Welding Tips and Tricks

Guys, need your opinion based on your experience.
Know that acetone is commonly used to clean alum, but here in town I live there's no chemical store. So Acetone we got here is from a supermarket, it's in form of 'nail polished remover'. While Alcohol and Thinner is easy to find in this town.
The question is: can alcohol/thinner replace the acetone? Which one is the best?
And one more question: what kind of oxidation does acetone remove???
Thank you guys for sharing...

Steve.

Alcohol should be fine to clean you still need to wire brush the joint just prior to welding to remove oxidation with an aluminum dedicated stainless brush.

To my knowledge, no liquid cleaner, except diluted sulfuric acid (available from your welding supply store), will clean oxide from aluminum. Acetone, alcohol, and thinner will remove oils. Acetone and alcohol are better, thinner is mineral spirits and not as highly refined as the other two.

Lacquer Thinner works great for cleaning aluminum and it contains acetone. A paint supply or hardware store should carry lacquer thinner. An auto parts store that carries automotive paints may also carry it, but it would probably be a specially formulated acrylic lacqer thinner made just for a certain type of paint and be quite costly. I buy the cheap generic stuff in 5 gallon cans from a lumberyard.

nail polish remover is not the thing to use. It has skin/nail moisturizer in them usually.

The plain jane Acetone is what I use. I buy it by the gallon at any paint store. Last one I bought was at Walmart.

Have you checked Home Depot or Lowes? I got last gal of Acetone at Lowes.

We all know aluminum has to be clean as possible to weld.I have found if the aluminum is heavly oxydized to use Air Arc Aluminum cleaner and a s.s. brush.If you're preassembling, wash the parts in a solution of cleaner, use a scotch brite to scrub the parts,just like you were washing a pot,rinse & dry.

i never had to clean new aluminium prior to welding
only with a brush when repairing old pieces, but on new pipes when i'm building frame brackets there is no need imho, and the welds are perfect

racingparts wrote:i never had to clean new aluminium prior to welding
only with a brush when repairing old pieces, but on new pipes when i'm building frame brackets there is no need imho, and the welds are perfect

Perfect? Last guy who was perfect got crucified, if I recall the story correctly.

You've never had your aluminum welds X-rayed. That's not a question, so don't bother. If you want to call your welds perfect, you should be welding a freshly ground surface.

You'll immediately fail an aluminum weld test if you don't clean your material first.

To th O.P., as said before, acetone only removes oils and residue. Only abrasives will remove oxides. A stainless wire brush will do for clean material, a wire wheel on a grinder does much better, then follow with acetone. If you're looking for the highest quality, don't use scotchbrite. It leaves microscopic plastic residue behind in the scratches it creates. For the highest purity, clean your filler rod as well. Fine emory cloth will remove oxides, then wipe with a cotton rag with acetone.

Steve

If you have a farmers coop store around they may have acetone. Do a google search for farm supplies in your area. That my give you a good source if you cannot find it any where else. Also a decent hardware store should be able to order it in for you.