cast aluminum question

[dabar39]

I need some help in doing a cast aluminum repair. Where the item is located I cant reach with my tig rig and will have to try using stick rod. The problem is that I have never burnt an aluminum stick rod before, can any one give me some tips and pointers to make this as painless as possible.
whats the best rod for cast (4043?), heat settings etc...
The piece that needs repair is on a flat panel and is 3/16" thick, and has an ear attached as a pivot point. the ear is what has been broken off. Thanks Dave

[HMW]

wow, stick aluminum. Have never done it but have heard of it. I'm curious also if it can be really done

[Wheelchair]

i was told by our welding instructor at work to preheat then weld about a 1/2 inch at a time, starting and ending at opposite ends of part and then postheat by throwing in an oven if possible or cover in sand

I believe you are thinking of cast iron.

Wheelchair

[terry welds]

aluminum stick

i have try alum, stick two or three times and had no luck at it seems to want to ball up i did perheat and tryed reseting the welder. ended up getting the spoolgun out. this was on a transmisson on a bubbys stock car its still holding today. good luck dave hope your eyes are doing ok

[Sundown]

Count me in those who tried SMAW aluminum, I guess it can be done ... but I won't try it again. Spoolgun is really the way to go if you can't tig it. JMHO. BTW, CK & I think Weldcraft makes some very long and skinny torches you might look at.

[dabar39]

Here's the problem

The piece to be fixed is in an area where every thing was built around it and I can't get the equipment to it. We can't even get the welders in the same room as the part to be fixed, it's in a tank room of a small juice plant and every thing is real tight to work around. To make matters even worse it is a hatch in the ceiling behind many rows of homogenizing and glycol tubing. There are 14 double rows of 2" stainless pipe in the way of removing the part for repair. The leads we have for the spool gun and tig units will not reach any where close to the area we have to get to, and taking apart the chiller lines is not an option. I am open for any suggestions or ideas. Dave

[terry welds]

dave

sounds like you have a chlange on your hands i know what your talking about now we have a egg bracking plant in the town i live in. it looks like what you are talking with all the stainless pipeing and tanks.sorry cant help you

[metal-doctor]

Seen this thread at supper time, but had to go back to shop to get my info.We have welded aluminum with a stick & had good results. We used to weld engine mounts on snowmobiles a few years back. The material we worked with was 1/2" thick. Our procedure was to V on both sides to within about 1/8". Only one rod we had success with & was UTP 48 , 1/8rod. It was I.D.'d by a green tip on stinger end. Amperage for this rod was 80-110 amps. Tensile strength for this one is 34,000 p.s.i. Run on D.C. Elctrode Pos. We did a lot of these units & they take some pretty good punishment between vibration & many hard bumps in our country. We do not use this method any more with the addition of tig & spoolgun , but then that was all we had. Did many Ski-Doo & Arctic Cats as wll. They like a short arc. If this is the way you go getsome & practice first.As with all aluminum it can be a different bird. Good luck & keep us posted.

[dabar39]

metal-doctor

My local welding suppliers only carry the 4043 aluminum stick rod. Can anyone give me a name of a supplier that carries this UTP 48 , 1/8 " rod. Dave

[weld_13]

wow thats a challenge! ive heard of people using aluminumn stick before but i have never taken the challenge to try. i have 1 or 2 sticks that came with a welder but never minded to waste them. every time i had aluminum to weld it always ment a a/o torch cause i dont have a spool gun or a tig.

[metal-doctor]

As you probably noticed we are from Canada , so unfortunately I can't give you any suggestions. Was a pretty popular rod up here so hopefully someone can help source it for you.

[Anti-GMAW]

Well if you have access to a dynasty or other advanced square wave GTAW machine you could run a TIG lead as far as you want since you would'nt need high freq. Also if you don't have acces to a dynasty or equivilent machine then see if you can rent one from a LWS. One of the many LWS's around me has a pretty sizable rental fleet of welders of all types.

[aa5gp]

2 x 2 x 1/4 6061 angle

I recently tacked some 2 x 2 x 1/4" 6061 with 1/8" 4043 rod. Started off at 95-100 amps DC reverse polarity and had to be really quick as it used rod faster than I have ever experienced. I had about 2 dozen places to tack and all I had onsite was my XL AC/DC. It turned out OK but took me a few trys on some scrap to get a handle on it. Most of the tacks were vertical and I found it difficult but not impossible.


Charles