Welding Tips and Tricks

I thought this was too nice not to post. At least I appreciated the skill here. A simple AC dryer made in the early 90's. Like to see the positioner they had. Every weld on this thing is like this. I was impressed as it cant be more than .050" after checking with thickness gauge .

That is indeed some beautiful stuff.

I love seeing good welding. It inspires me to just keep getting out there and practising. One day I hope to move beyond 'functional' welding to 'beautiful' welding.



Kym

That's not really too difficult to do with aluminum. You can tell that more time was spent welding the smaller fitting versus the larger fitting. You can see that the weldor had to reposition about every five dips on the smaller fitting due to the tight turning radius. The bead profile is far less uniform on the larger fitting because the weldor was able to shit and git. Contrary to popular belief, aluminum is NOT difficult to weld. It just has a steeper learning curve than does steel. It requires more current to get going, a steady increase in travel speed, and backing off the amperage as the part begins to really heat up. It will also swell up like bread rising in a bread pan once it gets really hot, thus backing itself into your tungsten if you don't anticipate and compensate for this action. I personally find it much more enjoyable to weld than steel because of it's fluid properties.
If you want to see what really is difficult to weld then try really thin walled stainless steel (16 gauge). That shit will sugar up on you in a heartbeat which means you just ruined the part.
Peddle pulsing is the order of the day when welding aluminum like in your photos. It just works out way better to pulse a curved aluminum profile.

Rambo -

I agree, welding aluminium is not hard. (Although in Australia, our Aluminium has an extra 'i' in it, which is a bit harder...) however welding it and making it look beautiful can be a challenge.

And I have to admit that I enjoy welding aluminium more than any other material at the moment, although I have to admit I'm yet to try Unobtanium.



Kym

Maybe you can see if Hugh Jackman will let you run a few test beads on his claws since he's from the Land Down Under too. Adamantium is about as close as you're ever gonna get to unobtanium.
I desperately want a bottle of helium to add to my mix because just cracking the slightest little ammount into any aluminum weld really cleans up the puddle. I just can't justify the cost right now. It's My Precious!

RamboBaby wrote:Maybe you can see if Hugh Jackman will let you run a few test beads on his claws since he's from the Land Down Under too. Adamantium is about as close as you're ever gonna get to unobtanium.
I desperately want a bottle of helium to add to my mix because just cracking the slightest little ammount into any aluminum weld really cleans up the puddle. I just can't justify the cost right now. It's My Precious!

Aside from Huge Ackman's adamantium, I seem to recall that some time before the earth cooled, Oakley sunglasses were claiming the use of unobtainium. Ah, marketing, eh?

Yeah, I'd love some helium too, but even affording argon can be a stretch sometimes. The helium will just have to wait until an 'accidental over-ordering of balloon gas' for my next kid's party.


Kym

MosquitoMoto wrote: 'accidental over-ordering of balloon gas' for my next kid's party.


Kym

Your wife will KILL you!

That was welded by a robot.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBX_pPm1QxM

We are lucky we still have jobs

Robotic welds are nothing more than an exact immitation of the person who taught it how to weld. I was looking at a crashed up superbike frame laying in the floor and I told the old boss that I can't believe these things are being welded by hand instead of by a robot. That's when he told me it is a robotic weld and told me how the robot gets programmed by a human weldor.

RamboBaby wrote:Robotic welds are nothing more than an exact immitation of the person who taught it how to weld. I was looking at a crashed up superbike frame laying in the floor and I told the old boss that I can't believe these things are being welded by hand instead of by a robot. That's when he told me it is a robotic weld and told me how the robot gets programmed by a human weldor.

I'm a software engineer by trade and when I was first learning, my father who is also an engineer, told me that if you ever want to know how well you really understand a problem, program a computer to solve it. As long as we require a task to be performed, we will need people who can do it well, so they can teach other people as well as robots.

I have a couple of buddies who are computer programmers. I'm glad you guys exist because I've never been able to get the hang of that stuff. I can understand some of it when I read it as long as it's a really high level language like python or javascript but i get dizzy every time I've ever tried to learn it. Syntax is my bane!