HomemadeTurbo - DIY Turbo Forum

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jcushing

aslo i dont know why everyone says you NEED to tig alimunum. i mean do you honestly know this from personall experiance?i know tig LOOKS better but necissary?

Definitely not. Next time you're on the interstate and pass a big gasoline tanker truck (like a Pilot or Exxon Truck), look at the welds on them....they're all or nearly all MIG. The deposition rate (rate at which you deposit metal into the puddle) can be MUCH higher with MIG. Therefore, if you're making a big weld, MIG is hard to beat. I worked at the Heil trailer plant for a while, and the guys there would regularly run their mig machine at 600+ inches of wire per minute.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eville140

I could get it to run a bead for a couple inches if I kept the wire straight by keeping the welder as far away from me as possible. And even then it would ball up behind the rollers all the time.

Yes, as you probably learned, that's just due to high friction in the lead from the machine to the gun. It's like trying to push a wet noodle through a piece of bread. It just doesn't work well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 98ctr

get a torch and heat up the aluminum before hand. it will help a bit, but still need lots of practice.

I'd only reccomend this if you're having to run your machine as hot as it will go, and still not able to get a hot enough puddle to weld smoothly. So, if you have thin wall pipe, preheating it may make it such that it's even harder to keep from burning holes in it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bumblezc

I used a push/pull gun. Basically a spool gun without the bulky spool sitting on it.

I know you know since you've seen and used one, but for those that don't, I'll explain a bit more. Your average mig machine has drive rollers in the machine, right up near the spool. These are "push" machines. A spool gun is when you have a little spool of wire that's inside or attached to the actual gun. The "push-pull" machines have the spool at the machine, rollers at the machine that push the wire, and rollers up in the gun that pull the wire. This greatly reduces problems with wire kinking up in the liner or before it. In other words, consider trying to push the noodle through the bread (assuming you had a hole in it already. It will kink up and be difficult. Then imagine having it fed through already and pulling it from the backside. It will pull through a lot better than it will push from the other side.