Aluminum Welding

[morgh51]

I need to do some lite welding on a Brushed aluminum light pole that I am going to make a flag pole out of. I have never welded aluminum. I have a Miller MIG 175. Can I weld with Tri mix gas and do I need to do anything other than load my aluminum wire and weld it? Do I need to do anything special to my machine or its componants?

morgh51

[DDA52]

If you aren't going to do that much, you can just run it through the gun and put up with the headaches...otherwise, you are looking at about 7-800 bucks for a controller and spoolgun.

Running it through the gun will require a teflon liner for around 20 bucks or so. It will make a huge feed difference over the steel liner. P/N is 194014 You will need straight Argon only. Co2 does not like alu or vice versa. Just get the wire and weld away. Be prepared for bird nests and on occasion, bird apartments. Keeping the gun as straight as possible will help with the feeding, but nothing will eliminate the birdnests all together. Be ready to run a tip size larger than the wire also. That helps sometimes.

5356 wire will push through the gun better, but the 4043 will weld much easier and nicer.

BTW, if you change liners, be sure to switch it back to steel liner before you weld with steel wire. The steel wire will make short work of the teflon liner.

[dabar39]

Everything DDA52 just said and one more thing, loosen the tension on the drive rollers to where it just feeds the wire, It'll help save some of those bird nests and apartments he's talking about. Dave

[welder_one]

one more thing, you're travel speed will be a little faster, and your heat will be a little hotter than the norm for the same thickness steel. loosen the tension on the spool as well. you want little to no drag on the spool itself

[morgh51]

Thanks for the advice guys. Its nice to be able draw off of everyones experiance. I will be using your suggestions this weekend.