so conductive. But one false move and it melts like cheese....

Steve

Much obliged to you all, thanks for advice...all sounds a bit of a pain indeed, i will spend a few nights with scrap and see what happens for my own curiosity if nothing else..not too hopefull tho thanks again :o)

Possibly a bit late here, but if you want to weld Land Rover panels then you can do so using a product called lumiweld. It's available from Frost auto restoration chaps, and will only require a gas (oxy/act) welding torch, no MIG/TIG needed :)

Seriously, I wouldn't bother even buying a small bottle of gas and wire for your MIG if you want to have a bash at LR panels - as others have said, you'll just make bigger holes.

Regards

William MacLeod

On or around Tue, 27 Jan 2004 22:16:21 +0000 (UTC), Dave White enlightened us thusly:

that sounds a lot like my experience of it, which is why I don't bother.

However. There were some lot at the ally pally bike show one year selling stuff called technoweld, which works at normal air-fuel torch temperatures and appears to be bloody amazing. among other things, they'd got a bit of approx 18G ally plate welded to an aluminium beer can.

worth a look for repairing ally panels, maybe. you'll still have to get around the distortion thing.

Hi all one very silly question can you old style gas weld ally ????

Rich

is that any good for general aluminum as well?

Yes. In a nutshell :)

Regards

William MacLeod

Oddly enough I bought some Lumiweld rods 2 years ago at a Model Engineering exhibition - passed their stall at the same event this year and said to a friend 'bought that stuff 2 years ago and never used it!'

Murphy's law came into play yesterday, and the cast aluminium lower hinge bracket on my shop door fractured. Tried the Lumiweld and we're back in business. Lucky really as it was bally cold with the door off

Andrew Mawson

the frost website says it welds "using only a butane blow lamp as a heat source". Is my oxy/acc set going to be too hot?

On or around Wed, 28 Jan 2004 20:10:12 +0000, Denis F enlightened us thusly:

very likely. the clever thing about that stuff (which is i think the same as the thing I described somewhere) is that it *doesn't* require melting temperatures. 's more like brazing on steel. but the end result is strong, if 'tis indeed the same stuff.

On or around Wed, 28 Jan 2004 17:22:30 -0000, "Rich" enlightened us thusly:

yes if you're good enough.

you need the right flux, a small flame and LOTS of skill...

And, the right composition of welding rod. For Birmabright, I think aluminium/5% magnesium is OK. Pure aluminium isn't appropriate for welding Land Rover panels. The same is true for MIG welding wire as far as I know.

Nick

I understand one of the problems with aluminium is that it melts before it reaches red heat, but it's also a very good conductor of heat.

I've soldered lead miniatures, very fine pieces, with low-temp solder and an ordinary soldering iron, but it's tricky. The heat flow actually helps, but timing is critical.

Lots and lots!

If you're welding Ally with gas it gets up to temperature and you have a split second to get the rod into the "mix". The rod needs to be the right temperature so as not to poke out the ally. Don't even think about getting a pool going as in normal steel gas welding. The ally goes very much like solder and then blah.............. A big hole and ally on the floor.

There is a product about. I saw it the Peterborough LR show. They use a butane flame and it is more like soldering. Expensive though.

I watched a program on Discovery the other day where they were working on a (I think) Morgan and tigged the rear quarter panel and then panel beated the weld to make it disappear. On this program the guy (black guy, can't remember his name) gave up trying to learn and got the expert to do it. I've never seen him or the team give up at anything.

Methinks it's best left to the experts. It certainly won't work with a arc welder /mig welder as originally asked.

Ed

To reply, remove my appendix