Welding Tips and Tricks

Thanks for the great videos and website. You videos have been an inspiration and a great resource for me to learn welding as a hobby. I am not sure that I would have continued trying and learning without your website to refer for instruction and techniques. I work primarily with aluminum and currently I am building an 11 Ft Jet Boat from aluminum.

On a side note, since I started, I have also been doing quite a bit of business with local fab shops for equipment, materials, and services like bending or welding difficult parts of a project. This is business I never would have done had I not started welding. On my own personal experience, the more people who may be inspired to take up welding as a hobby, the better for the local fab shops.

I would like to request videos on aluminum welding in all positions in the 1/8" - 1/4" thickness. I realize that this might be a less common process but definitely would appreciate the effort. Hopefully there will be others out there who will chime in as interested.

Thanks.

I second that!

Where are you in AK btw?

With helium mix as well.

Steve49suzuki wrote:With helium mix as well.

You really don't need helium on aluminum MIG from a hobbyist standpoint. My reasoning for this. Aluminum is already a very hot process because it's spray transfer, not short circuit. If your machine does not have enough amps to weld the material you are working with, then a good bet is you have a machine with a light duty spoolgun. The gun won't handle the additional heat from using helium and you will end up with a damaged gun from excessive heating of its components. Same applies to people trying to spray transfer MIG on steel with might duty guns (those rated below 300 amps.)