aluminum w/ 135

[sparky123]

I just bought a millermatic 135. The guys at my local supply house told me i dont need anything else to weld aluminum other than gas and aluminum wire. others at different suppliers have told me this machine will not weld aluminum at all. help.

[karish]

Al with the 135

sparky123

I have a 130 XP, and it will, in fact shoot Al. Get a separate liner so you do not mix steel and Al, which is bad. They aren't expensive, $15 or so. Hook up the Argon, change the liner, put the Al in machine (all of these are covered in the manual), crank up the feed rate, and have fun.

[Alex]

Don't forget to clean your base material to remove the oxidation, and depending on the thickness, you may need to pre-heat it. Don't leave the Al wire in your machine after your done either. Best to put it back in the bag that it came from to slow down the oxidation on your filler material.

Weld on,
Alex

[DDA52]

I too have a MM135 and was told it wouldn't do alu. If you do try it, post some pics and particulars. I'd be interested in the results. I do know this much, if you use the mig gun and not a spool gun, you need to keep the gun cable as straight as possible for best feeding.

[sparky123]

Thank you for the advice. we are going to get it set up and give it a try. i will let you know how it works.

[fun4now]

.030 wire .035 tip

i was told if you running with stock hose and gun to oversize youre tip to alow for aluminum to expand . so run a .030 wire and a .035 tip.

here is my posted ??? about an aluminum liner kit for the mm135.
it was a wile back but here is the link its werth reading.

http://www.millermotorsports.com/mboard/showthread.php?s=&threadid=970

this should take you there if not go to page 12 of this list and look for mm135 teflon liner aluminum kit??
good luck and happy welding.

[BCarlucci]

As a distributor, if a customer asks me about the mm135 doing alum, i do tell them that it will, but that you have a lot of considerations, 1st is the liner, you need to use a teflon coated liner, 2nd even sometimes that liner doesn't work to well, 3rd you have to remember how soft alum is and that all the contact points in your mig gun i.e. if it's not straight and has a lot of bends in it, normal steel wire will do fine with a few bends here and there, in my experiance alum wire doesn't. 4th bird nesting, don't tighten down to hard on your drive rolls otherwise you'll flatten your alum wire. That's why i suggest a little larger machine with a spool gun, easier to change the wire and you can do both alum and steel, it's not like you have to change the liner and everything else each time you want to go from a steel job to alum job. But in any case since i've run on, good luck with the 135 and best of welding.

BC

[fun4now]

gun

if you want to change back and forth you might consider a seperate gun and hose just pop 1 off and pop the other one in that way you dont have to worry about contaminets in your line a new gun and hose setup for the mm135 is about $150.00 much better than about $600.00 for spoolgun and controler .if you are going to do lots of alum. you might consider the spool gun option but if you dont have enough wook to justify eather the $150 or $600 miller makes a conversion kit for the M-25 gun pt.# 172 136 for $42.50 that would work on the M-10 but gust getting a new liner would work the kit has an oversized liner that takes 1.2mm aluminum wire a bit large for the mm135 but you could try a new standerd liner and oversize your tip.
good luck

[bobw]

al welding

http://www.wirepropellant.com/

this site has a heating device that connects to your mig welder.

it heats the aluminum wire which makes it easier to pass through

the gun cable and allow for easy alum welding. i haven't purchased

it but you decide.