This is impressive!

Puddles · Dec 12, 2012

First time I ever seen oxygen & acetylene welding of aluminum. I know T_Bone use to talk about it a lot.

http://youtu.be/aF1Srs_e1Aw

Fawteen · Dec 12, 2012

Wow!

I think I've found a project to occupy me this winter. Need to find some aluminum flux and some wire.

Hey, I'm only 62, I could get the hang of it before I croak, right?

"8^)

60 acre hillside · Dec 12, 2012

There was an old man in Jackson, Missouri who operated a foundry and machine shop. He welded aluminum with a torch and had an oil pan of a race car sent to him from the East Coast. He told me the procedure and I tried it but It always burned through.

Bud in FLA · Dec 12, 2012

Did he ever say what kind of flux he used?

Spook · Dec 12, 2012

Impressive. That would be great for boat repair.

keh · Dec 12, 2012

He didn't mention the gas temperature that I noticed. That must vary considerably with the thickness of material. Impressive skills though.

KEH

Puddles · Dec 12, 2012

Bud if he did I missed it too.

PJH · Dec 12, 2012

I took the adult ed classes at our local junior college, and the instructor demonstrated welding aluminum with oxy-acet torch. A beautiful weld. He stressed cleanliness - I remember him saying a wire brush would contaminate the weld area. He used a flux coated electrode for a filler rod. He gave us all some coupons so we could try it, but he forewarned us that we would ALL fail. He was right. . . The darn stuff does not change it's appearance as it heats up, like steel does. It's there one second, and gone the next. Holes and blobs all over my coupons. And then there's the old guy, now deceased, who ran a blacksmith shop in our little town. He saved worn out aluminum scoop shovels - he cut strips from the shovels and used the strips for filler rod. Cleanliness was not his forte, but he still made a functional weld. Based on my previous experience, I consider any attempt to weld aluminum, by me, to be a waste of fuel.

Puddles · Dec 12, 2012

I've never been good with oxygen & acetylene welding, and not much of an aluminum weldor at all. But I'll stick with Tig when it comes to welding aluminum!

PJH · Dec 12, 2012

Puddles, I read everything that you put on this site. You've taught me some useful things that's improved my welding. You do some beautiful work, and can back up what you talk about with photos like the one above. I have to say that you remind me of my old welding instructor, and that is a compliment. I'll never be a really good welder - just adequate, and I know my limitations. Last week, I made a hydraulic tank, and decided to pressure test it before I painted it. It looked pretty sharp, but 20 psi and a squirt bottle of Windex later, and I had bubbles everywhere. I finally got it airtight, but it was no longer pretty, ha. Thanks for all of your informative posts!

Paul

wisbaker · Dec 12, 2012

We were messing with my 14 year old Daughter one
year at The EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association)
air show and convinced her she needed to try her
hand at oxy acetylene aluminium welding. We took
her to the seminar and the little snot jumped right
in and did some pretty wild things, ran a bead
across a sheet of aluminium about 3/4" of an inch
wide. They say the trick is to get the right pair
of glasses some have a treatment that filters out
the sodium flare from the flux.

Mike (WA) · Dec 12, 2012

One of the trailers at the bottom said all the stuff he used is available at his website (surprise!).

If it would make me weld like him, I'd buy his stuff in a heartbeat. But something tells me the old saying "your results may vary" would be in play here. . .

jon f mn · Dec 12, 2012

Did a little of that in High School. Nothing that
thin. It is hard to do because it's hard to see the
color change so you can judge temp. That is
incredible to see.

Puddles · Dec 12, 2012

WOW Paul 20-psi! I hope that was a round tank with domed ends! Normally I only use 3 to 4 psi when testing square or rectangular tanks. And even then they bulge out really bad.

Stan in Oly, WA · Dec 12, 2012

I think the flux is borax dissolved in plain water. I have a video by somebody who calls himself The Tin Man which shows his expert gas welding of aluminum, and he tells what he uses for flux. It’s VHS, though, and I don’t have a VHS player hooked up where it’s easy to play it. I’ll try to see if I can play it later today and let you know what I find out.

Stan

PJH · Dec 12, 2012

Rectangular tank - 1/4" material - 2 qt. volume - only 4" square by 9" long or thereabouts.

I usually use a bicycle innertube cut in two, with the cut ends clamped on the openings, but my sacrificial tube was rotted. . .

Sorry for straying the original post.

MarkB_MI · Dec 12, 2012

After attending a workshop at Oshkosh, I tried gas welding aluminum in my home shop, with mixed results. It's not terribly difficult. The flux used in the video is most likely Tinman Tech's proprietary flux. You can also use All-State Brazaloy 35. The single most important thing is to get proper glasses, as standard brazing lenses won't stop the yellow sodium flare produced by the flux. You need didymium glasses, used by glassworkers. I picked mine up on eBay.

george md · Dec 12, 2012

Puddles,

I've have the rod and flux for about 30
years, mostly use it to repair air conditioning
condensers and similar things.
Postal had about the best flux , white paste
and when the temp is just short of melting the
aluminum the flux goes clear.

george

Bob Huntress · Dec 12, 2012

Puddles, you know how we develop habits and even as time goes on and it may not be true, we still act on it. I worked in two welding shops in the Coast Guard, though I am not a welder by trade. The standards for welding aluminum permently were MIG or TIG. I realize that a lot of people stick weld aluminum, and obviously they make rods for both stick and torch. I still never weld aluminum with anything but MIG or TIG. TIG being prefered, if it can be done in the shop. I have yet, to get my own TIG welder, however. I should open my mind up to the idea that the Coast Guard could be wrong, and technology does advance. We were allowed (on paper anyway) to make temporary welds to transport something by trailer to the shop with aluminum stick rod, just not a finished weld job.

MarkB_MI · Dec 12, 2012

Bob, aluminum was gas welded long before arc and heliarc (TIG) were developed. Gas welding fell out of favor because TIG is easier to learn and doesn't use corrosive flux that has to be cleaned off after welding. But gas is still favored by some sheet metal artisans, mainly because it leaves a flat bead than can be easily planished out.

Bob Huntress · Dec 12, 2012

Mark, I am aware that other welding processes will weld aluminum, yet other than tacking something in place to transport it to a welding shop, we were never allowed to use any process but TIG or MIG. At the yard that I worked nights, we used stick for the bed of the rollback, but we just weren't allowed to at the shop. Perhaps it may have had something to do with skill level, though it wasn't easy to learn how to TIG aluminum, either.

This is impressive!

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