Tig Welding Aluminum Tips That Will Help You Tremendously

Helpful tips for Tig welding aluminum that you can refer to for higher weld quality.

The outside corner joints is a crucial part of your project whether it’s Tig welding aluminum tanks, overflow reservoirs, fuel cells, or expansion tanks for supercharger.

Often, the outside corner welds and the press brake bends contribute to a well-built tank. 

Below are tips for putting together aluminum tanks that can be really helpful for your welding work.

Tips for Tack welding aluminum without filler metal 

Often, this kind of tack welding would be finally cracked. Still, if you notice corner tack welds in this video, the sharp corner of the end caps along with the little radius in the bend would give a good way to tack without filler metal since it is the corner that becomes filler metal.

You know, most of those in welders jobs work by themselves when building a project. Then a lot of time, they have to weld without filler metal. While it is not encouraged in most books, you know, books don’t weld. That’s why it’s useful to seize how to tack weld aluminum this case.

You can sparingly do it. You may get 1 or 2 tack welders without filler metal for holding the part. Meanwhile, get some more tacks with filler rod. Even then you should return to add the filler road to the first tack welds since aluminum tack welds can be not strong enough.

Tack weld aluminum without filler

Transformer Vs. Inverter

In this project, Roy applied an Inverter Tig welder with the frequency set at 120hz or so.

For transformer Tig welders – older technology, the frequency is normally 60hz.

120hz sure focuses more on the arc, 60hz works nicely, too, for such a job.

It may be a different story if we were talking about aluminum at .030’’ thick.

But for aluminum at 3.2 mm (.125’’), the ball on the electrode tip and the wide arc cone, indeed, can help melt the outside corner joint’s corners.

In case you're interested in:
How to Tig weld
Examples of Tig welding

Helium?

Just about every time Roy welds the aluminum at 11 ga thick or more, he likes some addition of helium. 

Jody Collier, his friend, used a mixture of argon and less 10% helium. Still, such a small percentage can make a significant difference.

While Roy employed the Tig inverter, Jody Collier used the Lincoln Tig 175 for arc shots in the video.

And you can hear the difference in arcs due to different frequencies set though, the finished welds turned out truly similar.

Aluminum Tig Outside Corner Beads

(Above information and video are taken with credit from Jody Collier.)