Does anyone know much about welding aluminum with a mig welder and how well it would work with intercooler piping?

I know you would need a ac current and an argon shielding most likely. I also know they make spool guns and wire specifically for welding aluminum with a mig. But what I want to know is if the quality is good enough for a pressurized intercooler pipe(30+ psi)

I am trying to decide whether I want a tig or a mig welder, I know the tig give you more quality and can weld just about anything, but the mig is easier, faster, and cheaper.

Mig, works just a lot harder to get clean welds. The idea behind tig welding is cleaner welds, better quality, and when it comes down to it less work, if you get the hang of tig welding.

Spln_Hrd said:

Does anyone know much about welding aluminum with a mig welder and how well it would work with intercooler piping?

I know you would need a ac current and an argon shielding most likely. I also know they make spool guns and wire specifically for welding aluminum with a mig. But what I want to know is if the quality is good enough for a pressurized intercooler pipe(30+ psi)

I am trying to decide whether I want a tig or a mig welder, I know the tig give you more quality and can weld just about anything, but the mig is easier, faster, and cheaper.

Click to expand...

There is a BIG price difference between tig and mig welders.

Welding aluminum with a MIG is very, very difficult. You need to reverse the polarity, you need a special "pull style" spool gun, and you need to switch to 100% argon. Basically you need a setup dedicated to aluminum. And, unless you are a much better welder than me, you are going to get nothing but bird poop.

Hell, welding aluminum with TIG is hard enough.

yeah, mig burns pretty hot and melts through aluminum pretty easily. we use mig welders where i work in a ship yard and for the most part that metal is around 1/4-1/2 inch thick!

I used to MIG aluminum for an awning company. It's pretty much standard practice in that industry to MIG everything. They don't look as nice as TIG welds but you can get an okay quality weld out of it that will hold up alright. You'll never get the quality of a good TIG weld out of it but it's also MUCH easier to learn and much cheaper to get set up on. There are a few aluminum parts MIG'd on my car but no IC pipes.

Point and shoot basically, MiG is the easiest way to weld ever.


I still like old school Oxy Acetylene!

The only problem with what you're doing is that TIG welding, if you're good, will leave a lot smaller or no profile than MIG on both the weld side and the penetration side. So with an intercooler pipe where you don't want obstructions, and especially in a place you can't reach in to grind it down, TIG is the way to go. But MIG is a lot quicker to set up and weld, and requires a little less finesse. You just have to watch your heat, big time, because aluminum gives low warnings before it melts, and it takes more heat to get started, but less as you go along. It's a pain, and those that the aluminum welding gods smile on have a true gift that doesn't come along everyday. I'd personally just get a professional if you're in doubt. Unless you have a lot of scrap to practice with.

Lol. I remember first tigging with aluminum.

Push the pedal. BOOM its all melted, you get a scary feeling inside.

Also, MIG'ing aluminum is usually a god bit weaker than TIG'ing it.. With ANY metal the MIG starts feeding filler as soon as the trigger is pulled, meaning the first half inch to inch of weld is not actually "fused" into one piece, but rather just has a melted spread of metal filler stuck on top this is because the base metal didn't have a chance to get hot enough to fuse to one piece before the filler was added. Then as you travel along and the heat build up the amperate it took to get started will be too much and usually burn though

and remember the three C's to welding (espcially alumium ) CLEAN, ClEAN, AND CLEAN SOME MORE!!!!! (clening outlined next)

Aluminum oxidized imediately upon exposure to ambient air when you grind the existing corrasion off (alumium oxide) NOw that make that important is that aluminum melts around 1200*, but the oxide on top melts at a tad over 1800 degrees. soif it's not all removed you'll sit there wondering why your ####e won't start and then all the sudden your area that the arc is on just falls through because theoxide desnt' change to show the AL is ready to weld (clean AL gets real shiny when ready to have filler added) Also... if you're welding in a room that's under 75 - 80*, use either a proapne or oxy torch to pre-hea the material to about 350-400*, this way you don'thave to have side a wide swing in amperage from the start of the weld to the ned, and it also offers deeper penetration and is a must on anything thicker than 1/4 on aluminum. unless you want grainy welds due to condensation from cool matal heating up which leaves a "grainy" looking weld

A few rules... 3 C's come first, #1.) Wipe with a clean rag soaked with acetone or virgin lacuer thinner. Then you want to wire brush the al-oxide off ( or use sand paper ) and make sure you have a small stainless steel brush marked "aluminum only" as if you use it on other things you will imbed those particles in the aluminum work piece when you wire brish it and that will further imbed impuirties that will contaminate and possibly weaken the weld.. Then once it's wire brushed or sanded clean and shiny, wipe again with solvent and get ready to weld. Aluminum begins to oxidize IMMEDIATELY after cleaning and being exposed to air so weld as soon as possible after clening...the MAXIMUM window for clean to weld time is 8 hours, but personally, it's i have to wait more than an hour, i clean it all over again.

My vote is to buy a TIG and learn it! (if it's in your budget anyway), it took me years to get the one i wanted because in order to buy the stuff needed to just go home and weld i had to drop about 5k dollars right there.. you need at least the welding unit (mine was roughly 3k dollars), accessory case ( which has the torch, pedal control and ground clamp) was 650 bucks on discount alone. Then for a medium bottle of argon expect about 200 bucks. Add in some filler wire, extra gas cups, extra tungsten etc and the bill was slightly over 5k.. The power supply (welding unit) alone with only an argon tank and accessory kit was 4,101.00 after taxes ( i pay for my stuff from my personal funds and pay taxes on them, that way if there's ever a lawsuit the equipment stays MINE not the companies to be lost in the suit. That's why it pays being an LLC type corp becasue they can only go after the companies assets, and the most they would get in my case would be my filler rods, wire brushes, chemicals and some other useless stuff. This was a great idea that was mentioned to me by the lawyer i spoke with about liability and the chances of being sued if something were to happen..being LLC or inc. they can't take YOUR stuff.. only the business' which (which are very little for this exact reason and i advise anyone going into business for them selves to do the same as the workd today is "sue happy" as can be)

I had terrible luck trying to learn how to MIG weld aluminum. In fact, I never actually was able to. My dad bought a MIG welder to use with all the stainless scrap and mild steel he had, and I didn't realize you need 100% argon for MIG welding aluminum. I was just assuming the argon/CO2 mix would work.

I did have good luck with the same machine and mild steel. That was very easy to get working acceptably.

You also need the spool gun, otherwise you'll have a hell of a time trying to keep the aluminum wire feeding smoothly. It's too soft to make the run through the entire cord.

I tried all 3. I first bought a AL kit for my MIG welder, it never worked right, next I tried the gas route. It is very, very hard. I just melted everything. I then sucked it up and bought a TIG and never looked back. My advice is unless you plan on doing ALOT of fab work pay someone else to weld your AL for you. The great thing about the TIG is you can weld damn near anything and make it look good. I have a Miller syncrowave 200 and can weld up to 1/4" AL with ease.

I am done paying for welders, they all take FOREVER to get around to my projects.


Tig it is!

Have fun with that TIG if you never done it before , I just bought one last week, ESAB cost over $4,200 + tank, cup's, tungsten. AL is a bi*** to weld, if you are serious about it, learn to weld on mild than go to stainless than Finlay aluminum.

You don't need a AC welder to MIG AL either, I have a spool gun on my old school Miller D/C welder and it work's just fine, you only need AC for tigging AL.

You can get into TIG welding for alot cheaper if you don't plan on welding AL, Most of you new welder's in the $1,500 price range will TIG, just buy a basic TIG torch $150ish, than reverse the polarity (TIG pulls the metal to the tungsten) and start welding all the mild and stainless you want.

Most of the stuff in here is right. Mig welding anything smaller than 1/8" al is going to be a no go and even 1/8" is going to be a huge pain in the ass. Your travel speed for 1/8" will be far too fast to get around a small 2.5" piece of pipe. If you try this, the spool gun would be ideal or you can get a mig gun with a pull style feed in it. That combined with the push feed in your welder should be ok, but do not bent your hose too far or you will cause the aluminum to get piled up in your feed hose. Having a machine dedicated to aluminum would be ideal in this situation or just get a tig.

As for appearance, if done right it will look amazing mig aluminum - WeldingWeb™ - Welding forum for pros and enthusiasts

I've had great luck with a spoolmate AL gun on a miller-matic 210, set to DCEN using 100% argon.

Aluminum is a tricky beast in it's own way, once you learn the ins and outs of it, you will soon notice that it's not much different than any other metal and be laying beads like you get paid to do it.

Of course im have at least 8 years of MIG and other torch uses before starting to TIG, but once you get the concept it's all cake from there... And thoroughly cleaning your parts!!!!!!!

Even on a TIG you don't HAVE to use A/C current.. it can be done on DCEN but the material must be extra, extra clean (and it works better on thinner stuff). The positive half of the AC wave is what blows impurities off the metal when AC welding aluminum, it's the negative side of the wave that does the penetrating.

You can TIG AL with DC? I didnt know that, I MIG on DC but I always though that you couldn't TIG on DC.

yep. just make sure the parts are super cleam to where you're not needing the up or positive side of the wave, and then the negative or low side of the wave is equal to DCEN (DC electrode negative) and that's what does the actual welding, the postitive current is for cleaning action as i stated earlier.

Get yourself some 1/8 - 1/16 AL 6061 or 5052 sheet and try and butweld tehm together on DCEN... YOU can even make a few passes after hand cleanging on AC but just enough tofrost it good and white and get the emtal hot...dont do any welding...

then switch to DCEN, turn the amps up just a tad and lay into it,.,,, using a gas lens seems to help also

lGlenn

One very good bit of advice is that if you never tig welded before go to a class. It will speed up the learning process very very fast. Go to your local college or I would suggest the lincoln motorsports class. It's a solid week of how and why it works and than the rest is just welding away. You can weld as much aluminum, stainless and chromoly tubing as you can handle. They give you a decent discount on their welders and get to test out all of them to find the ones you like the best. I tig welded about a year before I went there and really only went cause a buddy wanted me to go with him. I would say that I came out of there 1000 times better than when I went in and go rid of some bad habits that made the quality of my welds much better. Best money I have EVER spent.

Digging this one up from the grave... MIG with Al is not bad, not as fun as TIG though. If you are good with MIG, it is easy enough to pick up.

Some tricks, you don't need a spool gun. Keep the gun wire as straight as possible, avoiding sharp 90* angles, specifically the one right off the machine. Using .035 is best. Small enough for small machines, yet significantly stronger than .030. The most important as far as feeding goes is to keep the tension on the feeder clamp as low as possible. If you can pull the trigger and have the wire against the table, the feeder should spin on the wire, not send it through and bunch it up.

A size or two bigger tip is required. Aluminum expands more than mild steel and will stick in the tip if a bigger size is not used. We actually drilled out a .030 tip to .065 (1/16), it works great.

Pure argon is required.

Beyond that it's just power, feed speed, technique, and cleaning.

Also, DC with Al, I noticed there was a skin over the material. You can stab the rod in, have it fill in underneath, but it never came out as nice as it does with AC.

There is also a flux and rods for doing Al with O/A. They come out nasty, but you can fill huge holes real quickly.

YouTube - Cast Aluminum Intake Manifold Repair