Welding Tips and Tricks

So I passed carbon steel, stainless, and nicu 6G X-rays and start aluminum Monday, I've heard a lot of bad stuff about welding this stuff and hoping some people can give me some helpful tips maybe a video or two, I know I'll be practicing on 5/16" tbars for all my fillets up to a 5/8 fillet weld and then my test will be butt welds in all 3 positions

Good luck JJ

Best thing to do to get fast-track your skills is to watch some of Jody's videos :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6CoZlqh6ms

You can't do much better as a starting point.

Be bold, aluminum eats amps for breakfast.

Lots of problems are due to using too little amps.

If your are timid with the pedal on fillet welds, you'll not like welding aluminum.

Naturally there will be lots of times to back way off, like coming to end of a long welds since the aluminum is getting really hot by then.

#1 tip for starting an aluminum weld, use enough amps to puddle and start moving in 3 seconds or less, otherwise you're just sitting still and saturating the piece with heat.

Have fun - tig is awesome

Dave makes several great points.

The one that really sticks with me is that if the surface doesn't 'wet' within two or three seconds after lighting up, you probably ain't going to weld, and preheat would probably be your friend.

The other point is not to grind your tungsten to a sharp point. A 'ball' tip might be more forgiving to learn with, although there are rules and there are rules...

Trevor