This was the best aluminum video iv ever seen, thanks! Trying to build toolboxes for my service truck and figured the boat guys had boxes down pat and should watch what they do!
Thanks good advice. I have a Miller Spoolmate 3035 and I encountered the same problem with tips. Now I drill them out with a number 57 ( 0.043") drill. I'm a machinist so I have setups to drill small holes. You can do it with a high speed drill but go slowly and use 3 in 1 oil as a lubricant then clean the tip thoroughly in acetone and put them in a bag labeled for the new size so you don't mix them up with other tips.
I've been telling people for years I just listen to my weld. I can tell. If I'm hot or cold or need more or less wire or whatever. Its nice to hear someone else doing the same. Great video.
Very good and well explained. I have welded for years and now I am in welding sales. I do many demos through out the years as well as troubleshooting. Most aluminum feed issues is wrong tip size. I am a Miller fan myself I have a 211 and spool matic 150. Great set up for home!
Great info and explanation for a beginner like me. I am building a fiberglass boat, but I plan on doing some custom rails and rod holders so I bout a mig machine capable of attaching a spool gun and was searching for instruction. I'm going to save this to watch again when I start practicing. Thanks man.
Thank you. I've have been looking at a lot of videos lately about how to weld aluminum and this is the first one that describes the sound. As I have been practicing, I prefer a steady movement rather than an intermittent movement. Also, I have been welding on on 1/16" and 1/8" bead on plate and outside corner welds. I have found that the higher feed speed is necessary in order to get good tacks without a large build up of weld metal.
Such a good way to instruct about wire speed as it feels counter intuitive. I build raft frames out of ~1/8" stuff and really struggle with blowing through it. I'd really like a similar video for identifying when the power is right.
When I was in school 1/8” aluminum was one of the hardest, out of position butt welds. Recognizing when it’s getting very hot and then moving faster and faster as you weld. Unfortunately we we didn’t have nice double pulse machines either for learning. Just an old Profax AEC 200 spool gun.
I worked at a fab shop for years after I got out of the Military. The journeyman welders were Artist. I could weld good enough to certify, but nothing like the older guys.
Great job!! Myself I like more hiss less crackle. I also tend to run in higher voltage and lower amprege. It has its inherent disadvantages. However once your able to see and control the puddle it works very well especially on repairs where the material is quite contaminated. Also I use a tip drill bit to drill my mig tips larger also important.
Sounds like you have a good understanding of the process. High voltage/longer arc length can wet in better but the mig process doesn't fix contamination. Mig being a fast dirty process will encapsulate a lot of debris making it appear like a decent weld but be very susceptible to cracking out. When faced with this type of thing I prefer to preheat as much debris as possible then make multiple cold passes. But that's just how I do it. Aluminum can be done many ways & it's pretty forgiving if you understand it's characteristics. 👌🇺🇲
Thx Dustin. I am confused here. My understanding is that aluminum should be done using spray transfer not short circuit. The sound should be a hiss not the sound of frying bacon,. Frying bacon sound indicates short circuit. Please inform me if I am wrong. Thx
Setting wire speed on spool guns is all about what you see, I usually set my voltage then turn my wire way down, on a piece of scrap I then pull the trigger and turn up the wire while I am welding until I can visually see the desired wire speed, you will have a nice sound and little spatter.
Very interesting video. Next time if your recording with your phone please turn it 90 degrees so it's full screen instead of looking through a door video. Thank you.
Thanks for the tips, Dustin. Just to be clear, I am a true newbie when it comes to welding aluminum. From what I’ve read spray transfer is the method of choice for welding aluminum. I seethat you are welding very thin aluminum so power settings for spray transfer might burn right thru the material. Am I correct?
Hi Dustin, Great video. I'm thinking of getting a aluminum welding setup for a few jobs. I'm by no means a great welder, but I can do ok. I noticed you have the 212 miller like I do. Would you recommend me just getting the spoolmate 200 to make my welder capable of aluminum welding? The spool gun is pretty expensive for the little bit of aluminum welding I would be doing. Again, great video to help us rookies! Jim
I don't have a comment, but I definitely have a question. Would it be possible to just take my tip cleaning drill set to enlarge the tip hole properly? I have a Hobart Ironman 230 with a DR-3545-20 Spool gun.
You're absolutely correct. However its expensive & unless you're in a production environment most won't require it. Preheat, taper & multi pass if necessary.
I hope you can answer a question for me(a newbie to aluminum welding). In the Tig world aluminum must be welded with AC(to break through the oxide layer) and not DC(except with helium), but a spool gun welds aluminum with DC(and the wire has no flux, correct,) how does it deal with the oxide layer with DC current. Both use 100% Argon gas, right. I want to weld some small aluminum projects and know flux cored mig welding a little bit don't want to have to buy an expensive AC/DC Tig machine AND have to learn how to Tig weld at 71 yrs old. Thanks. Sorry for the run on question. Those miller spool guns are really nice and expensive.
Best question I've ever gotten about aluminum mig sir. Aluminum mig is DC but it's ran in reverse polarity. So the arc is initiated by the driven wire then the arc is actually coming up from the part to the gun. This breaks the oxide layer easily. Buy adjusting wire feed rate you can shorten or lengthen the arc to get the desired bead profile. This is your fine tuning once you get close with the power settings based on material thickness. As far as machines goes; any spoolgun capable machine should be able to run fluxcore mig & do everything you need. I've ran Vulcan from harbor freight with good success. But if you want a nicer machine look at a HTP pro pulse it doesn't use a spoolgun & it's aluminum capacity is well above anything offered by miller at double the investment. Lastly stay away from machines that only offer 120v. aluminum mig requires all 30amp to just weld .125 material. But the same machine running 240v will be able to handle 1/4" without issue. Dual voltage machines are fine, especially if you need to fix something mobile. Hope this helps. 🙏
Dustin, can one use the spool gun on say 0.023 ER70 wire for quick little jobs to save from having to pull the larger spool out, changing everything around?
Hi! This is a good video to ask you a question about welding thin aluminum with a spoolgun. I'm trying to weld on a Tracker boat and the aluminum is pretty thin. Looks like .0625-ish, certainly less than .100. Wire is .035/5356, spoolgun is a spoolmatic 30a, using a .040 tip, on a Millermatic 252, could step the wire down to .030/5356, what's best voltage and gas flow to get this done, and can you demo it?
curious do you prefer to use a welding spool gun for AL welding vs a TIG welding it. I am new to AL welding and was curious on when you use a TIG welder with 100% argon vs just a spool gun like you your doing in this video. Also have you used a push-pull gun and do you prefer these over the spool gun your using in this video???
I guess i am curious of what the pluses and minus are from using mig style spool gun (in your video ) vs tig welder vs push-pull gun. I imagine the push-pull and the traditional spool guns are much faster at completing larger AL welding projects and tig welders are for more small or intricate AL project. Curious to here your opinions on the subject. Also is it common for any multiprocess welder machine to support a spool guns of push-pull or traditional types or would this normally require specific welders / specific manufactures products?
To me it seems the push-pull guns and the spool guns in your video are essentially getting around the major problem of small AL wire from kinking/clumping up in a mig machine. In theory a regular mig welder should work fine if one can get rid of the unwanted clumping habits. But again that where spool guns come in to minimize the travel of the wire. Weather you use a suitcase style , push-pull gun , traditional mig spool gun ,...etc seems all to me trying to achieve not having the clumping problem... and definitely if your on a job site that your running your welding torch off of a welder/generator that is semi-permanent in the work site. (in that case the only reasonable way to reach your work is increasing cable length from the machine for example.)
You're misinformed. You can run a Argon/helium mixture. That is the hottest option but it is also Very expensive. 100% Argon is all I use & is required for all tig welding & mig Aluminum.
You’re killing me man, you need to learn how to tig weld aluminum to the furthest extent instead of using a push pull gun. I’ve been welding sense I was 11 years old and by 13/14 I was passing my asme 6g tests. Aside from that by that age i could weld aluminum faster with more appealing and quality beads than I would be willing to bet than you running that spool gun. Don’t get me wrong there’s a time and place for a push pull gun, but being that I truly understand and am experienced in the depth of tig welding that I have been blessed to learn, I will choose to tig weld 90% of anything that crosses my path that’s aluminum. I will 9 times out of ten tig weld any job that comes in my shop that’s aluminum before I’ll pick up a push pull gun. It’s just very uncontrollable and more of a hassle to work a bead using a push pull gun than it is to just tig weld it. I promise you if you double down on your aluminum tig welding skills you’ll be able to weld circles around the next guy using a push pull gun. And I know that sounds like it’s backwards but when you weld pipe all day everyday in and out for week after week month after month, you start to get a custom to kicking ass with a tig torch. If you wanted to make it simpler and a tad easier on you having less tig welding finesse working with aluminum, pulse weld it and just practice getting a steady flow down and then start crushing it. Just burn that wire and keep that constant flow going and transition into doing the same thing without pulse and you’ll be cutting your hood time in half. Entertaining videos indeed to observe.
I don't own a push/pull. When set properly double pulsed push/pull mig is the most advanced form of Aluminum welding.... well that's affordable. Lasers are about $32k. A quality water cooled push/pull setup will run about 15k. I'm pretty proficient with tig & if looks or containment of fluids are involved then tig is my choice. However a spoongun is my most efficient tool when it comes to structural welding. It's also the most affordable to get started with. That's why this video was created. Not to reflect my or your personal ability or process choices but purely to explain the basics & inspire those who struggle.
