Posted by Lanse on December 30, 2012 at 07:26:14 from (206.55.217.126):
Goodmorning ladies and gentlemen!!
So, I'd had a number of requests to try welding some aluminum with those specialty electrodes you can buy, and to see how well they work, exactly...
One afternoon on my to school, I stopped by the local Tractor Supply and bought a box of Hobart's finest, 1/8" 4043 aluminum electrodes... I got some scraps of 1/4" plate, and some thinner stuff, and got to work.
How'd it go, you ask? Not too well, honestly... At first I couldn't get these things to run at all, and through the course of the night had virtually every stick welding problem known to man, and several known to monkey.
They were hard to strike...
They were hard to keep lit...
There was slag, epic slag.
It was hard to remove.
It got trapped in the bead.
It snuffed out the arc.
My main problem was with cold lap, lack of fusion, and tie-in. These electrodes burn FAST, not fast as in 7024 or flux-core fast, fast as in they pretty much just vaporize. You have to move along the joint very fast, much too fast to get adequate tie-in. Sooo... "Why don't you just slow down?" One might ask...
Because if you do, the metal just piles up on top of itself and is still too cold. The slag piles up too, and gets into the bead and eventually just snuffs out the arc. One can't simply "slow down" like you could on steel...
I'm no good with these things... And honestly, I don't feel too bad about it. I know it was my first time stick welding aluminum and all, but I dont think these particular electrodes will work out well under the best of circumstances.
Atleast for me, 99% of aluminum repairs I've seen involve a nice spool gun, or a tig machine, and I now know why that is. A bunch of people in the comments section of this video claimed to try stick welding aluminum, with the same results I had. One guy said he could get good results with the process, but the particular electrodes I used, were among the worst he'd ever bought.
I know, I know, blame the tool, right?
Either way, Im sure someone out there, at some point in time has gotten beautiful welds with aluminum stick electrodes, but what was I hoping for?
I was hoping that this was something that a guy with a little previous stick welding experience could try his hand at and weld up his broken aluminum lawn mower deck. Or fix the crack on the bellhousing of his project truck. Annnnnd, its not that easy, as it turns out.
I hope you guys enjoy the video, and yes, I do expect to get somewhat flamed for it. For the record, I'm NOT presenting this as a How-To or anything like that, its just "I got this... This is how it worked for me".
Like I said, I hope you guys enjoy it. Despite my "less than perfect" results, it was honestly pretty fun to make :P
Audio/Video clip:video1
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