My single biggest reason for OA welding aluminum is the "bird in the
hand" theory. I have an OA setup basically used for heating and
occasionally cutting and a DC tig setup. Putting 100-200 to touch up the
OA kit is a lot more affordable than putting in 1-2 thousand for a
replacement tig welder with the 2000 dollar tig welder MAYBE meeting my
portability needs. I'm about 50/50 right now with me needing to get
myself or the welder near the work or the work being able to come to me

Until I swap out my Miller XMT for a dedicated AC/DC TIG machine i'm sol
for trying to tig Al on DC (I tried anyhow despite understanding why it
doesnt work and it took me into the corner and beat me and made it
crystal clear why and how AC tig works)

your Descriptions though dont really sound any different from What it
does on TIG when i had access to an AC/DC machine.

Perhaps i should ask it this way how close is it to tig without the
pedal control? I know i needed a Lot of practice to do Al in tig when i
was learning but i saw the same conditions I think.



David Billington wrote:
Sounds about what I would have said. I found there is a subtle change in
the surface of the aluminium before it drops on the floor, I learned to
recognise this and all went fine. I have never used anything other than
standard OA welding googles for Al and never had an issue with being
able to see what I was doing clearly. People mention using special
lenses to cut the flare from the glowing flux but I have never
experienced this. I have never welded Al with OA extensively and these
days would typically use TIG unless I had a benefit from using OA,
typically it leaves a more ductile weld which may be beneficial if you
are doing panel work.

Buy_Sell wrote:

I gas weld aluminum. I use my Henrob torch for this but any gas torch
will do. The trick is to keep your gas pressures set low. If you need
more heat then change to a larger tip but keep the oxy and acetylene
pressures no higher than 4 psi. The other thing that you will need is
some flux for your aluminum rods and a good set of special goggles for
viewing the weld properly. A few years back everyone was using these
cobalt blue goggles but they weren't that good for your eyes. I use
goggles that have a gold reflective surface on them. I picked them up
at the welding shop and they work really good. Welding aluminum is a
bit tricky because the color doesn't change when the metal heats up
like steel does. Aluminum is a bit like plastic, one minute its there
and then all of a sudden the floor drops out and you have a big hole.
The trick is to look for when a skin appears to form on the surface and
then push your filler rod in and a way you go. Without the special
goggles, you won't be able to see the skin effect. Practice on lots of
scrap stuff first before getting into some more serious work. You'll
get the hang of it in no time.

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Brent Philion Jan 22, 12:08 am

With the lack of an AC tig machine and an AC inverter appearing to not
be in the cards in the near future i"m looking at using Oxy/Acetylene
to
do the al Welding due to the availability of an OA rig. Mainly i used
it
for cuttingbut thats not to say its impractical for welding. If i
remember right OA has been used for Al welding for a long time
specifically in the aviation industry.

Compared to TIG how hard is OA welding of aluminum and are there any
special types of requirements for doing it? The only OA welding i would
be doing would be on Al and the rest of the time it would be used for
heat/cutting

I already have an OA torch (Cheap Harris style kit) but stumbled across
a real Victor 100 Handle Might i be better off getting a fresh welding
tip for the victor 100? than the giant beast of this harris one?

I will likely never weld larger than 1/4" with most work being smaller
than that (1/8" to 1/16")