How to TIG Weld Aluminum part 1 

I just don't have the words to explain how excellent your video's are. Absolutely fantastic. Your training is monumental in being able to learn welding without going to school. They should actually issue a certificate once people complete your video's.

No questions. Just a thank you. You are a fantastic teacher, with a friendly informative demeanor. Thanks

Four years ago I came across your channel was interested in learning how to Tig aluminum. Now I m back to say thank you for taking your time and explaining everything there is too know about Tig welding. Thanks to you and your channel I'm now able to grow my business and take on jobs from design to finish in one place. Again thank you very much Mike STINGER.

Great videos! I've learned a lot already. Got mig down enough to work, excited to learn tig. One suggestion, make more playlist that way it's easier to fund series of videos.

thanks Jody really great content , i have just started as a fabrication/ welding tutor here in new Zealand and you videos have help me break down what I have learn't over 24 years in the field.

You are a top techer Jody. I feed my kids with many skills learned from you over the past 10-11 years. God bless you my friend!

Hasn't touch tig in a year since graduating and been out in west Texas for about a year doing non welding things and I got the opportunity to do some aluminum tig at a shop. Like I said been a year came back to the videos and boom I got the job so thank you Jody! I know I still have tons to learn, and it doesn't end graduating school. Hopefully this opens new doors. To anyone chasing this trade ,don't get discouraged it took me a year to finally break out! But I'm gonna roll with it. God bless everyone!

I like how he really shows the difference between a tight arc and a non tight arc

Hands down the best demonstration/instruction on Tig + Aluminum. Thank you for doing such a terrific job with this video. Very informative!

I really like to see the "wrong way" to tig that way I can refer back to it if I have to trouble shoot my technique when I have issues.

Love your work! I am a high school metal fab instructor and I use your videos in related class to help explain a certain process. I find it very useful. Thank you.

This is about the best welding video I have ever seen. As a retired underwater marine pipeline welder, I have learned a lot. Thank you.

6 months ago I watched your spool gun video and passed a weld test. now I'm moving to TIG and again youre the man with the plan.

The bead examples on how not to weld are better then my beads😐

i have been exposed to welding at my university, I'm a manufacturing engineer major, but have not been actively practicing since my class 1 year ago. this video has so much insight on how to rig weld! very helpful for beginners to get an idea of what to look for when initiating a weld and what to do. thank you for helping the community!! i have a project at work that requires some welding, you have given me the courage to finally try welding.!

, I have not tig welded since welding school, and I have a welding interview in the morning I am very much appreciate your videos they are giving me a lot of good refreshing points

When at the end of my bead,to allow the crater to form I always keep my torch about 1” from the crater with my foot halfway down on the pedal for 3 seconds. That extra few seconds of argon gas shields the oxygen from the bead and allows it to form. Just a little tip for new welders learning the process.

These videos are fantastic. Like they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, and seeing you do it so clearly is tremendously helpful. Thanks.

I am a newbie welder, and recently conquered aluminum. I would talk about the science behind contaminated material, and electrodes (in detail), like Travis does on his vids, but more of the science, as opposed to how important it is. Also, the heat equation, and getting the amps right with the size electrode, size of filler material, and material thickness. To expand on the last one, how to keep the heat consistent with foot pedal. I still start off too cold, and end too hot. (How to know during the bead run, not after). Its always like I am starting over when I change material thickness, and I am not sure if I should increase electrode, and filler size. Some general rules of thumb to start with, with different material thickness.

I have never welded, but are watching to learn basics and soon start. Meanwhile "sponsoring" and already ordered the DVD. God bless you for your time and shared knowledge.

Jody, Thanks for continuing to make fun and educational welding videos. I especially appreciate you doing a series dedicated to Aluminum. One area I think would like to understand better is heat input. The difference between starting out slow or starting fast with aluminum and how it affects the rest of the weld. How welding with too low versus too high amperage affects the weld outcome. As well, how to choose the correct amperage on a large aluminum piece versus a small piece and the affect amperage settings has on different size parts.

Showing that one clip about ‘the wrong way to tig’ is 100% what I am struggling with. Thanks for that. Love your videos.

I'm 51 just had my second back surgery an on my second heart attack an I'm gonna try a small welding shop now an get away from the grading an heavy work. An this video helps more than you know. Thanks

I’ve been welding 25 yrs, new too aluminum though.. Your amazing, thank you

I like to see the difference between all the different types of welding rods. 4043, 5356 etc, and in what situations are they most suitable to use.

Thank you Jodi, for taking the time to show and explain the difference between the DC positive and negative electrode. The AC electrode makes a lot more sense now that I see why you would want to have AC.

Hello, I'm Brazilian, your videos are sensational. Thank you for the very good tips. I do not understand anything of what you speak, but you can understand when Mr. Solda congratulates.

I watch alot of welding videos and I just want to say jody you are by far the THE BEST so full of knowledge. I learn something new or revisit something I have forgotten. I appreciate you and your videos thank you

Love that this will be a series. Thanks for asking for questions. I'm just learning, and I have a tendency towards a long arc, big puddle, too much heat, blow through thin stuff, etc., but when I try to get close I dip. I think it would help to see some tips on how to support the torch on different kinds of work for a close arc, and especially how to keep it steady as you move. Where do you have your hands, where do you have your head to see properly, how do you manage the hose pulling on the torch as you move, as things get hot, etc. I'll bet there's a lot of technique that is just second nature that you don't even think about that might help a lot. The arc shots are just fantastic, and I love them, but some of the zoomed out view of what's going on with the hands and hose and what surface you're bracing off of might be good too. Also how to hold/clamp stuff as you're tacking it up so that the angles are accurate without getting everything into some awkward angle, how to keep the ground clamp out of the way--these kind of things are my beginner problems/questions.

Impeccable timing on this video. I just had this conversation with my class yesterday. I showed both classes this video and did my live demo to back it up in the shop. Good job Jody.

I want one of those clear cups for my powertig welder. That just lights up the entire area real good.

Another area of interest is causes of aluminum welds cracking and signs to look for to help diagnose and fix cracking problems. I was recently trying to weld a 2' piece of 5052 1" x 0.125" angle across a larger sheet (2' x 5' x 0.125") of 5052 aluminum with 5356 wire (center bracing on a boat windshield). No matter what I did the welds would crack and the sheet would pull away from the angle brace. I tried clamping with vice grip clamps, tried backing with more aluminum, tried going hotter (175amp), cooler (160amp), more fill. Nothing I did would stop the cracking problem. Finally gave up, cut it off and MIG'd the angle brace in place with no problems. Really would have liked to figure out the TIG solution but No Joy there. A video on this with techniques to control cracking and other causes of cracking welds would be great. Will look forward to more videos on aluminum welding. Thanks again.

I definitely have a problem with arch length being to big sometimes. Or if I got it just right I end up stabbing the electrode with filler rod and ruining it. Thanks for the tips!

You're the best teacher Jody. I hope to meet you in person some day, shake your hand and thank you for teaching me to tig weld. My best welder is a Dynasty 350 Tigrunner, just one of ten welders I use daily. My heart felt thanks.

Joint Type: Thick Thin , tips appreciated

What beautiful welds!!! Thank you!! I no longer watch cat videos since starting to weld. Right now, learning to stick weld, self taught on a 40 y. o. Lincoln AC225 on 3/16 and 1/8 mild steel. Baby steps.

How to best pick the "cleaning action" percentage, and the differences between some machines in how they produce the number; Everlast vs Lincoln for example. Thanks.

Jody, first off i just want to say thank you. I learned how to tig weld just from watching your videos . This may be for a more advanced future video but I think it would be interesting to talk about post weld heat treatment of aluminum alloys, when its required and when its not. Another thing that I would like to hear you talk about is depth of penetration vs. just surface fusion and when you can get away fusion vs. needing full penetration. Br, Daniel

Thank you, very educational. I've done a share of mig and stick welding but I am a tig rookie. This video is packed with information minus the usual Babel you get with most instructional videos. Thanks again

You the best jody, been watchin you for years. I have to run every process in every way, learned how mostly from here.

Thank you Sir! I was just doing some inside corner work yesterday, making a horrid mess of it (why lie), and I see now my problem was exactly what you mention...too great of an arc gap. The bead wound up too wide, I couldn't close it down once it started, filler would melt before it reached the puddle...etc etc. Of course once I tighten it up I am going to have trouble dipping the electrode into the puddle or against the filler rod....sadly there is no escaping the fact that I need a lot more practice. I have learned so much from your videos...I greatly appreciate each one.

Thanks for the tips! I'm just getting started with a TIG, and aluminum.

absolutely awesome. I learn more every 10 minutes here than I do hours laying beads.

I learned more in 5 minutes of tig here than I did in welding school 40 years ago lol , my instructor was an old ship welder from Bethlehem steel shipyard and that should probably tell you that I was a much better arc welder when I graduated 😄

I watched this over a year ago... this video is still a great upload to watch again.

Jody thanks for another great video! I'm always impressed with the movement you use to feed the filler through your fingers without moving your off hand. Have you ever done a video on the technique? I learned TIG on my own through a lot of trial and error. A while back I discovered your videos and they have been a huge help in refining my skills, Thanks Jody!

Watching this long after you made it. Excellent info. My aluminum tig welding (just started) sucks so hard! I seem to be able to get a puddle and move it along just fine (a log time mig welder of steel) but as soon as I started trying to dab, I can't go fast enough or I touch the arc with the wire and have to stop and clean the tungsten, or I just plain bury the tungsten because after the weld pool gets shiny, it's hard to tell how much standoff I have! I even put a 2.5 magnification in my welding mask. -- On to the next in the series! then down to the practice arena!

This helped so so much. How not to tig was me exactly. I couldnt figure out why i couldn't heat the 2 pieces on a T joint equally. Ill be working on closing my distance. It looked exactly like that. Thank you.

I always learn from your tuitions u are a good teacher I wish u be my mentor in welding and fabrication ❤❤❤🌟🌟

Thanks for the Video I learnt something new from your comments on oxidisation on the Alloy, I do a lot of alloy wheel repairs and in most cases I am very successful in the repair and now and again a wheel or rim will create so much rubbish, it is hard to know what is the cause, I have a 7 yearold Lincoln 205v ac dc tig set and got this new when they were announced in the UK, most of the time I was self taught as what I was doing nobody in my field was repairing to the level I do. recently I have to repair rivet holes in a Alloy rim, break down of the alloy was 99% aluminium .06 copper and .13 Iron, and then the rim was anodised, I managed to repair 4 rims and then the 5th one side repaired good then turned it over to do the other side and the repair started ok until half round the rim and then the as you said the muddy puddle appeared, and the results were terrible, I ground it all out and started again checking settings and connections, it did repair but a very nasty mess appeared, maybe it may have been something in the alloy, as this rim was an extruded rim rolled and flash welded during manufacture. the rim was 34 years old but in the end it did repair but I kept is as a test piece in the end. thanks for the info.

Excellent video. I'm just beginning the TIG weld process

I’ve gotten fairly comfortable welding aluminum, but t joints are the one thing I still really struggle with. I’m going to try some of these tips and see if I can get some decent results. Thanks for the great content

Hey Jody, I've been all over the net checking on welding and tig instruction. Your stuff is the best I've found. Thank you for all the info and I'll be ordering the 2016 dvds from your you'r site to show my support,... and of course to learn. Thanks again for all the info to help with my 10,000 projects I've got in mind. thank you.

Jody, this is really an awesome video! It contains almost all the basics for welding aluminum. If I would have one free wish: Please do a short video about the basic current selection. Just a rule of thumb for butt joints and for the variance for other joints / travel directions. Thanks for your videos - I learned so much. Greetings from Germany, Mathias

I would like to learn a little bit more about my settings. The pulse amps, pulse time on and the balance and frequency. I understand the function of them but havnt found the sweet spots using them all together. Thanks again for everything

Finally. An 'informative and educational' video thats actually worth a damn.Thank you.

PEPPER IN THE PUDDLE!!! Thank you for all you do and what I am sure will be an excellent series on ally. My issue lately has been with pepper in the puddle. I can't seem to figure this one out and wonder what can be done to address it. I am sure if you touched on it in this series many would benefit. What I have done so far: I've been working with several different supplies of fresh Aluminum attempting to rule out a bad batch or something. Cleaned the heck out of the metal, brushed, brushed and brushed some more, flap wheeled the heck out of a few, acetoned well with a clean rag, acetone wiped all rods even scotch brighted a handful, used different brands of rod, tried 4043 & 5356, moved all settings around on my HTP Invertig 221 (more cleaning/less) freq. etc. Two different tanks of argon and ran them both with different flows from 15cfh all the way up to 40. Even switched out cup sizes ranging from 6-12 and swapped the gas lens just to see if that was causing a flow issue. Now I know this is very specific and do not expect you to answer my issue directly but if you provided some reasons for pepper and offered some baseline ways to set up or deal with it I believe it could help many people come to a quicker solution when dealing with it. Thank you sir and please keep up the awesome!

Thanks for this explanation on why you want to weld aluminum on AC.

Welded stainless for years and went to aluminum. Aluminum is a bit to get onto. Less positions and you really have to stay in the gas. Very good video here

holy shit, that last how not to TIG was exactly what I was doing, the weld looked identical thanks for showing what that looks like

This is definitely one of the better learning channels I have seen so I will try to be more supportive to keep learning and breaking some of my old bad habits lol , I’ve always prided myself on being an ugly welder but my welds are good , I’m gonna change that this year and try to make my welds prettier lol 😆

I like to weld, I got pretty good at it, until I had to have a Pacemaker put in my chest, that bummed me out, I still weld but can't do any Hi amperage welding or Tig welding is out of the question. You got a whole lot of good info on your site, Kudo's to you for doing this. Aloha, from The Big Island of Hawaii.

"don't add rod until you get that shiny wet puddle" thats some good all round advice.

my boss let me do some practice on TIG alluminum yesterday. He was impressed? I managed to make a puddle and even lay a small bead down, even if I couldn't keep the damn torch straight. Though every other attempt I kept bumping the filler rod against the tungsten or touched the toungstun to the material while it was going.

thanks jody. i find Aluminum to be the hardest and most irritating, but im a beginner. my tech school iss out for the summer and i want to practice all summer, i will be wacthing all your vids and be replacing stuff by going to weldmonger

Outstanding Jody. I have learned more from you in a short time than years of blind trial and error. Thanks for all the great videos.

Thanks for that, it was better than 3 years at tafe. I need to find a good AC tig/ stick and plasma kit that runs on a 15amp 240V.

I love your style of laid back teaching... very informative.

I'm just finishing up my first year of college on the way to be a CWI, so I'm buying that set right now

Thank you very much! you are the professor of welding. The description is so clear. Thank you for sharing.

I can't wait to get my first TIG welder!

I work at a food processing plant and there are jouneyman milwrights here that said over and over you cant weld alluminum with our setup, its incrediablly hard and so on I've been here 6 months and came from only flux core welding and now I'm welding alluminum and the guys are looking at me a 20 year old kid and scratching there head like how is this kid doing it from one youtube video. Great video

My first real insight in to tig ;)) lots more watching to do now.... amazing content which is easy to understand. Thank you

Great Video i learned a lot especially because i rarely weld, videos like this make it all come back after a year or so of not welding lol! Thank you!

Very informative and helpful. I learned how to Tig weld by watching your video's and must say I am pretty good at this point. Thanks again!

Very informative!!! You are a great instructor with excellent communication. A true TIG master!!!

Hey Jody Great videos as always, the best on youtube, one comment Current flow from (+) Positive to (-) Negative but Electrons flow inversely to the current, and the electrons dictate the heat input, like the example you always give in your video's DCEN puts heat into the work, electrons are flowing from the tungsten(-) to the work (+), and that causes the heat to the work and extra penetration of the TIG welding. You are the best welding teacher out there, I'm just an Engineering student that is good with the keyboard and takes out his inverter once a week. but you know for the sake of passing out the right information to the viewers.........

Even your advertisement at the end was interesting. Thanks heaps for all your efforts! 🤜🏼🤛🏼🇦🇺🍀🍀🍀😎

Thank you for being a great instructor. I’ve been learning a lot from you just through a few videos

Your technique is amazing, great tips for beginner welders and with the chemistry about the aluminium protective layer.

Maybe not what you wanted for questions ....1. What about an EP cleaning pass , EN fusion 2. with or without helium on dc ? 3. is there any inherent strength difference between AC tig and DC Ep spool gun welding on clean bright aluminum ? Thanks,Ed Flanagan

Id love to see more work on the sine wave ac machine, just getting started on tig with a very basic machine, no foot pedal, pre or post flow or balance controls... mostly used for steel but wanna learn aluminium, will probably add a pedal at a later date

I like to weld cast Aluminum and very dirty aluminum, ie oil panels & engine blocks with individual amplitude adjustments for both the eP and eN. I set the eP to 300 amps and eP to 120 amps, but adjust my AC balance to 90 so I don't spend much time in eP, but I am punching it with 300 amps for 10% of the time and 90% at 120 amps eN. The tungsten stays sharp and I get great results with very little prior cleaning prep. I haven't ever seen anyone talk about this technique. I know of only 3 machines that have individual amplitude adjustment. HTP Invertec 221, Miller Aerowave, & Miller Dynasty 350. I heard the Dynasty 280 can be updated via the memory card but at a steep price, but I don't know for sure. I am sure there are other European welders that may offer this as well, but I can't say for sure. It would be nice to see a video on this and what others have found. Thanks!

Love your videos!....just getting into welding. Building a little metal shop for making crafts. Thank you for the lessons.

Love your work and the way you pass the knowledge. Dennis, Western Australia

Love the video helped a lot my arc length was to long causing me to keep balling up the rod

found your video wow one of the best teaching vis on utube

Very detailed, nice video sir. I hope to be half as good as you one day.

Your video (and your teaching abilities) are so good, you deserve payment!!

Thanks for all your hardware and wonderful videos

thank you for showing the settings! and this is the first video I've see that explains cleaning easily to a beginner

"that's a good use for a harbor freight square" best line ever.

Look so easy on yours videos but when I practice totally difference

I am ordering your dvds and a tig finger as a form of gratitude for all your help.

Very nice lecture and footage! Congratulations!

How about including a 'make your life easier' section for welding aluminum and give some of the details about tig welding aluminum that isn't normally addressed. Also, a troubleshooting section would help as well.

I love welding doing it for almost 10 years at work. Never done aluminum. Would like to make a boat

Great tip on how to use harbor freight disposable tools.

Beautiful welds. I cant wait to have my first go.

Oh, I didn't realize you don't start at full amperage. I guess you do that to give more time for initial cleaning before adding filler and moving forward. Good idea!