Welding Tips and Tricks

I was testing out a new machine and this is happening. I am also getting a white discoloration on my cup. Can anyone tell me what's happening here?

There's a little white stuff on the cup.

There's a grainy finish on the beads.

There's black marks on the bead, but the electrode never touched the rod or the work.

Running 2% lanthinated 3/32, 7-8 clm argon, #7 cup, 4043 rod.

Thank you!

Nils

WOW!

What alloy is the base metal you're welding on?

Second picture, bottom weld, there's an obvious CRACK in the tailing crater. Is the base metal 6061? I'd normally just say, fill that crater before you stop, but I suspect you may have a filler/base compatibility issue.

I don't see any sign of grinding on the base metal, either, and the "clean zone" suggests either difficulty breaking through on oxide layer, or arc balance too negative.

The white deposits on the cup are not unusual... That's aluminum oxide from the "cleaning" cycle.

You need to know what alloy that base metal is. 4043 will perform poorly on a substantially hardenable alloy.

Just some thoughts. I'll think about it more.

Steve S

The material is 6061. The craters are really not an issue for me. I know how to deal with that. But the grainy finish and the black spots are bugging me.

What rod should I use with 6061? The pic attached is 6061 with 4043 so I'm a tad confused.

Tomorrow I'll try a different lot of the 2% Lanthinated to see if that makes any difference. I've also tried a different bottle of argon with no difference.

Thanks Steve for your thoughts. I really appreciate your input.

When I did a 6061 pipe job, the rod spec'd by the client in the WPS was 5386, I believe. I'd never used it before, but it worked great.

I'm guessing a 5XXX rod is probably a better choice for a high-alloy aluminum like 6061. I've had trouble with 4043 on 6061 recently. Very recently. May be doing a complete cutout of a recent weld for it. I had cracking occur in the base/filler interface, like in the crater of that weld I pointed out in your pictures.

I was told the base alloy was a 53XX, but the plasma cutter said otherwise. 53xx cuts like butter. 6061, like a tough steak.

Steve S

4043 is fine for 6061. Jody uses it all the time in his videos and I do at work. There are a ton of other options as well 5356 is another good one that is about the same cost as 4043, the rest are considered exotic snd a lot more expensive so I only use them when called out, 5356 is my favorite, I hate 4043 but it is needed in some applications cause it does not get britle like the higher alloys tend to, so for applications where the part stay hot for long periods of time or extreme vibration 4043 is a good choice. There is a table that has been posted in the forum a couple times about which rod to use for which alloy of aluminum and the charactoristics ofvthem. To me it does not look like a rod problem, looks more like your setting are wrong having not enough cleaning action but I see your tungsten is rounded so my guess is you have a argon leak somewhere or your gas is set to low. I also noticed your tungsten was blue another sign of bad gas flow.

Moisture in your Argon? or kinked/clogged flow?

4043 is NOT "fine" for 6061.

I've spent the better part of a week chasing down micro fissures and obvious cracks from welding 6061 with 4043.

The last time I welded 6061 under a WPS, it called for 5683. I can't find this rod anywhere... Closest is 5183. It had to be a custom blend for the WPS.

5356 has been the solution for the faulty 4043 welds. It requires a complete grind-out and replace.

Steve S

Here are a few representative MicroGraphs of 6061-T6 welded with 4043 that illustrate the micro-structures.
Chapter 7 of this document. http://www.scribd.com/doc/136672856/Alu ... rs-pdf-pdf

Are sure the cracking is from the 4043 and not something else? I have never used 4043 on the xray pressure tanks we do, so mayb its only not good for xray work. Both companies i have worked for that have welded aluminum have allowed the use of 4043 on 6061 as long as they werent getting anodized. And a few parts we have to use it cause it holds up better on parts that stay hot for long periods of time. But it works on 6061 just fine. Jody uses all the time, even the annoying mr tig uses it and all the filler rod charts say its compatible for welding 6061.Either way that is not causing his issues. The seuting and weird look is some sort of gas issue. Mayb bad defuser, leak, moisture.

I would swear that the plate in the top photo was anodized. That's what the stuff in the weld looks like as well.

Hi Nils

Please do let us know what the cause was if you find out, as today I was doing some practice welds and had exactly the same issues only a little worse. Weld bead looked ok and cleaning action seems ok but I had lots of black spots in the weld and the tungsten was a beautiful blue colour. Argon gas flow= tried 30 down to 15 psi no difference. Cleaned everything with alcohol before starting and sanded my plates with a brand new flap wheel.
I have pulled the whole gas system apart from regulator to torch including the hose, fittings and solenoid valve in the welder and found nothing.

I had almost the exact same issue when I set up my Fabricator 181i
The tig gun was defective and the tungsten was way off centre so it didn't get proper sheilding. They rellaced it and all the consumables cor it at no cost.

I run 10-15 on the argon with a gas lens and a 7 cup, maybe try upping your gas for better coverage.

What was your cleaning method? What were your machine settings?

Edited to add: when I prep my plates I only use scotch bright, then acetone to avoid any trapped particles from an abrasive wheel into the base material.

I use a lot of different preps on aluminum, including al-specific grinding disks, flap-wheels, carbide burrs (coarse single-cut), and 3" general cutting disks in my die grinder. I skip the solvents entirely, unless the metal is oily, then it's step one. I always use a wire wheel in an angle grinder or a wire cup brush in the die-grinder as the last step. I rarely have "pepper" in new metal. Old, weathered metal, it seems almost impossible to avoid some pepper, but in those cases, I'll usually do a rough prep, rough weld (to butter the joint), then grind and prep again. Unless it's a non-critical weld, in which case I'll wire-wheel the pepper off and call it good.

Steve S

Cheers on all this, will change all the torch gear including tungsten to new batch and brush clean the plates only then alcohol.
I will try to upload photo of the machine settings.

Here's a better view of the settings on my welder. Please give me all suggestions on what is not correct or could help with better welds.

And here is a photo of some of the welds

Hi all, I have isolated the problem to the filler rods. ER5357 brand new packed opened yesterday. Tried cleaning the rods but no success.
As soon as I put the rod into the puddle you can see the black bits for and rise to the top.

Mark,

Do you see the pepper on your very first dip of a fresh rod? Or does it begin on the second dip (or second try at a first dip if the puddle wasn't hot enough yet)? I don't know where you started in this pic, but there are two clean dimes, lower weld right in the pic.

I ask, because the picture reminded me of another fellow with a similar problem (that varies in severity by alloy; the higher the alloy content the worse the problem). His main problem was a tendency to pull the rod back a little far between dips, and thus get the still molten end of the rod outside the shielding gas. Each dip after would carry heavy oxides into the puddle, and it looked a lot like that picture.

Just a possibility...

Steve S

have you used the that piece of tungsten on anything other than aluminum? have you sharpened it on the same sharpener stone/sander as steel? i have had the same problem before using tungsten on steel then aluminum.you would think that it wouldn't matter as long as you sharpened after switching base metals but after switching to a new piece of tungsten and using a new belt on my sander the problem went away.. i mow have tungsten and sander belts specifically for aluminum hopefully this helps

Illdrag1320 wrote:have you used the that piece of tungsten on anything other than aluminum? have you sharpened it on the same sharpener stone/sander as steel? i have had the same problem before using tungsten on steel then aluminum.you would think that it wouldn't matter as long as you sharpened after switching base metals but after switching to a new piece of tungsten and using a new belt on my sander the problem went away.. i mow have tungsten and sander belts specifically for aluminum hopefully this helps

I have never had that problem with the tungsten, but I use a diamond wheel to sharpen. I use the same tungsten on inconel then to a titanium part with a sharpen in between on the piranha grinder and they pass X-ray. It's a contamination issue for sure, and I would like to know if your pulling the rod to far back, though I've never seen it that bad just from wire being removed from coverage.

You said you were going to try and brush, wipe and run. Did you do that here? Was the wire brush used before? If it has contaminants could be embedded in your base material from the brush that was used. Try a scotch brite pad and then wipe with acetone until your rage can go over and come of clean, wipe you wire with acetone too, until rag is clean try it and see what happen then go from there. Also use a new scotch bright pad, I use a medium then a fine, then wipe with new rags.

Hi Otto
Thanks for that valuable tip. And yes you are 100% correct as I am just learning to TIG i do believe that is exactly what I am doing wrong. I have noticed I get a green/ blue colour arc when I introduce the filler rod, I will double check to make sure how far out I pull the rod from now on. Cheers.
I will try again when I get some more gas today

Wes917 wrote:

Illdrag1320 wrote:have you used the that piece of tungsten on anything other than aluminum? have you sharpened it on the same sharpener stone/sander as steel? i have had the same problem before using tungsten on steel then aluminum.you would think that it wouldn't matter as long as you sharpened after switching base metals but after switching to a new piece of tungsten and using a new belt on my sander the problem went away.. i mow have tungsten and sander belts specifically for aluminum hopefully this helps

I have never had that problem with the tungsten, but I use a diamond wheel to sharpen. I use the same tungsten on inconel then to a titanium part with a sharpen in between on the piranha grinder and they pass X-ray. It's a contamination issue for sure, and I would like to know if your pulling the rod to far back, though I've never seen it that bad just from wire being removed from coverage.

You said you were going to try and brush, wipe and run. Did you do that here? Was the wire brush used before? If it has contaminants could be embedded in your base material from the brush that was used. Try a scotch brite pad and then wipe with acetone until your rage can go over and come of clean, wipe you wire with acetone too, until rag is clean try it and see
what happen then go from there. Also use a new scotch bright pad, I use a medium then a fine, then wipe with new rags.

Hi
I used new everything from collet to tungsten including nozzle and gas lens.
New piece of flat bar cut from same stock
New ss wire brush
New cleaning paper cloths with alcohol
Wiped everything including rod.

I will however try scotch brights next, but as Steve said I believe he is on the money, I am pulling the filler rod out of the gas shield after putting it into the puddle and then the pepper starts also it looks like a spider web on end of the rod.

Thanks for all the valuable feed back keep it coming.

Well I have made two adjustments. First, I made sure all my torch fittings were good and tight as well as my gas lines to the machine. Then, and much to my surprise, the cooling fan was blowing a breeze across my work table. I had the machine set to the left of my work on the table. To check, I started the machine and then took a lighter clicker and held the flame in the work area. Sure enough, that flame was blowing all over the place. With all my gear on I never felt a thing.

After moving the machine off the table to a safer place, then re-doing the flame test, everything is working much better now!