We need more details, what kind of car, what are you doing to it,
what...uh wait, welding...
Welding alu is different from steel and requires some more practice,
once you have it down its actually quite easy. Alu will absorb a lot of
heat so you will need more power to weld the same thickness Alu as you
do steel but once you have your puddle too much power/heat and you will
blow right through it, not sure how to control that with a MIG since it
does not have a foot pedal. I have also been told that you need a spool
gun to MIG weld alu. I know one guy with the smaller Lincoln MIG that
does it without a spool gun but he complains a lot about the wire
getting stuck in the cable or gun.
There is a ton of pride about doing it yourself and that would be my
first choice BUT I would make sure that you first have some scrap to
practice on A LOT. When it came time to work on the body of my car with
about the same damage, I tried MIG and kept blowing through it but I was
stubborn and kept at it until I got it done. I had cold welds the first
1/2 inch or so because I could not get extra power to start with and I
did have a spool gun.
Now I have TIG and I smile every time I have to do alu.
mike
On 05/29/2010 09:25 PM, nogera2@att.net wrote:
> I'm restoring an aluminum bodied car and have some tears in the aluminum. I
> have a Hobart 135 MIG welder that has worked nicely for me on steel panels
> but my tank is a carbon dioxide tank not Argon.
> Before I invest in an Argon tank, is welding .050 aluminum with a MIG
> welder going to be about like welding 22 g steel or am I likely to screw up
> the panels? The tears are all less than a inch long.
> FWIW the price of the Argon tank will be about what I would have to pay a
> local shop to do the welding but I prefer doing it myself if possible.
>
> Thanks in advance for any information
>
> Bob Nogueira
> _____________________
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