I've been using GTAW for about a month now, and I feel that I'm good enough to do some home fab type work. I'm taking a class from the Navy, so we've only been welding carbon steel, SS, and nickel copper. I had the chance to mess around with some aluminum only for about 3 minutes yesterday. It seems to be a whole different animal. I know all the stuff about cleaning, but do you guys have any recommendations for amperage settings, ect. I am gonna try and weld some bungs on a valve cover and I don't want to blow through it or anything.

Machine I'm using is a Miller DialArc HF. I know I need to use pure tungsten, and I need to ball it up. Other than that, I'm kinda clueless. Just set it on AC and go at it? The HF switch has a setting for continuous, I talked to someone who said I should put it on continuous for Al.


Modified by narfdanarf at 6:42 PM 11/16/2007

 

noone? Got a good rule of thumb for amp settings for aluminum?

 

hey im Navy trained too... i did my VC 2 weeks back.. but amp setting is dependant on your style/speed of welding... im on thefast side and had mine at about 90-110 if i remember correctly.....
vc stripped then wire wheel the area your gonna weld....
wire wheel the fittings..... clean the vc and fitting... tack it on... once you seam it all the way around then drill the hole thru...

 

Thanks I appreciate it.

 

You don't want to learn aluminum on a valve cover, they weld like ****. Practice on some 6061 Aluminum sheet or something.

 

Agreed, and if you decide to weld it, make sure you you wire wheel/grind plenty of of the coating around the fitting off or it does a lovely job of contaminating everything.

 

Cast aluminum that has spent its life in an oily environment is great to learn on

<buy a spare valvecover >

 

A buddy of mine runs a bead on a piece of scrap and then touches the tip of the tungsten to a piece of copper and it ***** the tip nicely. He swears by it, but ive never tried it. I run my miller 304 on 90-110.

 

Make sure you guys give him some good pointers...it's my vc he is working on...