Welding Tips and Tricks

I have been welding aluminum dry sump oil tanks for Ford GT's now for over 5 years each tank has 5 meters or 16.6 feet of welding. I tried every tungsten on the market and plus some then I asked Wolfram Industries in Germany for a sample of the Alustar tungsten made for ONLY TIG welding aluminum. I now have welded over 20,000 feet on the tanks and have only used 9-70mm tungsten's till they got to 30mm long (they only come 70mm long, packages of 10) and probably would not have use that many if I did not touch the work every so often and sharpen them. One thing they are not cheap but worth every penny plus some. It has saved me over one hour per tank not changing, cleaning or sharping them. They do not split or get all the little balls on the ends. My welder is a Miller Dynasty 400 and use a CK Worldwide CK230 flex head.

Gizmo

What qualifies as "not cheap"? I currently use 2% Lanthanated for everything, but in my case, I also switch back and forth to steel almost daily, so all the swapping around would probably not work for me.

Pretty interesting!

I'm somewhat intrigued, they're rather expensive for being half the length of a standard piece of tungsten, a good $10-15 over a decent reputable brand pack of 2% lanthanated from CK worldwide, Miller etc. Though not nearly as comparatively high when compared to Wolfram 2% lanthanated. I've never seen 2% lanthanated split under any situation, though I've seen it with 2% thoriated once or twice. I've tried most "standard" vararities of tungsten enough to agree with Jody with 2% lanthanated being generally the best at everything. However that doesn't mean it's impossible for someone to invent a superior aluminum only tungsten. I like to tig weld aluminum with a tapered point with the end balled. I find it usually gets me a nice uniform concentrated arc, that if I ground the right angle and balled adequately, stays very consistent within acceptable amp ranges. However, I've also seen, especially if you allow the point to ball naturally or at a high frequency, it has a propecenty to grow "growths" for lack of a better term, and not ball uniformly, requiring me to either regrind or ball again at higher amps to remelt the tip into a uniform ball.

In short, I'm intrigued, and might be tempted to try a pack of these as 90% of what I weld lately is aluminum.

You can ask Wolfram Industrie (info@wolfram-industrie.net) in Germany or (AR@Diamondground.com) in the USA for a sample Alustar tungsten. I do not know how your machine setting are compared to my Miller Dynasty 400. I use Triangle wave for .100" and under and .125" and up Advance wave my machine has 27 different wave forms and I have tried a lot of them just for fun and Triangle and Advance is my most used waves forms.
Wolfram in Germany phoned my a couple of times after I got the tungsten's to make sure all was working well, very nice people to work with and if you have any problems they will help.

Very Interesting, 20,000 feet, that's a lot of dry sump tanks! I would love to see a pic or two of your work.

Pete

I've seen 2% lanth split, brocoli ballup etc.

But I do keep in mind I push the tungsten right to it's amp limit and quite often well past it.

Will have to reach out to wolfram and see if their stuff will alleviate my tungsten cleanup and consumption issues.


Thanks for the info

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Oh and somewhat off topic now that I re read your post again.


How do you like the CK 230? Is it the same size as a standard 20 series WC torch?

I've been wanting one but worried it's larger in someway(whether it be the handle or the head) which is how they get the amp limit higher in that size category

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I have used a CK230 Flex for quite a few years and have had great luck with it, I love the adjustability it has. I would like to try out their Flex-loc heads one of these days as well.

Pete

Do you know if it's the exact same size as a standard CK 20 series?

I'm just trying to figure out if it's bulkier to allow the 50 extra amp capacity.


Also the flex love looks nice and good for certain application a but the bulk of my welding well exceeds the amp limit of the flex loc.

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The CK230 is a little bigger handle but the head is almost the same size, I would send pictures but I have not figured out how to do that yet.

Hmm been a while since I used the forum on a computer. I remember the picture attaching process was a little involved.

On the Tapatalk app though it's easy right below my text box there's a little add photo/file button and I just pick em out of the photo gallery or take one on the fly to be added.


But no worries on the pic, the handle being bigger tells me what I need to know. if I go with a 230 I'm going to have to slightly adjust my muscle memory so to speak to get used to it like the torch I've used for years. Always different for the first couple weeks with a new torch/tool.

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Got it figured out pictures of tungsten's E3 over Alustar and pictures of Ford GT dry sump oil tanks also torch handles.

So I emailed wolfram as I was interested in these. I use their Tri Mix. They informed me that if using an inverter like my Dynasty to stick with the trimix. The alustar would have an advantage on a transformer power source.

I was emailing Manuel Mar - Product & Project management at www.wolfram-industrie.de and his email was (mar@wolfram-industrie.de) I told him that I had a Dynasty 400 and all the different setting I was using, he said that should work just fine and it has been.
I use WS2 WITSTAR for all my other welding but for aluminum the Alustar works the best.

I believe that was John at diamond ground which maybe the US wolfram distributor

I am certainly not trying to be argumentative. Just simply adding to the conversation my small experience.

I have great luck with Alustar on my Dynasty 400 and like I said it was recommended by Wolfram Germany the Wolfram trimix will work on everything but I weld 99% aluminum Mig or Tig when you have invested a lot of money in welders that do what you do the most of it pay off my Miller AlumaPower 350MPa welds look like Tig welds but to Tig weld 1" aluminum plate the Mig welder is the way to go this is the first piece I tested with the AlumaPower 350MPa

We used nothing but Alumapower 350s and push pull guns when I worked at the jet boat shop as well. Good god is that some thick aluminum to weld, but we used it for the exact same reason, when you had several spools of wire going into welding hundreds and hundreds of not thousands of feet on 3/8" aluminum hull welds for one boat alone, to tig it all would take a dynasty 400 and a year straight to do. We still had a dynasty 280 sitting that saw frequent use for certain things like repairs, fuel tanks, where as great of cosmetic appearance as possible was desired or it was a small amount of very critical welding. But when you're approaching travel speeds of 30IPM with an alumapower and much less skill to training to reliably make sound welds with, it was quite obvious why we used them, any excuse I could find to tig weld something I would of course, but I was the sole person in the building who got to tig weld things who wasn't one of the two people who got to make that decision, you'd be paying everyone far more to get fully trained and skilled tig welders yet each boat would take 2-4 times as long to finish tig welded

Alright, I got in touch with diamond ground, and asked for my address to send samples to which was provided as of the 20th. So I would imagine they could possibly show up any day now and likely by the end of the week if nothing else. So i'll spend a good LONG while, warming up as I haven't tig welded much aluminum in quite a while, and then while I have no setup to capture arc shots let alone video, I'll man up and take some bead photos and tungsten pictures before posting my overall opinion, I should be pretty close to completely unbiased, I'm not convinced there is an obviously superior choice out there for aluminum than 2% lanthanated but I'd LOVE to be proven wrong. I have no agenda besides that, and while I'm grateful to diamond ground for being willing to send samples, if they're not something I'd personally buy over what I've been using exclusively now for a while, I'm not going to say it. So looking forward to testing them out.

Arrived today, I was exhausted but dragged myself out from testing, main definitive thing I proved today that just as you can tig enough aluminum to get out of practice on steel, you can get back in practice on steel and then not need to tig much in general for long enough to get utterly out of practice on aluminum again . I practically had only fumes left in my acetone can for cleaning both my filler and aluminum that I already know to be the type of dirty that you clean with acetone once, clean it a second time, then grind, brush the hell out of it, and then wipe it a final time, so I didn't get a whole lot of reliable head to head or pictures worth showing.

What I could tell and feel comfortable enough saying even so far is It balls far easier/faster than 2% lanathanated. Which isn't necessarily what I'm used to going for, normally I like a nice tapered point and a small ball on the tip, and I'll adjust my grind or tungsten size to where it Ideally stays stable, before I got used to using stubby gas lenses in only 3/32 I liked to use 1/8 tungsten with anything over 150 amps because I could grind a point, adjust the polarity to ball just enough to my liking then generally weld with a tapered stable tip without it changing much.

However it's also very stable and predictable, 2% lanthanated will on occasion just bug out for seemingly no apparent reason, it'll develop nodules suddenly as it starts to ball on occasion, will melt towards one side and cause the arc to go erratic etc. Most the time if I consistently manage to avoid dipping the same piece of tungsten for a long time it'll happen eventually and be the cause for needing to be sharpened. This doesn't seem to do that, it'll ball up far faster, but so far consistently, and not to the degree it balls past the grind entirely and becomes greater in width than the tungsten itself.

It's also funny how much changing tungsten can effect how things feel and you weld, though it was obviously a each weld more consistent the the last situation where I was out of practice, once I switched to 2% lanthanated instinctively I welded a more consistent wetted in bead, but I could tell it was more familiarity than anything I'd call better arc characteristics this early on. If anything the Alustar would puddle much earlier throwing me off on the foot pedal until I'd finished and it looked colder than it felt despite knowing I was using less pedal than I should've needed for that thickness.

I'll play around with it more while I get fully back in practice and also run some edge welds and the like which is where a more focused arc makes all the difference to see how it goes.

I will never go back to 2% Ceriated, 2% Lanthanated, 2%Thoriated or E3 unless the aluminum work is dirty and I can't get it clean will not use the Alustar use the cheaper tungsten's.
Just finish another 25 tanks and only touched the tungsten once with the welding rod when it hit my chair and pushed it into the Alustar tungsten.

Gizmo wrote: ↑Tue Nov 09, 2021 12:50 pm I will never go back to 2% Ceriated, 2% Lanthanated, 2%Thoriated or E3 unless the aluminum work is dirty and I can't get it clean will not use the Alustar use the cheaper tungsten's.
Just finish another 25 tanks and only touched the tungsten once with the welding rod when it hit my chair and pushed it into the Alustar tungsten.

Yup, I'll agree once it settles in, it' remains remarkably stable and consistent bead after beat, I've never much like ceriated, It's not designed for prolonged high amp use anyway and putting it on AC only makes things worse, I've yet to try E3, but unless anyone wants to volunteer a piece I can't see buying a whole pack just to check. Again my experience with 2% lanthanated is it's either Gods' gift to tig welding or a unruly nightmare. If I know I heve a headache project coming up I'll sharpen every piece of Lanthanated I have to hot swap/select my grind in the event of occasional unpredictability.

Pardon if I missed your settings above, but what do you run your machine on? I'll do my best to imitate those settings myself for experimentation, might even show up at the local welding school and hop on the Dynasty 280 to dial it in. I try not to intrude, But despite being graduadated I've always been treated as a welcome guest so might be worth giving it a shot.

Some of the setting I use with Alustar tungsten's on the Ford GT oil tanks.
Aluminum .060 to .080
Amps set to Max. 155A
Tungsten Alustar 1.6mm to 2.4mm
Triangle wave EN & EP same
Balance 72
Freq. 120
No. 7 quartz nozzle
Argon flow 25 CFH
Rod 4943
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Aluminum .125 to .250
Amps set to Max. 290A
Tungsten Alustar 2.4mm to 3.2mm
Adv. wave EN & EP same
Balance 74
Freq. 140
No. 7 quartz nozzle
Argon flow 25 CFH
Rod 5356
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AC Waveforms
Advance Squarewave: provides a fast freezing puddle, deep penetration, and fast travel speeds.
Soft Squarewave: is used for a soft buttery arc with maximum puddle control and good wetting action.
Sine wave: is for customers that like a traditional arc. It is quiet with good wetting.
Triangular wave: reduces the heat input and is good on thin aluminum. It provides fast travel speeds.

28 different Wave forms EN and EP
1- Advanced Squarewave
2- Advanced Squarewave with Soft Squarewave (-)
3- Advanced Squarewave with Soft Squarewave (+)
4- Advanced Squarewave with Sinewave (-)
5- Advanced Squarewave with Sinewave (+)
6- Advanced Squarewave with Triangular Wave (-)
7- Advanced Squarewave with Triangular Wave (+)
8- Triangular Wave
9- Triangular Wave with Advanced Squarewave (-)
10- Triangular Wave with Advanced Squarewave (+)
11- Triangular Wave with Soft Squarewave (-)
12- Triangular Wave with Soft Squarewave (+)
13- Triangular Wave with Sinewave (-)
14- Triangular Wave with Sinewave (+)
15- Soft Squarewave
16- Soft Squarewave with Advanced Squarewave (-)
17- Soft Squarewave with Advanced Squarewave (+)
18- Soft Squarewave with Triangular Wave (-)
19- Soft Squarewave with Triangular Wave (+)
20- Soft Squarewave with Sinewave (-)
21- Soft Squarewave with Sinewave (+)
22- Sinewave
23- Sinewave with Soft Squarewave (-)
24- Sinewave with Soft Squarewave (+)
25- Sinewave with Triangular Wave (-)
26- Sinewave with Triangular Wave (+)
27- Sinewave with Soft Squarewave (-)
28- Sinewave with Soft Squarewave (+)