First two days of welding Noobness!

[Gandalf]

Alright I am rather excited about this... probably a decade-long dream of mine has been to be able to weld... and since most of the projects I want to do are aluminum (intake manifold, aluminum exhaust, brush bars etc) I got my hands on my new 250EX. If I am going to be a noob again, I may as well noob it up on something ultra cool.

My welder arrived a couple months ago, and I have spent these months aquiring the remaining gear such as a nice Vika portable workbench (xmas gift from the GF), cutoff wheel, bench grinder, my own argon gas cylinder (a 22), 4-sensor auto-darkening helmet, and consumables. Most importantly, I read and read and watched many welding videos. Having never done any welding, I needed to cover all the basics. I perform in the music industry, so dealing with lots of knobs and foot pedals is familiar territory, thankfully .

I cleaned up a heavy piece of 1/2" aluminum U-plate to use as a welding surface and protect my table, and used another piece of plate as a third hand.



Two evenings ago, I felt I was ready to have a go at it. Since I have tons of scrapyard aluminum tubing, and I will be working on intakes and exhaust tubing, I figured I'd get my practice in on tubing instead of flat sheet. After several hours of familiarizing myself with the settings on the machine, I had it dialed in pretty good. I ran lots of beads, and they went pretty well, all noobing aside. Last night, I attempted to join two pieces of tubing together, which was considerably harder than running beads. But, I got it figured out.

And tonight, I chopped half a dozen 1" bands of tubing, and welded my first pieces of tube together. I have to say I am extremely impressed with this welding machine. It was very forgiving. Considering I was using scrapyard tubing with a few burrs here and there, just a quick wipe with acetone on the outside, not to mention a complete noob, it gave me a beautiful arc and nice puddling. I am fully aware of the importance of correct cleaning... I was curious as to what I could get away with playing around with the AC balance.

This tubing is 3 5/8ths diameter, around .0508 wall. I am using 3/32" 2% lanthanated tungsten and 3/32 4043 rod. My settings are 60 amps, 7 lpm of argon flow and a #6 cup, AC frequency at around 135 and balance at about 50% (which happens to be right at noon for both).



Starting the joint was the hardest part... what worked for me was to warm up both sides of the joint (but avoiding the seam), until I had a puddle started on each side and then just added filler and joined the puddles, kind of a "U" shape movement with the torch. If there is an easier and cleaner way I would be happy to hear about it. You can see the start-point in the pic below:



Any advice, tips, thoughts are most welcome. I will keep adding to this thread as I tackle my intake, exhaust and manifold projects.

[geezer]

Looks fine and it will improve as your hand gets steadier, you are on your way to mastering it. practice, practice.

[Gandalf]

Looks fine and it will improve as your hand gets steadier, you are on your way to mastering it. practice, practice.

Thanks! Yup I definitely will practice a lot... I'm hooked. I am beginning to get low on my first bottle of Argon, lol. Surprised it lasted for as many hours as it has...

hey gandalf! good to see ya here!!!!! as another toyota owner (mainly celicas here, but my cousin has a mr2T that we recently 3rd gen swapped) good to see someone using the everlast on the same type of stuff that i plan on doing as well, and having good results at that!!!!
in the last pic, from your start point down looks awesome dude!!
makes me super excited about getting my own machine!
looking forward to your progress on your intake manifold for sure!

Thats awesome! and thanks Its funny to think how many products I have held off on buying for my car because I felt like it was a cop-out if I dildn't make it myself. That more than covered the cost for the welder right there. Plus, there are usually design improvements to be had.

For the intake tubing, since it might get painted/powdercoated/anodized, I might smooth over all the dimes, then grind, if I want a one-piece look to the pipe... I wonder if another "smoothing" pass weakens the weld too much or if its ok to flatten it out somewhat. I don't need to see dimes for those sections of tubing.

[sschefer]

Thanks! Yup I definitely will practice a lot... I'm hooked. I am beginning to get low on my first bottle of Argon, lol. Surprised it lasted for as many hours as it has...

Thats awesome! and thanks Its funny to think how many products I have held off on buying for my car because I felt like it was a cop-out if I dildn't make it myself. That more than covered the cost for the welder right there. Plus, there are usually design improvements to be had.

For the intake tubing, since it might get painted/powdercoated/anodized, I might smooth over all the dimes, then grind, if I want a one-piece look to the pipe... I wonder if another "smoothing" pass weakens the weld too much or if its ok to flatten it out somewhat. I don't need to see dimes for those sections of tubing.

Depends mainly on the type of Al. 6061 (Heat Tempered) extrusions would be better off without a smoothing pass. Here's a tip, use WD-40 on a flap disk and the metal when you're grinding and it'll be done in no time flat. WD-40 is not a penetrant but it will get forced into the Al. Acetone as a cleaning solvent has always worked fine for me.

The trick is to make sure you build your bead wider and higher if you're going to grind it off smooth. When you weld, the joint becomes slightly depressed and you'll unconciously grind into that depression. The result is that it will show when all is said and done.

[Shield Arc]

Gandalf you'll need to get a stainless steel wire brush to clean you material with, a large one, and a small one. Never use these brushes on anything else but aluminum!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You'll also want to get a couple Scotch-brite pads to clean your filler wire with.


Another thing that may help you, if you're right handed, hold the torch in your left hand. With aluminum you're going to stuff a lot of filler rod in each dab. This will give you the very sought after fish scale look. If you're like most right handed people you're more coordinated with your right hand by far over your left, what better hand to stuff rod with? The torch hand doesn't really do that much, just slides along, and keeps the tungsten from dipping into the puddle, right?

[Gandalf]

I actually went overboard on picking up stainless brushes... I bought an 8" stainless bench grinder brush, and 8" fine grindstone for the tungsten sharpening, as well as a 3" stainless drill-brush which gets used the most... in addition to two stainless hand-brushes... all of which are dedicated.

I have not cleaned my joints as well as they could be, mostly because I was curious as to what the welder will put up with. In addition, I want to know what to do when I am welding and I hit a nasty patch.

I have not done anything with my filler rods yet either, that's a good tip too... thanks very much! I am actually a cellist, so my hands are used to dedicated tasks. The rod feels very nice in my left hand since those fingers are used to precision work, and the torch in my right hand fits well too... lol, I am right-handed but I use a knife and fork opposite as well.

lol I discovered something else too... I have to remember to breathe when I weld!!

[Gandalf]

Depends mainly on the type of Al. 6061 (Heat Tempered) extrusions would be better off without a smoothing pass. Here's a tip, use WD-40 on a flap disk and the metal when you're grinding and it'll be done in no time flat. WD-40 is not a penetrant but it will get forced into the Al. Acetone as a cleaning solvent has always worked fine for me.

The trick is to make sure you build your bead wider and higher if you're going to grind it off smooth. When you weld, the joint becomes slightly depressed and you'll unconciously grind into that depression. The result is that it will show when all is said and done.

excellent! Thanks very much!

[presure2]

hey gandalf! good to see ya here!!!!! as another toyota owner (mainly celicas here, but my cousin has a mr2T that we recently 3rd gen swapped) good to see someone using the everlast on the same type of stuff that i plan on doing as well, and having good results at that!!!!
in the last pic, from your start point down looks awesome dude!!
makes me super excited about getting my own machine!
looking forward to your progress on your intake manifold for sure!