Welding Rods

Anyone ordered the welding rods advertised for welding aluminum if so are they any good at welding thin sheet metal i don't like to order without knowing a little more than what the advertiser has posted.

Those type rods are for 1/4 inch and thicker Not for sheet metal. I always said they were good for bakery racks or somewhere the weld won't scrutinized for appearance . { although guys on you tube are getting some pretty good runs with the alum rod.] It is a tricky and somewhat nasty rod. May need preheat from a torch too.

There are real welding rods for aluminum which I think is what Dr Sportster is referring to.

The fix anything with a propane torch rods are more of a brazing rod. Not a true welding rod.

I think you're referring to the "welding rods" that you can use with a propane torch. That's actually a soldering or brazing process rather than true fusion welding. Propane doesn't get hot enough to do much damage to thin aluminum, but whether or not you can do an adequate repair with those filler rods kind of depends on the requirements for the part you want to fix.

If you know what you're doing and have the right flux, you can fusion-weld aluminum with oxyacetylene. It's a bit tricky, since it's difficult to judge the temperature of aluminum from its appearance.

I think what Mark is referring to are those car show rods called Lumi-weld or something . Those would work for sheet metal I think. The guy fuses cans together .

I've used aluminum rods for arc welding and they are definitely not for sheet metal! You want mig or tig.

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I bought the "Solution Low Temp Al" welding rods for brazing light gauge Al deck shields on a pontoon boat. Do Not waste your money. They do not work for light gauge Al repairs. Al reects the heat too fast to even melt the rod. Ox-Acet might be better. The method of choice is TIG, but you cannot do that outside for losing the shield gas. I thought about Flux Core MIG, but I cannot afford the required spool gun attachment for Al wire. Good Luck.






























































































































































































































































































































































































































































deck sh
Do Not waste your money. I bought some to patch a 18 ga Al

> I bought the "Solution Low Temp Al" welding rods for brazing light gauge Al deck shields on a pontoon boat. Do Not waste your money. They do not work for light gauge Al repairs. Al reects the heat too fast to even melt the rod. Ox-Acet might be better. The method of choice is TIG, but you cannot do that outside for losing the shield gas. I thought about Flux Core MIG, but I cannot afford the required spool gun attachment for Al wire. Good Luck.

I don't think there is such a thing as flux core aluminum wire, although you can certainly use MIG to weld aluminum. (FWIW, flux core is NOT MIG.)

Gas welding with oxyacetylene isn't an appropriate process for closed vessels like your pontoons. The flux used for gas welding is highly corrosive and has to be throughly cleaned after welding; obviously you can't clean the inside of a sealed pontoon.

> The flux core wire is run through a std gas MIG welder with the gas shut off and the polarity reversed. The flux provides the shield gas at the arc so it can be used outdoors. Weld.com is a good site for all types of welding instruction, and they refer to flux core as MIG welding. It is just a different delivery system for the shield gas.

I don't doubt that weld.com refers to flux core welding as "MIG", but if they do they are wrong. I doubt you'll find the same mistake on the Lincoln or Miller web sites. MIG (aka Gas Metal Arc Welding, or GMAW) by definition requires an inert gas. Without an inert gas and with the addition of a flux you have Flux Core Arc Welding (FCAW). At any rate, it's a moot point since you can't buy aluminum flux-core wire. As far as I know, aluminum wire is only available as solid MIG wire.

You don't necessarily need a spool gun to MIG weld aluminum, but you do need to change out the hose liner in your MIG gun so the aluminum wire doesn't get contaminated with steel.

> I was not welding on the pontoons. I was welding on the perimeter guard railing on the deck.

Oxyacetylene would be an option, assuming you can thoroughly clean the railing after welding. Probably not a good idea if your railing is tubular.

I found a better solution to the pontoon rails and Al sheet attached to the rails. I was afraid of the weld splatter setting the seats and/or carpet on fire. I took the damaged section off the boat, right front quarter, loaded it in the pickup, and took it to an independent shop who does a lot of TIG welding. He repaired the damaged section and reinforced 3 othe welds on the vertical rails that had cracks in the welds. The finished product looks almost factory with 1 small wrinkle at one of the supports. It was well worth the $100 he charged me for the repair. Saved me from really frigging it up and costing 10 times to have it straightened out. Alls well that ends well.

I found a better solution to the pontoon rails and Al sheet attached to the rails. I was afraid of the weld splatter setting the seats and/or carpet on fire. I took the damaged section off the boat, right front quarter, loaded it in the pickup, and took it to an independent shop who does a lot of TIG welding. He repaired the damaged section and reinforced 3 othe welds on the vertical rails that had cracks in the welds. The finished product looks almost factory with 1 small wrinkle at one of the supports. It was well worth the $100 he charged me for the repair. Saved me from really frigging it up and costing 10 times to have it straightened out. Alls well that ends well.

I found a better solution to the pontoon rails and Al sheet attached to the rails. I was afraid of the weld splatter setting the seats and/or carpet on fire. I took the damaged section off the boat, right front quarter, loaded it in the pickup, and took it to an independent shop who does a lot of TIG welding. He repaired the damaged section and reinforced 3 othe welds on the vertical rails that had cracks in the welds. The finished product looks almost factory with 1 small wrinkle at one of the supports. It was well worth the $100 he charged me for the repair. Saved me from really frigging it up and costing 10 times to have it straightened out. Alls well that ends well.

> I found a better solution to the pontoon rails and Al sheet attached to the rails. I was afraid of the weld splatter setting the seats and/or carpet on fire. I took the damaged section off the boat, right front quarter, loaded it in the pickup, and took it to an independent shop who does a lot of TIG welding. He repaired the damaged section and reinforced 3 othe welds on the vertical rails that had cracks in the welds. The finished product looks almost factory with 1 small wrinkle at one of the supports. It was well worth the $100 he charged me for the repair. Saved me from really frigging it up and costing 10 times to have it straightened out. Alls well that ends well.

Yes, that was money well-spent.