Welding Tips and Tricks

Any tips on welding 16ga to 1/8 aluminum. It was really tricky because the edge of the 16ga wanted to melt away before I could get the 1/8 square wall to puddle.

You can preheat the 1/8 first, or, strike your arc on the 1/8 then wick over to the seam and add filler promptly. Arc focus is pretty critical with this.

back up the thiner alum with a thicker piece of copper

Even with backing which the angle provides, this is a more challenging weld as you've discovered, get in quick and move, looks like you've done good so far...

LtBadd wrote:Even with backing which the angle provides, this is a more challenging weld as you've discovered, get in quick and move, looks like you've done good so far...

Thank you, I have one more weld to do so I will try a backer with it.

cj737 wrote:You can preheat the 1/8 first, or, strike your arc on the 1/8 then wick over to the seam and add filler promptly. Arc focus is pretty critical with this.

So striking the arc and wicking the puddle over worked great! thanks! I added filler right away and everything went smooth