Welding Tips and Tricks

New to this forum and wanted to say hi to everyone. i have been welding stick and oxy torch welding for many years and i now finally got my first tig welder. i am planning on welding thin aluminum for now and then get a bigger machine for thicker material. i have been practicing for a good couple of weeks now and my welds are almost as good as my oxy/acet torch welds are on steel. i have a few projects that i would like to do using aluminum material but my question is how do you cut aluminum sheet and aluminum pipe/tube ( square, round, or angle)?

i have seen lots of people welding boxes and square tube that are nicely cut but they never say with what they used to cut the material>

thanks and i hope to keep learning from the you here.

First I wanna say Welcome. Next, there are a few different ways. 1. Abrasive cut-off wheels (wether on a grinder or a chop saw) 2. Chop saw with a carbide blade. 3. Band saw 4. plasma cutter. 5. Nibbler or shear (for thin sheet)

I agree with everything Jim said above. I've also used a table saw to cut sheet aluminum and diamond plate. A carbide tipped blade with at least 80 tpi will give a nice clean cut. Using a stick coolant on the blade helps it a lot. Be very careful not to let the sheet bind up on the blade. The result can be very painful!

There are specially made carbide tipped blades for the chopsaw and table saw. They are usually at least 80 to 100 tpi ,and are good for plastics, laminates and non ferrous metals. There is usually a different rake angle on these blades over what you might normally use for rough cutting plywood.


Steve

I've cut thin aluminuim on my table saw with a fine tooth blade installed BACKWARDS, and sprayed WD-40 along the cut (on top, BEFORE cutting!!). -corn-