Welding Tips and Tricks

I am new to the group, but have been welding for years, I spent 10 years welding on the Railroad thermite welding rail and arc welding frogs, Nothing fancy but repetitive welding on manganese castings and some gas welding on rails. At home I am welding 4130 chromemolly normally with gas for aircraft that I am building, I have the usual setups for gas welding, a Victor airline series torch and a Dillon Mark IV that I find very efficient for the 4130, I also own a Hobart 175 Mig and a Miller 210 synchrowave TIG machine. I need to weld th fuel tanks and will be welding .040 3003 or 5052 aluminum, Has anyone worked with the Dillon Torch for welding aluminum? I am trying to decide wich process to use or wich equipment for aluminum and am looking for some suggestions. I have used the Dillon torch for welding .035 4130 but have not spent much time welding aluminum, any suggestions or advice would be appreciated.

Gas welding aluminum was quite common before the advent of TIG. Every fuel tank in every WWII aircraft was done that way, often by wives and mothers.

In my opinion, the syncrowave is not the best choice for aluminum that thin (something with freq. adjustment would be better, and 400hz is fabulous), though I have welded .069 6061 tubing with it. To go the TIG route, with that machine I'd suggest .040 pure tungsten. It's the best way to a stable arc at the syncrowave's low end.

I do not know enough of the particulars of gas-welding aluminum to give advice, beyond saying you have the right equipment for the job.

Let us know what you end up doing (pictures?) as several of us are interested, a few are actually building, and even our founder, Jody, is a member of the EAA.

Steve S

Hey,

We have a member called "werkspace" for whom this post will be like christmas . He is pretty busy, but here reasonably regularly .

Mick

It would be better to weld the aluminium fuel tanks with gas as it makes for a softer weld, that is less likely to crack. I have the Henrob 2000 torch (same as the Dillon Mark IV) and it's one of my favourites. I also have the Meco Midget and a few Victor torches. The Meco Midget is extremely light weight and a lot of fun to use on aircraft projects.

I'm currently building the Zenair CH701 scratch build and also have the plans for the CH750. These are both STOL aircraft that can get off the ground in 80ft and land in 100ft with an all up weight of under 1200lbs. I bought a Continental C-85 engine and McCauley prop for the first project and will be registering that aircraft as a BULA in Canada as it skirts around most of the rules and regulations that get in the way of flying for fun. Canada has one of the highest weight classes in the world for Basic Ultralights.
http://www.zenithair.com/stolch701/index1.html
http://www.zenithair.com/stolch750/index.html
http://www.copanational.org/files/COPAG ... lights.pdf

As for the gas welding, keep your pressures no higher than 4psi for both the oxygen and acetylene. If you need more heat, go to a larger tip, but keep those pressures low or you will blow a lot of holes in your metal. Use the appropriate flux and try to preheat both the filler and the base metal by passing the flame over them. The warmer the metal, the easier it will be to control the weld process. Take your time and make lots of tack welds to keep things aligned. Practice on scrap material until you feel that you have good heat control. I strongly believe that if everyone learned to gas weld first, the other processes like TIG would be so much easier to learn. When I transitioned to TIG for the first time, I had no issues at all and couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about. It's all about heat control.

WerkSpace wrote: I strongly believe that if everyone learned to gas weld first, the other processes like TIG would be so much easier to learn. When I transitioned to TIG for the first time, I had no issues at all and couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about. It's all about heat control.

I agree. I excelled at gas welding. It was easy to visualize TIG for essentially what it really is, which is an electric flame.

http://www.wingsforum.com/viewforum.php?f=322 this should take you to my build log, I don't have a lot of closeups, but it will show you what I have started, Mike's buildlog on the same site is much more detailed. I can say that I know how to gas weld, but that was when we would have two welders with oxy-acetelyene working at one time on a rail that was a minmimum of 1/2 inch thick, I am talking Gas welding the stuff most guys make anvils out of, and the Good old Bethlehem steel welded so much nicer than the newer Nippon rail that trains run on today. though I have welds still in service from my first year on the tracks till today.
The 701 was my original first choice, but I decided to Build the Buttercup instead, I really Don't need that much of a STOL and I had some weight to lose, 213 lbs in 6 months.
My welds are always functional, but rarely pretty, but I know what I am doing with steel, I actually picked up this TIG welder when it was considered top of the line, but had done very little TIG welding before I got it, I still have an old High frequency Converter and a DC converting box too, I realize that most people would use the TIG equipment for aluminum or 4130, but with having to postheat the welds it was just easier for me to gas weld the 4130. Aluminum is a different thing and my welding work has included very little over the years, I guess it is time to break out some coupons and run some beads. I was just hoping that some of the old timers might have a few tips for me, But being retired I guess kind of makes me an Old-timer.

Trackwelder wrote:I am new to the group, but have been welding for years, I spent 10 years welding on the Railroad thermite welding rail and arc welding frogs, Nothing fancy but repetitive welding on manganese castings and some gas welding on rails. At home I am welding 4130 chromemolly normally with gas for aircraft that I am building, I have the usual setups for gas welding, a Victor airline series torch and a Dillon Mark IV that I find very efficient for the 4130, I also own a Hobart 175 Mig and a Miller 210 synchrowave TIG machine. I need to weld th fuel tanks and will be welding .040 3003 or 5052 aluminum, Has anyone worked with the Dillon Torch for welding aluminum? I am trying to decide wich process to use or wich equipment for aluminum and am looking for some suggestions. I have used the Dillon torch for welding .035 4130 but have not spent much time welding aluminum, any suggestions or advice would be appreciated.

if you're still following this forum and are still interested in welding aluminum fuel tanks there is another website about building a welded aluminum sailing vessel and it has great 411 on welding the fuel tank. it also has lots of pictures. check out "building odyssey"

I use the Smith the most. Hands down my fav.
I have a Micro & a Dillon too.
Like it was aid above - heat control is the trick - you can not back off the pedal so you HAVE to back away with the heat.
Make sure the joint is clean & fluxed.
A trick I like to use I call the ( shot gun ) You paste two pieces of filler rod together - the space between the rods holds a perfect amount of flux.
Make a troth to brush the flux on the rods.
Practice on scrap - before you weld your parts for the day - like a warm up - tune up for you mind & hands.
Get a good helmet lenses for gas welding use.
And one last thing - if you can, try O&H. Hydrogen is AWESOME....!
Acetylene can really be smokey and hard to see when it hits the flux . Hydrogen burns so nice & clean it almost looks like your TIG welding.

I finally got back to the site, and appreciate the answers I have gotten so far, Because of the weather, and financial considerations, my building has taken a back seat to my wife's schooling. I need to get caught back up on building again and will probably move my torch into the basement to continue working on my project, I am just about at the point where welding the aluminum and stainless steel sheetmetal is my next move. Like I said before, I have welded for a living, but these are materials that I am not familiar with. I believe I will try the Hydrogen since the Dillon is supposed to be able to work with any gas, they say it can weld with propane, but I don't believe that I trust it for welding a fuel tank. Just how important are the blue cobalt lenses, are they something that is really going to help or are they a sales gimmick? I know that the TIG finger sounds like a good idea, but I know it is not required, are the cobalt lenses the same way?

Trackwelder wrote:I finally got back to the site, and appreciate the answers I have gotten so far, Because of the weather, and financial considerations, my building has taken a back seat to my wife's schooling. I need to get caught back up on building again and will probably move my torch into the basement to continue working on my project, I am just about at the point where welding the aluminum and stainless steel sheetmetal is my next move. Like I said before, I have welded for a living, but these are materials that I am not familiar with. I believe I will try the Hydrogen since the Dillon is supposed to be able to work with any gas, they say it can weld with propane, but I don't believe that I trust it for welding a fuel tank. Just how important are the blue cobalt lenses, are they something that is really going to help or are they a sales gimmick? I know that the TIG finger sounds like a good idea, but I know it is not required, are the cobalt lenses the same way?

AO Safety (I think) makes a lens called "cool blue" that works great for Aluminum, available in shade 8, I believe, for gas welding (as well as shade 12 for TIG). The Cobalt lenses are no longer made. To get a real one, you'll spend $350 or more on E-Bay, and they actually have rather poor UV protection (not a major issue for gas welding).

Plain ol' green glass dirt cheap lenses work great on TIG aluminum, but I've never done oxy/fuel aluminum, so I can't make any promises. I can say I'd try a shade 6 or 7 green for less than $10 before I'd lay out the $40+ for the cool blue.

Steve S