So I got a tig machine a little while back, had it enough time to run 2 bottles of argon through it. Have had pretty good results, here's some pics for street cred. Machine is the Eastwood digital tig200.

Aluminum practice pieces

Stainless
so I built a new stainless hotside and it turned out great. Made my intercooler pipe from cooler to throttle body, welds aren't great but I am happy with them.

Intercooler pipe. You can tell i have scotchbrited it some
So everything is great, let's add the blow off valve and iat sensor bung and be finished.

Wtf is this.
So it's not good.

I went back to practicing and it's terrible. Whenever I dip my filler I can see the black stuff being introduced. I've scotchbrited my filler, I always clean it with acetone, tried different size filler, different tungsten, gas flow to 30cfh and down to 10 Cfh. Used a #6 gas lens which is my go to for AL, then went to a 7, 8, and 10with no change. Changed my a.c. balance from 20 up to 40, freq up and down.

I have 2 fillers 1 is a 1/16th and the other is 3/32 and they are in separate containers, neither 1 makes a change. So I went back to stainless and it runs perfect, so I think that rules out the gas?

this is driving me crazy, I've ruined my intercooler pipe so I get to make it again. Any suggestions are welcome, anybody have filler metal go bad? Seems unlikely but I can run beads without filler and it looks good.

 

That black crap that is coming up is from contamination. Clean everything again with scotchbrite and acetone. Then clean it again.

Your welds look really good BTW

 

thanks, that's what I was thinking. With it only coming when I add filler it must be the filler. I have cleaned everything I intend to actually use as a part very well. The weird part is when I was practicing I could just grab a stick of filler and go to town without even wiping it down and it was fine. Alot better that this. Maybe the filler was new then and it has sat for a couple months now in my shop and oxidized. I'll try that out and see

 

That chinese BOV flange has a clear coating on it, it has to be removed to weld.

 

ok I'll clean it off some more, I had to reshape it to my 3 inch pipe so I figured it was good with just some scotchbrite and acetone. Fit up was pretty tight, as soon as I tried to give it filler it went to ****. It's almost like it's the wrong material lol but I know it's 4043 like I always use. Gonna have to clean it up for sure now lol

thanks for the replies guys, looks like I need to clean everything more lol. I can't weld when we're open with all the shop doors open, but I'll update when I get another chance. Any other tips I'm all ears.

 

Clean with acetone, use a small stainless brush and only in one direction, then clean until no residue is left. Also check the cleanliness of the rod, it can get a build up and should be cleaned. I wipe every rod down with a blue shop paper towels but no acetone. Another thing you can do is snip the ends.

 

And change from the gas lens to no 5 standard cup. 3/32 2% lanthanated tungsten with an 1/8” stick out, 3/32 4043 rod.

 

I'll give that a shot, I just hate how long my standard cups are lol I'm using the purple 3/32 tungsten and 3/32 and or 1/16 4043. Filler and tungsten are blue demon brand. I've made good decent looking welds before, this is a new thing that has started happening when I dab the filler. No filler beads look great.

With filler is terrible, I noticed earlier it looks like the filler is melting before I get to the puddle which will turn it to **** for sure. My torch angle and filler angles are good, maybe my torch is firing sideways. I also just got this bottle of gas and haven't got a good aluminum bead since. But bad gas would affect stainless too right?

 

What gas lens are you using, name brand or cheap ebay/amazon? I tried the cheap ones & had horrible luck. Was using Miller but now use Furick, both work perfect for me.

 

It's an eBay deal, has worked good for me so far except for stainless. I have also tried my furick jazzy 10 setup with the same results. I'll go back to standard lens after everyone leaves today and see how they do. Also gonna clean my filler 3 or 4 times lol

 

Yep the Chinese love to clear coat or anodize things that they know are going to be welded....

 

problem is even welding something else it does it.

Heres a practice piece

the top bead I went an inch or so with filler then an inch or so with no filler. The 2nd bead was all filler. And the 3rd bead was no filler at all.

It's gotta be something on the filler but I've not had this issue before. Hard to believe 2 different batches in different containers have the same issue. I also scotchbrited the filler rod until it was a dull color. Then acetone wiped it until nothing came off. I even opened up a fresh pair of gloves to make sure there wasn't something on my old pair lol

 

Do not use scotch brite on the rod or base material, you are just embedding the contaminates. Edge and CK have short standard cups. Get a hold of some clean sheet and see what happens. Could be all of the coatings.

Bad gas can definitely do this, and it would cause problems on stainless as well, do some hot quick starts on stainless, it should be bright and shiny with no residues. If not, that could be the issue and show itself more on the aluminum but you might be thinking it’s fine on the stainless when it’s really not. It actually happens quite often.

 

Dedicated SS wire brush for your aluminum prep. As mentioned, bad gas can cause major frustration. That said, you test piece with no filler looks good.

 

that's the weird part to me, no filler looks fine. I can even tack 2 pieces of aluminum pipe together and fusion weld it down the seam and it looks fine although I know it's not strong. But as soon as I give it filler it turns to ****. That makes me think the gas is fine but then again I don't know anything at this stage. Everything else should be fine too, it has all laid down some nice beads before.

I also noticed the test piece I posted above when I added filler it didn't crown up at all. It looks just like the no filler weld as far as crown height goes.

I really appreciate the replies guys, I have a Al only stainless brush I use. I don't normally scotchbrite anything, but I was struggling with it and thought there maybe something on the filler so I gave it a good scrub and then hit it with acetone.

Normally I just acetone wipe the filler and the part and tack it. Wire brush the weldments and acetone wipe again. Then burn it in.

 

It’s probably not the root cause, but also only brush one direction or else you can drag contaminates back in. Some inverters want a 90/10 balance to weld correctly as well. I’ve fought the same thing as you’re going through. Eventually I just started turning ***** for balance and frequency until it worked.

 

adjust "cleaning" on the ac balance

 

Here's a WAG, but are your gloves dirty?

 

I weld for a living and do my share of aluminum Tig. I NEVER clean my filler and very rarely clean the aluminum unless it's used dirty stuff. Gas lenses are not your problem unless they're cheapy crap. I prefer denatured alcohol to acetone. I rarely use a stainless brush. Way to easy to introduce contaminates. Make sure all your argon connections are tight and also make sure your lead going in the ground clamp is secure. I had a loose lead in my ground clamp once and I pulled my hair out. Way too many get obsessed with cleaning and it's mostly unnecessary.

 

Thanks for the replies guys I really appreciate the input. I'll say again I've made decently good welds before and kinda half *** know how to use my machine. Meaning I'm not just picking up the torch. I have some good time on it, just haven't ran into problems like this.

anyway I swapped my torch over to standard consumables and same thing. Also tried going to a new 1/16 tungsten just for giggles. Then I swapped on my furick jazzy setup and went to stainless, the welds in the first post were done with this same setup. Here's the results

Weld metals online 1/8 thick coupon. 135 amps, jazzy 10 3/32 purple tung, 1/16 308l filler 10 sec post flow. Changed gas from 15 to 25 cfh with not much change. The dots are just like spot welds no filler

Same
I never could get great looking welds on these coupons, they were always kinda dark. But when I went to my hotside pipe with a back purge they came out great.

these are no back purge but it's the same pipe. 65 amps


so I'm starting to think the gas is contaminated, everything changed when I got this new bottle. I didn't really think about it because I went from stainless to aluminum at the same time and just thought I needed to get my aluminum mojo back lol. It's funny we use AirGas and we usually get really ratty looking old bottles but this time the bottle looks brand new. Of course the best looking bottle has bad gas inside. I'm thinking it's got C25 instead of pure argon. I'll call them tomorrow but won't get another bottle until Wed, I'll let you guys know how it does.

thanks again for the suggestions