Aluminum Body..........

[willieworld]

the fan from the welder will do the same thing   willie buchta

[Rex Schimmer]

Sum,
When you TIG the aluminum it will be anealed around the weld, not like alloy steel that will get hard. Another thing to watch out for is if you happen to dip your tungsten into the aluminum puddle ( I know we're not supposed to! but I am so "ham handed" that I do it on occasion.) well when you do dip it the tungsten will pick up some aluminum on it and then your weld will turn to crap! So keep the tungsten clean! Also you might want to think about a water cooled torch if you don't have one. I have found that weld quality with an air cooled degrades as you do longer welds.

Mkilger, I can remeber when I was in the aerospace tooling business Miller was developing their "pulse" type welder, at the time it was called "keyhole" welding becasue when you started welding you would blow a hole thru the metal and there would be a hole in front of the weld puddle and you would weld it shut as you progressed across the plates that you were welding together. We were doing 3/4 thick 2014 Al plate, butt welded, no bevel or prep, 100 % penatration and perfect welds. Looks like they have developed that for us common guys! I have been thinking about replacing my old Airco TIG maybe this is what I should look at.

Rex

[Sumner]

................. I think it is more the Indian than the Arrow. Try and find what works best for you. I have all the trick gas welding supplies and still do better with the TIG............. Doug Odom in big ditch

Great advice.  I'm just getting the hang of the tig, so I'm going to stick with it unless I end up having real problems.

c ya,

Sum

[Peter Jack]

Lots of small tacks Sum and everything will go well.

Go for it!

Pete

[Rex Schimmer]

Sum,
Take Pete's advice, lots of small tacks. Great advice!!!

Rex

[GH]

Sumner, did you have any luck with Metals USA on your aluminum sheets?

[Sumner]

Sumner, did you have any luck with Metals USA on your aluminum sheets?

Yep, you must not of read the whole post.  Is it cold sitting out in front of that motel hooked up to their wireless  ??

Thanks for the phone number, the aluminum is suppose to be on its way to me,

Sum

[Reverend Hedgash]

And wear a mask!!! Last weekend Dr.G was welding up our parachute binnacle and I was cooling the welds with compressed air after each spurt.

I just had protective goggles on and thought I was far enough away but now my face is one layer of skin thinner!

Don't think it helped that the binnacle was shaped like a convex mirror either...

A red faced Reverend.

[Peter Jack]

That brings up another good point. Long sleeves and a t-shirt underneath. The open neck on a shirt can leave you with a really painful vee shaped sunburn that will probably tend to purple rather than just red. Aluminum can really add to the effect.

Pete

[doug odom]

Another idea when you are building the body. Think about  having a small spring loaded panel on each side that you can pop open without any tools like gas tank filler panels. That way if you have a fire inside the body a fire extinguisher can be quickly used from outside the car. It will also work as a burst panel.
Doug Odom in big ditch

[PJQ]

Another Dr. Gog's technique is to clean a quarter inch of the edge to be welded with a small sand blast gun.
Scuffs the sheen off the surface quick and easy and the welding seems smoother.

Not practical for all situations, as you need to step outside the shed to clean parts (sand everywhere).
On the plus side: more tools!!
One small sand blast gun please.

[bengomez]

Aluminum body is a great for bodies... it has lesser weight... but it is more expensive than steel plates...


_________________
aluminum plate

[Jerry O]

One other thing to look at when tig welding aluminum. Anyone that tig welds aluminum knows how important it is to get the aluminum as clean as possible. One other thing that can cause you a problem is how clean the filler rod is. If you have ever been welding and for no known reason your weld turns black and dirty, you may want to check the filler material. Sometimes when the filler rod is packaged it has tape wrapped around the bundle at the ends and in the middle. What happens is some of the glue in the tape can be left on the rod when you remove the tape. You may not see this but when you get to that spot on the rod you start burning the glue and now your weld is contaminated and will get really ugly. This can trash a good part that you have spent several hours or days working. What I do before using any of my filler material is I clean each rod with lacquer thinner. Now this may seem like a lot of trouble but believe me, cleaning up that nasty weld will be much harder. JMO

[Rex Schimmer]

Sum,
Talking about your lakester body, how is it going??? Any progress?

Rex

[Sumner]

Sum,
Talking about your lakester body, how is it going??? Any progress?

Rex

Yes, I've finally got bact to work on it this past week almost every day. I need to update the site.  Here are a couple teasers until I can get the site updated,

Sum