This may sound like a stupid quesiton but i'm unsure and need to ask.

I am welding up my intake manifold and hadn't paid attention to how much bottle pressure I had in my argon tank. Anyways I was welding away and probably ran about a 8-10" weld before letting up and realizing that there was no post flow.
I check the tank and it's obviously completely dry.

Now I know if you're welding steel without argon you get a big splattering mess, but the aluminum did nothing, the only thing is the colour is a little off from the rest.

My question I guess is, will the weld will be alright strength wise? I'm just kind of worried since there was no shielding gas.
Has anybody else ever welded aluminum without shielding gas and noticed that it welded fairly easy?

 

Aluminum tig welding w/o shielding gas welds as bad as steel w/o shielding gas. If you had NO gas, you'd know it immediately. Your gas flow may have been low, but you had argon flowing or it wouldn't weld worth a damn.

 

And you'd probably incinerate your tungsten

 

Hmm, as soon as I let up and didn't hear anything I stepped on the pedal and checked my flowmeter and it showed 0. There was still some argon coming out but it was very little. Guess i'm going to try and not lose too much sleep over it.
Usually when welding steel you can hear the argon flowing, but the 110hz I was using to weld the aluminum was too damn loud to hear anything.
The thing that really sucks is I have to wait until monday to fill the tank

 

your ok no need to lose any sleep.... like the guys mention above if you welded with insufficient gas you would of quickly noticed.

the reason you got lucky is that aluminum doesn't need as much gas as stainless, i get clean welds with a large gas lens #8 cup and 12 CFH.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by k24em2 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">And you'd probably incinerate your tungsten</TD></TR></TABLE>

you cant do it

 

Can't do what?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by HT Chaplain &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

you cant do it</TD></TR></TABLE>

You can blow up tungsten. It's awesome.


To the OP. You would def know if you had no gas. When it gets really low you will notice what looks pieces of sand floating in the puddle. If you are welding two pieces together it will look like the puddle doesnt want to meet in the middle of the joint and wants to stay disconnected if you will.

I would cut it out and reweld it if you can.