TFS: How to Bridge Gaps and Holes on Thin Aluminum 

“ if your fit up game is this bad then not knowing how to bridge a gap isn’t your problem” LOL I’m still rolling. Great video brother.

More close ups of the finished weld would be great. I know you got a close look, it would be great to show that to the viewers too. Nice job, I enjoy your teaching style. Very nice.

This was a great video. Real world repairs are not always perfect. Thank you.

As a sheet metal worker I've come across this situation countless times. Love your instructions and disgust! The reality of working in a ceiling with 12" of space to crawl through to get to the weld area... you are a breathe of real world application. Thks

Great tips. Until someone tries to tig aluminum that's not cooperating, they will never appreciate the delicate touch your example took to pull off. Thanks.

Want to thank you for giving me hope where before I was hopeless. Yesterday and today were my first TIG aluminum attempts, and the gap bridging was really hard. It turns out that the techniques I stumbled on were pretty much what you showed, with similar results. So, onwards I go.

I weld odd shaped extrusion all day with loads of gaps from non welder fit up. I love the videos! You have helped many, including myself. Thank you

i was glad to see you mention that what's important is matching YOUR SPEED to your settings on the machine. either hot & fast or cold & slow. most ppl say there's only one setting & one speed that works, which isn't true. it's all relative to how fast or slow YOU are moving. good stuff! that thing would probably buff out if you got it low enough!

Dude thank you so much for sharing all this tech info. I just bought my first ac/dc machine and am learning so much more from you than from my dad that works at ingersol rand. A welding company!

Thanks for the great videos they really help beginners like me. You make everything look so darn easy!

Fine Job!!!! Love the video really helped me learn tig tricks. Certified in all others but never tig welded. Thanks Again.

This perhaps the most informative and fun video, love your jokes and skills to make a tough weld looks so easy and fun!

Thanks for all your detailed videos.

Brilliant demo!

Great video, explanations, and subject matter!

awesome video and great explanation! the only times i have ever experienced a gap THIS large is usually when im tasked to fix a part that has chipped out a nasty gap and it has to be welded to fit something specifically, thus i had to close it. never pretty but sometimes it happens!

I know this channel is more of a auto fab channel, but this is pertinent to a lot of metal fab shop and manufacturing applications. I’ve received aluminum parts with 3/16”-1/4” gaps because the press machine was goofy, or the laser cutter fucked up. You just have to know how to do these gaps. Great content as always.

Any way you could put a PIP with the pedal, would be sweet to see what your doing with foot/amps

Nice job I am always looking to learn a new thing. May God Bless You for teaching people these awesome skills.

Been welding for 40 years but only just taken up tig. Thanks for the in site, very similar to how I've filled with stick on steel. Won't be trying what you just done any time soon thought, I don't have anywhere near your level of control yet. Keep the videos coming please, they are a great help !

Great man and great and great workmanship Thank you buddy

Ugly schmugly my shiny behind. That was a VERY informative and helpful video. Tone of useful information and I learnt a lot. That was a super good video Justin.

When I weld tears in aluminum irrigation pipe much like your example, I always use a patch or band-aid as I call it. Irrigation pipe is not structural but has to contain pressure. I would not be able to bridge a gap as wide as that. Takes real patience for that.

Manual pulsing with the foot pedal helps a lot when filling gaps on aluminum. Especially for that first edge weld.

This was very helpful. I don't have a lot of skills or knowledge of tig welding aluminum but want to learn. I recently had a repair of a driveline for my cousin and interestingly enough, the tube pretty close to what you were showing. I struggled a lot getting it fixed for him but would have benefited a lot had I seen this prior to the work. Thanks for sharing.

You made all the sense in the world about amps and how they effect pedal, so setting the machine to 20 amps you have full pedal to adjust from 0-20..... cranked to 200, your going to have to have a smart steady foot to maintain say 13 amps....Awesome video man!!!

Good info! Nice video and welder choice!

Very very nice breather Good job

You are a blessing to the world.

Great video. I need more practice at this with my everlast tig welder.

Came here looking for a how to on plugging holes, I didn't find recently that but good info that I can apply and enjoyed the video. Thanks

I'm not a welder, but I do weld, with an arsenal including a red 175 transformer type with fixed freq. I think that your efforts at sharing techniques was excellent, pragmatic if not beautiful; and if doesn't work then looks are irrelevant. Thank you Sir, and please keep those important principles coming. (Just subscribed)

Watching this made me feel much better about the job I did with thin (0.040) aluminum large gap bridging that I did on a project.

cant believe u made that look so easy! im a beginner at tig welding... bought a machine and am teaching myself slowly but surely... i have tried to do that exercise it extremely difficult

My first attempts at welding intercooler tubing progressed to that good after a couple of weeks. I was new at tig with a diversion 165 {no extra knobs to change}. Slightly better now.

ive been learning a lot on your vids man... thanks! you are awesome

Great video

Way better than I could have done, man.

the thumb nail for this gives me the chuckles :P P.S. i have enjoyed your videos over the years from the times when you were still in the garage building roll cages and such. Keep up the good content! And it would be awesome to see some build action again!!

I’ve been diggin for aluminum tig information and this helped a lot I just wish we could have a pedal at work. We have that finger slider on one machine and a roller knob on the other so I’ll have to apply this to that slider. Thanks Justin!

I've been welding for 35 years! And your right ! Gaps are hard to weld !

When i was a high pressure gas pipeline welder, their were many time you could not get the ideal spacing for a full pen weld on fix tie in welds.. I have dealt with extreme HI Low and wide gaps. All the welds had to meet API 1104 or ASME Pressure Vessel codes. All where subject to ex-ray evaluation. The bridge technique you used iI employed several times although the gap was not the extreme you used. I also had to use this on hot tie-ins were the natural gas was set on fire in the welding gap and then it was welded shut. I used this technique with SAMW, GMAW and FLux Core arc welding. This technique was used in horizontal and vertical.

Great video 👍🏻

Hammered and home from the bar. Time to watch some TFS 🤘

Don't be shy, give us a close up hehehe ;)

Real life situation welding love it dude. Grind it perfect 👍🙏🙏

I live in the real world of working for the government, sometime our budget doesn't allow us to buy material and well we have to use what we have. This was great. For us it's about functionality. I try to make it look good, that's pride, but in a case we're I could learn this it could really be helpful and get us out of a pinch! Good stuff brother. God bless and thank you

Mate you are the guru.

That was pretty interesting to see actually

Good info. I learned in my early years while stick welding that there are times for the extremes, but I also learned that there are lots of places between the extremes that one can be to get the weld right. God knows that even today I am impatient and put down some fugly welds... but they hold (I am not going to compromise on that aspect). If I may be honest I think that MIG welding has made me sloppier; I still prefer stick (though it is slower to put down). That being that, thanks for sharing.

this is a huge help!

Lol that beginning segment is gold

Some serious skill here.

You an Dabs are my heros!

Cool info, I even learned a bit about what frequencies do to the puddle! But my welders an old transformer, so.......60htz it is!!

Just got done building a crazy contraption lunchtime project made out of lawn chair tubing and old aluminum tent poles. 10 - 15 minutes at a time and most of the material is way less than clean. Most joints are not even coped out good so I have a lot of gaps with solid tube on one side and edge of tube on the other. I use mostly .030” aluminum MiG wire for fill. I have to build up the open edges like you did here and build a lot of bridges. I find that until you get a connection between the two tubes it is very unstable but once you get connected it balances out the heat. With thin tubing like this I also find that to aid in the heat transfer I have to go in ‘ surges ‘ more than just trying to be real low and slow. ( also because I am in a hurry ). Aluminum is cool and when you can weld it you can make anything

I have gone over some of my welds with a pulse setting high amps on pulse and around 30% off it almost gives u that stack of dimes effect

I love how his foul clumpy disasters look better than my flat plate lap welds.

Loved the vid

Great Job. I like.

I just welded up some aluminum radiator tubing last night and was fighting it non stop. First aluminum I’d welded all year and definitely wish I had seen this first because the gap wasn’t very big when I started...

No matter what I learn things from you buddy I am a metal fab built race cars and hi end furniture and housing fixtures. Thanks

awesome =) think aluminum has been my nemesis since the first time I picked up a tig torch lol these tips will come in handy =)

thanks

A great Technology, that I have got, Thank you so much, I tried to weld Aluminum, Aluminum alloy, cast Aluminum

Thats a massive gap, if it ever happened id cut a filler piece with it being that wide like 3/4” I could basically fill up to a 1/4” gap, after that its a start over kinda thing

Thanks

Maybe not to you, but I thought that was excellent and very informative! Thanks for the vid!

Reminds me of some of the fun times I've had with welding sheet metal with an overpowered MIG that isn't happy on low voltage.

When has anyone said "I will fill in this hole and it will be a work of art!!"

That’s how I weld giant gaps with the mig, ofc what I do doesn’t have to be nothing near perfect because I’m building grills out of old natural gas tanks but if I have a 1/2 gap or 1in gap I’ll start to layer up on the sides closing up the gap till I get to the point where I can weld the 2 together

Stop being a perfectionist. You did it 👍😎

I wanted to see the lump on the inside of the pipe.

I was wondering what frequency setting was, thx, got it

Dude your welds look great. Have you ever heard or red hot. Aluminum paint. It blends in your welds perfect after welding

great video , very real life situation have to , makes a hard master.

Good Technique man,you can also back purge it if you need it to be a better weld and not get all funky on the inside.

I would have liked to see some close up shots of the weld. Also a shot of the inside of the tube. But as always good video

🤣🤣 I was screwing up fit-up last night with some .125 wall square tubing. I managed but this video has prepared me for my future failings as an amateur 👍🏻👍🏻

for repair work that is great knowledge.

This would be a geat place to use the machines pulser, right?

Awesome, I usually stick the filler rod to one side, and then stick it to the other. Then weld over my rod stitches.

l run into breaking off job often, edge building skill are vital.

I don’t care about how to was ended but I’m sure hundred percent 💯💯💯✅ that you taught me how to fill the gap so thank you sir 👍🏻

Real life stuff lol many times ive had to do this great video

"hloes" great technique to make us watch the video . and make us comment . nice mistake or cleverness . it is working

I would grind it flush just to see how well you put the metal back

Hot and heavy puts less overall heat into the part which reduces distortion. Counter intuitive but it’s true. Heat is really a function of time.

If you want a nice finish you can sand that weld back and cut a small groove down the center with a 1mm cutting disk, then clean it and reweld it... 😉

1 thing i would like to see is welding an fittings or something onto a cast rocker cover. I welding 2 an fitting onto an evo 3 rocker cover a few weeks ago and it was a nightmare.

Question if you had some copper backing on inside would it be easier?

I've got a hloe in a piep! How do I fxi it! It's hard to weld being dylsexic

Love the analogy of looking like a "cockroach!" LMAO! Still excellent learning experience for me!

i would have cut another wedge of material to fit in that giant gash. visually it would still suck but at least it would take less time.

Haven’t been welding as long as you, but I would have put something inside to pat my beads on. Thanks Mike

How about a shot of the finished weld...

Good.

I would actually stand those 2 pieces on end and build up the sections with a edge weld so when You lay them together the gap would be very small.

Just passing by years later to say : In high pressure welding a gap like that is way outside tolerances and the apprentice that cut something like that is gonna get in trouble. Sometimes the best solution is accepting that you have to redo the whole thing. :P

Is there any tips you could add, if doing this without adjustable frequency?