i have a rather large ARC welder my dad gave me, and its your traditional AC/DC ARC welder, i was just wondering that if with the proper materials, could i do aluminum with such a machine?


havent seen too many of these on here

 

Yes you can ARC weld aluminum. You can't weld aluminum with SMAW. GMAW and GTAW you can however.

 

thanks


any tips for me

 

Have someone else do it with a GTAW welder.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by k24em2 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Yes you can ARC weld aluminum. You can't weld aluminum with SMAW. GMAW and GTAW you can however.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Just to clarified in case not everyone understands (no offense to the OP if he does) I'll translate these into laymens terms so there is no confusion.

SMAW = stick welding(aka arc welding even though they are all technically arc welding)
GMAW = mig welding
GTAW = tig welding

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by k24em2 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Yes you can ARC weld aluminum. You can't weld aluminum with SMAW. GMAW and GTAW you can however.</TD></TR></TABLE>

wrong - they actually have Al electrodes - I've seen them in a school weld shop, they actually make a nice bead, but I think it'd be tough to do thin stuff


quick google find: http://store.weldingdepot.com/....html

 

You CAN weld aluminum with SMAW; DC, reverse polarity.

SMAW is shielded metal arc welding, with the flux on the outside of the electrode.

Flux-cored welding is FCAW, and it doesn't work on aluminum.

See what this stupid alphabet soup gets you?

Aluminum, you can stick it, mig it, and tig it, but you can't FCAW it.

Read up on some real welding sites to find out how thin you'll be able to weld and possible settings. It probably won't work real well.

 

correct 40. shielded is smaw and fmaw is flux. sorry...lol

 

god we need a sticky that deciphers all the welding alphabet soup for normal people. I can see how they get confused lol. Maybe us that know should try to use more laymens terms instead of trying to sound smart and actually confusing people? Yeah that would be pretty sweet.

 

definitely. DCSP and DCEN are the same thing too, people dont understand that either...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by dfoxengr &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">correct 40. shielded is smaw and fmaw is flux. sorry...lol</TD></TR></TABLE>

They are both flux processes, the difference is stick (SMAW) has flux on the outside and FCAW is flux-cored, with flux wrapped inside the wire.
Sorry to nit-pick but trying to lessen confusion.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Bjorn &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">wrong - they actually have Al electrodes - I've seen them in a school weld shop, they actually make a nice bead, but I think it'd be tough to do thin stuff


quick google find: http://store.weldingdepot.com/....html</TD></TR></TABLE>

Thanks! Never seen that before, nor tried. Hadn't seen anybody else try before, and I'm sure that it requires a significant skill level before you could even try that rod.