Welding Tips and Tricks

Hello guys, was looking to see if there was a video
of aluminum spool gun welding and how to help the cratering at the end!
I'm new to welding and have a miller 211 with spool gun
The welds are getting much better except for that!
Thanks

Fishbum wrote:Hello guys, was looking to see if there was a video
of aluminum spool gun welding and how to help the cratering at the end!
I'm new to welding and have a miller 211 with spool gun
The welds are getting much better except for that!
Thanks

The technique is often called "buttoning off", and applies to steel MIG as well, as the shallow puddle in a simple tail-off is a weak point in any weld.

The short form is to release the trigger while holding the gun in the same location and watch the puddle cool. About the moment the color gets hard to see (fixed lens hood) or fades to dull red/brown (AD hood), hit the trigger again for a half-second or so, and fill that crater as it forms. For a larger aluminum weld on a heavy section, you may need to to this twice.

Steve S

Some MIG welders have a crater fill option so that when the trigger is released, the weld current 'ramps' down and continues to feed wire at a reduced rate to fill the crater as it forms.

On mine (an EWM Phoenix 355 Concept pulse), the Slope Duration, Wire Speed, Arc Length correction and End Time are all programmable (as well as Post Gas Flow).

TRACKRANGER wrote:Some MIG welders have a crater fill option so that when the trigger is released, the weld current 'ramps' down and continues to feed wire at a reduced rate to fill the crater as it forms.

On mine (an EWM Phoenix 355 Concept pulse), the Slope Duration, Wire Speed, Arc Length correction and End Time are all programmable (as well as Post Gas Flow).

2014-09-22_17-35-15.jpg

You are into really high end mig machines when you get into hot start, crater fill etc. At least in the USA