Ok - this is baffling me so I'm hoping someone can help point me in the right direction.
Cast Aluminum intake Manifold plate - welding 3/8" diameter holes shut
1.5% Thoriated 3/32 Tungsten, Lincoln TIGRunner 185 biased toward cleaning, 17 series torch, 100% argon at ~20CFH.
I can get a perfect shiny puddle, walk it anywhere I want, over and over again, but as soon as I touch the filler in the puddle (4043 1/16") it's just like I dipped the tungsten. Big "pop" grey soot everywhere, contaminated tungsten, etc. Clean everything up, grind out the weld, remelt a perfect puddle and the same thing happens. I repeat this a couple times and figure that I must have contaminated filler. Get a new stick, clean with scotchbrite and contact cleaner (all I had), no change.
So here's the weird thing - I have 15 holes to weld - this only started happening on the last 2-3 holes.
Just to make it even more interesting, 2 weeks later, in another state, another welder (Miller Synchrowave 250DX), 70% argon/30% HE, 1.5% Lanthinated tungsten, different cast aluminum part (oilpan this time), 4043 filler from a different batch presumably, same issue. I can get a nice puddle, walk it around (boil out any contaminants from the cast), all is well until I touch the filler in the puddle.
The three things that I've been able to deduce with this so far are
1) I'm doing something wrong
2) Both cases this happened suddenly after good welding
3) Both cases I was eventually able to get OK welds, but it took hours of work repeating until something changed and I could add filler again.
I think that sometimes (maybe all the time?) the arc jumps to the filler instead of down to the work piece. I did have back side the filler touching the work piece a few times which made a little more sense as to why the arc would jump to the filler, but after correcting this, I still had the same problem.
I'm no expert welder, but I've got ~100 hours TIG welding aluminum (half of it cast aluminum) so this isn't the first time I've picked up a torch either.
Any help or suggestions are greatly appreciated!
Cast Aluminum intake Manifold plate - welding 3/8" diameter holes shut
1.5% Thoriated 3/32 Tungsten, Lincoln TIGRunner 185 biased toward cleaning, 17 series torch, 100% argon at ~20CFH.
I can get a perfect shiny puddle, walk it anywhere I want, over and over again, but as soon as I touch the filler in the puddle (4043 1/16") it's just like I dipped the tungsten. Big "pop" grey soot everywhere, contaminated tungsten, etc. Clean everything up, grind out the weld, remelt a perfect puddle and the same thing happens. I repeat this a couple times and figure that I must have contaminated filler. Get a new stick, clean with scotchbrite and contact cleaner (all I had), no change.
So here's the weird thing - I have 15 holes to weld - this only started happening on the last 2-3 holes.
Just to make it even more interesting, 2 weeks later, in another state, another welder (Miller Synchrowave 250DX), 70% argon/30% HE, 1.5% Lanthinated tungsten, different cast aluminum part (oilpan this time), 4043 filler from a different batch presumably, same issue. I can get a nice puddle, walk it around (boil out any contaminants from the cast), all is well until I touch the filler in the puddle.
The three things that I've been able to deduce with this so far are
1) I'm doing something wrong
2) Both cases this happened suddenly after good welding
3) Both cases I was eventually able to get OK welds, but it took hours of work repeating until something changed and I could add filler again.
I think that sometimes (maybe all the time?) the arc jumps to the filler instead of down to the work piece. I did have back side the filler touching the work piece a few times which made a little more sense as to why the arc would jump to the filler, but after correcting this, I still had the same problem.
I'm no expert welder, but I've got ~100 hours TIG welding aluminum (half of it cast aluminum) so this isn't the first time I've picked up a torch either.
Any help or suggestions are greatly appreciated!
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