Welding Tips and Tricks

Hello everyone, I'm located in Jeffersonville In across the river from Louisville Ky, just setting up shop to manufacture my product. I've done a little welding but need some info on the best welder Mig or Tig for strictly 1" sq aluminum tubing .090 to .125 for my saw table frames. I will start out with 300 frames, 6063 T-5, these will be powder coated silver gray after welding. Thanks in advance, Mel

Welcome. Mig or tig on aluminum is more of a question of quality or quantity. Mig is faster but it’s easy to have penetration or visual sacrifices. Tig is slower but penetration is less of an issue, and visual quality is just a mater of practice.

Thanks Josh for your reply, the appearance of the weld isn't to critical since the top of the frames are covered up with a table top, I also made a welding jig that rotates on a shaft so the welding positions should be easier. How long do you think it would take you to weld the 18 1" welds per frame. Mel

Just a guess but i’d Figure 3 min to tig each 1inch joint. Your results will be cleaner that way. Plus fit up time in the jig. If everything goes good that would leave a little extra time or profit.

Poland308 wrote:Just a guess but i’d Figure 3 min to tig each 1inch joint. Your results will be cleaner that way. Plus fit up time in the jig. If everything goes good that would leave a little extra time or profit.

Not debating the merits of TIG, but, once you start TIG welding those frames, you will have to skip around or slow down as the accumulated heat will begin to rear its head. Since you'll be jig'ed up, distortion and cooling and heat cracks are something to manage too.

As you will be powder coating these, clean up post weld with MIG is moot. They will blast these frames prior to coating and baking so any soot from MIG will be gone. MIG it and be done with it. You can get very nice MIG welds with ally with some practice too.

Never thought about the heat element, didn't seem to have a problem with the Mig I used previously, I sold my equipment when I had my product outsourced but that didn't work out so I'm back at it again. Any preference on a good Mig and what size I would need for light production.

sidetrack50 wrote:Never thought about the heat element, didn't seem to have a problem with the Mig I used previously, I sold my equipment when I had my product outsourced but that didn't work out so I'm back at it again. Any preference on a good Mig and what size I would need for light production.

Answered in your other post

Sorry, I didn't see any reference for a good Mig welder, is 220 a must for light production, I might do say 50 a day until I reach 300 then done for a while, then I shift over to assembly and packaging.

When you weld, 220 is ALWAYS better, but not required. It costs you less money to operate a 220v welder than a 120v. You can weld at higher amps, better penetration, for less dough.

If it were me, I'd look at a new, multi-process box from Miller or Lincoln or Esab. Hard wire MIG capable, and probably Spool Gun too. I know I said a MIG ally machine is better, but for versatility, a Spool Gun might satisfy you. If this type of project is regular for your business, then by all means grab a quality MillerMatic or Lincoln designed to run ally wire. 0.030 would be all you need with <.125 wall thickness. Especially with MIG.

If you really want to crank it out, use a 10% Helium mix with your Argon. Drives the MIG bead in deeper with less amps. Production efficiency=$$$$

Thanks for the info, don't have a lot of time to research a lot with all I have going on, just need the basics and I'm off and running. Just ordered a 30hp phase converter (no 3 phase), still trying to get my CNC hooked up.

sidetrack50 wrote:Thanks for the info, don't have a lot of time to research a lot with all I have going on, just need the basics and I'm off and running. Just ordered a 30hp phase converter (no 3 phase), still trying to get my CNC hooked up.

Do you want shop-oriented, or portable? Budget? Specific to aluminum, or does it also need to be steel capable?

If you want a full-on production aluminum MIG machine, this is possibly the cat's pajamas: https://www.millerwelds.com/equipment/w ... der-m00398
It costs enough to make it necessary to be a full-time box ($6k)

Or, you drop to Spool Guns.
https://www.weldingsuppliesfromioc.com/ ... &phase=106