Welding Tips and Tricks

I've been wondering about this for 4 years now. The first time I had this question I was welding a new box and baffle assembly onto a 30 year old bmw oil pan that I had sawed the bottom off of. I was using my diversion 165 completely maxed out. Long story short is that I got it held on there strong enough but it wasn't an airtight weld so I siliconed it from the inside. Later I realized I could have held the torch over each of the little black pinholes until they disappeared. Same question came up today because my dad wanted me to fix and aluminum canopy frame made of thin wall anodized tubing that had been badly welded together before. It was slip together tubing so basically a circular lap joint. I had the machine at 65% EN and couldn't get the anodizing on the inner tube section to break up in a little circular patch right where I was trying to put the bead. So I stopped and turned it down to 62 and melted it over. Anyway the question is if I remelt the aluminum weld bead without adding more filler is that likely to cause cracking.

You are unlikely to create new problems doing this, especially since your machine is unlikely to create a major overheat of the puddle.

Pausing on and working the puddle until a pinhole vanishes works when needed.

Steve S

And add an extra dip of filler to fill the crater.