will red tungston give a really bad weld with aluminum? dont have any blue or orange on hand.

 

i use a pure (green) tungston on aluminum. A 2% red will do it though.

 

you can use red tungston on aluminum but your weld won't turn out as good as if you had pure tungsten. plus i have found that it seems to be a lot smoother and easier to weld with a green tungsten.

 

Depends on the machine. Red will work fine, and if its an inverter machine, you cannot use green or you will burn up the welder over time. Pure has hard arc starting issues with the new inverter technology. I use red for steel and aluminum with my dynasties, green and red with my Syncrowave.

 

^ i got a syncrowave 180 sd will the green hurt that one? i been messing with the tig for about a week or so now just with settings using a red tungston and the weld seems almost perfect in the center of the beads but near the outsides its got what looks to be heat bubbles. this is also on soposedly "the hardest aluminum to weld" -anodized tubing ( guy that i got it from uses it to make boat towers.) the 6061 t6aluminum welds great with the 2% red. im probly going to go tomarow and buy a couple differnt type of tungston as i dont know what else it could be, the metals clean the tanks are full and ive tried lots of settings angles and patterns, methods...

 

also , the bubbles arent from heat though because the lower settings of heat make it more evident.

 

You know, I just bought Phil’s (Phil99vette) 180SD last week and have been screwing around with it for about 3 days now, kind of in the same boat.

The 180 is not an inverter box so you can pretty much run whatever tungsten works for you, the traditional answer is 2% thoriated (red) for pretty much everything and pure (green) for aluminum and magnesium.

1.5% lanthanated (gold) _is supposed_ to be a non radioactive replacement for the red with nearly identical characteristics. Since I had some around I tried that first and was having some real problems with it, it was balling like pure stuff does when welding steel with it and then giving a hard to control arc. I also had some pure. Phil demonstrated the welder for me with some pure on aluminum and for the life of me I was having an insane time trying to control the arc, even with the exact piece of pure tungsten that Phil was using that was left in the torch. I don’t know, I was able to melt the aluminum into random piles of molten snot, but not run a nice bead (phil did, oh and of course, this is the first time I ever tried TIGing aluminum at all).

I borrowed a piece of red from a friend to see if it’s a problem with the gold tungstens, and also spent some time on miller’s site looking for clues. Interestingly, their recommendations looked a lot like recommendations for inverter machines the first couple of times I looked at them so I ignored them, but when I looked at their instructional stuff and online videos that had the same charts next to them I noticed that hey all the instructional stuff was done on a synchrowave 180 SD. The charts recommended thoriated for steel and ceriated or lantanated for aluminum… huh.

So first I tried the thoriated that I borrowed on some steel… wow, 100% better, I can actually not only stick 2 pieces together, but I could actually run a real bead… it doesn’t look like nice, stacked dimes yet, but it is a real, even bead and the tungsten stays pointed for, well I don’t know how long, right now it’s probably about 10x as long as the lantanated tungsten ever stayed pointed and I still don’t need to resharpen it.

Next I tied the piece of lanthanated on some aluminum (miller recommended 2%, blue rather then the 1.5% gold that I have), ground to sort of a dull point… again, wow, much better, more controlled arc. I was able to do a half assed job on some really thin aluminum (maybe 1/16” thick or so), but actually a really good job on some ¼”. What surprised me more is that like the thoriated on steel, the lanthanated on aluminum didn’t ball either.

Donno, I may try the thoriated on aluminum, the traditional answer is that thoriated will weld well but the added heat of doing aluminum will cause it to splinter and contaminate the aluminum weld. I know that when Phil was trying to demonstrate the welder he kept finding what I would assume was thoriated which didn’t ball and he wasn’t able to run a proper bead with.

Either way I’m going to keep experimenting since clearly what is working isn’t what is traditionally recommended. I did order some samples of some ivory stripe “tri-mix” which are supposed to be some rare earth blend that is supposed to work on everything. I’ll see how those work when I actually see them. I may also try harder with the green or possibly even get some zirconiated and try that for aluminum since those are the traditional answers, and although it didn’t work for me when I first tried it, I know that I’ve seen it work on this particular machine so I know that it does work.

 

thats probly what it was , then because i got what i would call show quality stack of dimes welds with the 2% just the outsides of the welds looked contaminated. i just ordered some green so hopefully its what it is. i think im going to an advanced welding class mon and tuesday so i should find out all i need to know for it. and maybe get certified in the process.

 

its because it depends on what kind of aluminum it is. t6 and t4 weld awesome but when it comes to 2024 and stuff like that it isn't suppose to be welded. but it can be as long as it doesn't take a heavy load.

 

Good material, fresh rod, probably 4043 for what you are doing, and a clean prep and good scuff on the parts. Aluminum is hard, takes a while to master

I always use 2% thoriated (red) on steel, and pure on aluminum with the Syncrowaves. I can use Red for alum. if I am in a pinch, but green gets it done.

 

well ive seen the anodized welded , the guy makes boat towers with it (and he says he welds with it set on 180, wich is about the highest my welder goes), so its not the aluminum. even though the guy says most people cant weld it , because its alot harder then most aluminum, it can be welded nice. i should take a pic of the weld and put it up on here , its not the weld puddles that arent coming out nice just the looks of the egdes of the weld looks contaiminated.



thanks for all the reply's im sure i'll get it soon ive only been trying the tig with aluminum for a few weeks... it took me longer to master easier types.. got some green ordered so ill see if that makes the welds im looking for.

 

its not harder to weld 2024. it is just weak aluminum and i would never use it. but i am also an aeronautical welder and we aren't suppose to even weld it. you could use it but i wouldn't use it on anything that takes a load.

 

thanks for all replies, found out its just the type of aluminum- anodized aluminum leaves a slight impurity on both the side's with a nice pure look in the middle, if done right. now i just hafto practice my spacing more as thats the -needs improvement area at the moment. this really had me confused , when i was welding bar stock the welds looked great, but then this anodized threw me off.

 

The problem with anodizing is that it is really oxidation, to anodize, you force the aluminum to oxidize by running electricity through it while it’s submerged in an acid bath, then you soak die into the oxide layer and seal it in. the issue becomes that oxidation is your biggest enemy when welding aluminum because it melts at a much higher temperature then aluminum does so by the time you melt through that top layer the aluminum below it has melted away making for funky looking welds if you can manage it at all.

OTOH, it’s easy enough to take anodizing off with any strong acid or base…

 

good info, im using a big peice to make something on my car, so maybe ill use the acid on the sections i need to weld on that before i weld it up.

 

Oven cleaner (strong base), mag wheel cleaner (usually some mixture of mild acids), muriatic acid for cleaning concrete (dillute it a lot), a lie solution... they'll all work.

you can of course take it off manually (sand it off) also.