[Steve49suzuki]

Hello. Jody mentioned in one video dcep welding aluminium on thin sheet. Now has anyone ever done this and what potential uses does it have. Would it be any good for small petrol tanks or water tanks.

Steve

[weldin mike 27]

Hey,

Ive only talked about this once, it involves using a very thick tungsten to soak(?) up the heat. The one i saw must have been nearly 5mm/ 3/16.

Mick

[MinnesotaDave]

I have done it and it works fine on very thin aluminum.

Tungsten is the issue.
3/32" carries about 30 amps
1/8" about 40 amps.

I'm sure each would carry more for short bursts of welding.

[ajlskater1]

Dcep is really only good for very thin material, like .030 and thinner. Not a good choice for welding fuel tanks. Dcep balls tge tungsten a lot so you need a much larger tunsten to be able to handle that.

[ajlskater1]

Good to see a fellow minnesota guy on here dave.

[Steve49suzuki]

Thanks for replys. I've got some 1050 sheet 1.5 mm thick sounds like its no good for that job then. Might have a go just to see but won't be making any tanks out of it.

Cheers Steve

[MinnesotaDave]

Good to see a fellow minnesota guy on here dave.

Hey - what part o the state you in? (Your location is not listed)

[MinnesotaDave]

Thanks for replys. I've got some 1050 sheet 1.5 mm thick sounds like its no good for that job then. Might have a go just to see but won't be making any tanks out of it.

Cheers Steve

You will find it welds fine on thin stuff, but we pushed too far on amps for too long and the tungsten blew the end off! LOL

Excellent experiment though

We did it with a thermal arc 95 arc/lift tig.

[ajlskater1]

I live in st. Boni kinda the far west metro. How about you?

[ajlskater1]

I actually did the samething but on ac with a old syncrowave. I was welding sone .040 aluminum had 1/16 tungsten in and someone brought me sone 1/8 to weld so instead of changing ecerything out I tried to weld it and balled alnost all the way up inside the cup and then fell into the puddle. Oops!!!

[MinnesotaDave]

I actually did the samething but on ac with a old syncrowave. I was welding sone .040 aluminum had 1/16 tungsten in and someone brought me sone 1/8 to weld so instead of changing ecerything out I tried to weld it and balled alnost all the way up inside the cup and then fell into the puddle. Oops!!!

I'm in Bemidji, about 4 hours north of you.
A few weeks ago I tried 3/32" thoriated at 230 amps AC on some warm up scrap aluminum. It was already on the torch with a gas lens.

The tungsten literally started spraying into the puddle.

1/8" thoriated was fine though (standard #8 cup). Suppose following the charts could be a good thing...

[ajlskater1]

Was that 230 on a transformer machine? Cause I use 3/32 up yo almost 300 amps on the dynasty 350s at work.

[MinnesotaDave]

Yep, my 1967 Airco is actually a Miller 330 a/bp. 50/50 balanced transformer. Works really good though.

Your new technology must make quite a big difference - yeah, I'm jealous

[ajlskater1]

Those old trabsformer nachines are awesome, that's what I statted out on. The new machines are nice but to be honest I think using a old transformer makes you a better welder.