Aluminum diamond plate flooring, for a fishing boat (jakeru's #10)

[jakeru]

I did another project on a fishing boat recently, doing some 2-1/4 hours of welding work to help the owner complete the installation of some Aluminum diamond plate flooring.


The flooring was designed so it can be removable, in case any maintenance was needed at some future time on the structure underneath the floor. So it was basically designed in two large pieces so it could be possible to lift it out. Where the two pieces butt up against each other, I added some 1.5" 6061-T6 angle (about 1/16" thick) to the floor supporting structure underneath the joint to add some rigidity and support the flooring there. The owner is planning on installing a rubber trim/transition piece along this joint eventually, that he found as some kind of flooring product.

You can see how I propped the edge of one piece of flooring up using C-clamps to give me enough access to weld the support angle material underneath:


This was kind of a tricky area to get the TIG torch down into and weld, but helped provide extra rigidity to the floor support structure, so was worth the effort:


I went over the weld beads with a second pass to smooth them out (since the metal flooring material would be bearing on it.) Here are some completed welds of the angle / support structure underneath:


I found some of the diamond plate (main flooring material) was 1/16" thick (excluding the raised diamonds) while some other of it was 1/8" thick. It was recycled, and there was some nasty, mastic or chaulking type adhesive underneath that I had to remove from one plate around the weld area. I just did it with a flap wheel, but it blew quite the mess.


I prepared the top, bottom, and side surfaces along the weld joint with a combination of the 4.5" flap wheel (electric angle grinder powered) and a 3" scotch brite disc (air die-grinder powered), following by a solvent wash:


There was a little bit of warpage after the welding, but nothing that can't be able to be hammered out flat later if necessary. I was pleased with how it came out.




I did all this welding with 3/32" 5356 filler, TIG welded with the torch switch (and a bit of downslope, 1-1.5 seconds or so, to be able to regulate the current with the torch switch.) I never did determine the alloy of the diamond plate.

[jakeru]

I also welded some flooring pieces together at the stern of the boat.




Completed welds:

[jdt1986]

how wide is the bead on the diamond plate?looks good . and how thick is the diamond plate.

[sportbike]

Great job as usual!
Diamond plate is typically either 3003 aluminum, or 6061. Not ALWAYS the case, but usually tool boxes, or decorative are 3000 series, and structural items are 6000. The 3000 series is very formable. The 6000 is still formable, but not nearly as much as the 3000.

John

[jakeru]

how wide is the bead on the diamond plate?looks good . and how thick is the diamond plate.

I'm going to say based on the pictures, that the bead width was probably around 1/4"-5/16".

Great job as usual!
Diamond plate is typically either 3003 aluminum, or 6061. Not ALWAYS the case, but usually tool boxes, or decorative are 3000 series, and structural items are 6000. The 3000 series is very formable. The 6000 is still formable, but not nearly as much as the 3000.

I don't think the diamond plate was all 6061, because I didn't notice any hot cracking tendencies (which I usually notice when welding 6061 to 6061.)

Also I had to hammer one bent corner down before welding it, and subjectively, it didn't seem as strong as 6061-T6 would have been to me (although it was no "softie" either.)

More than one local metal suppliers do sell the thin-gage diamond plate aluminum in 5053, and I've worked with it (smooth sheet though, not diamond plate) in the past, and certainly wouldn't rule out that possibility. The 5xxx series seem pretty popular for marine applications.

There is also the possibily that the two different thicknesses of the diamond plate I welded were dis-similar. (Since they were different thicknesses, and only one kind had adhesive residue on its back side, it was obvious they each had varying "previous lives".)

Is there a convenient way to test presence of various aluminum alloying ingredients you are aware of?

I don't know if it would be very practical to use in the field, but I've noticed or at least suspected that different aluminum filler rods may burn different colors when overheated. 5356 in particular seems to (maybe) "burn" green, perhaps from the magnesium content.

[DaveO]

Is there a convenient way to test presence of various aluminum alloying ingredients you are aware of?

My brother told me he's worked with guys that can roughly tell the carbon content in steel based on the sparks that fly from a grinder. It would be interesting to have the field test you mention, something like dropping filings into a torch flame and see what colors appear.