does anyone here mig weld aluminum?

I have been practicing and it is terible! I cant get a good bead going, some of it sticks, but it is just drops of aluminum...

I prepped the area with a ss wire brush, that is only for aluminum, I preheated, but no go...

I know I am using the wrong gas.. I only have co2-25%/argon-75% right now I think aluminum likes argon-25%/helium-75%, but I didnt figure it would make the diferance here...

any help/comments appreciated!

 

Do you know what alloy of aluminum it is? Some are not weldable...

Also, do you have the correct wire for the type of aluminum being welded?

You can take a look at those two things....

dave

 

umm, you can really only TIG weld aluminum well.

 

the aluminum I am practicing with is just a piece of bar stock from home depot.. the alloy is not listed...

the wire I was using is er5356

 

My step dad just finished welding my intercooler...He used TIG, said he only uses TIG for aluminum...

 

Like it was stated earlier, some aluminum alloys just aren't weldable. But you should really use pure argon for aluminum, not an argon/co2 mix. Also, make sure your wire feed speed is turned way up, when welding aluminum you need really high feed speeds to keep it from flashing back to the tip and doing a sort of globular transfer type weld (sounds like maybe that's whats happening). It is also very important to keep aluminum REALLY clean, and try to remove the oxide layer if possible before welding. Practice a bunch on some scrap if you can, aluminum mig welding can be really tricky. Good luck!