Thread: Tig welders

Going to the other end of the price scale.How would this machine go welding 4 to 6mm thick alloy.
More than happy to buy the brand its the same as my mig.
NEW Magmate TIG 200 AMP Inverter DC Output Portable Welding Machine Welder | eBay
Andrew

The second one is dc only.It wont do aluminium.
I have bought the boswell 200 amp ac/dc unit and it seems to be alright. $1095

You will need a TIG with AC output for aluminium. The magmate won't work.
The magnum has some nice features, and would be suitable.

But... you can weld aluminium with certain flavor tungstens and helium shielding gases, but for all around general fab you would be best with an ac machine

If you are use to the MIG I would stay with it and convert it over to alloy operation which involves changing the feed wire to alloy and the feed wire guide tube to nylon instead of steel.
The welding gas would need to be changed to Argon too.
MIG welding of alloy is quick and will work well on thicker plates and is a semi automatic operation requiring less operator skill to get use to the new material.
Tig welding is slow and requires much skill and practice especially slow on thicker plates.
The skill of tig welding alloy is not something easily self taught.
Another requirement is knowing what tungsten to use and how to sharpen it for the metal welded with tig etc.
To be any good to tig weld alloy is something to must practice often to stay good at it.........the skill level is very great.
Ron

I agree that tig welding ally is an art.
I'm teaching myself. I have chewed up a fill e size cylinder and 1/2 a g size since november. You need to factor in the cost of yhe tungsten and filler rods.
You also need something to cut the ally. Grinders are no good as they contaminate the material.
I ended up purchasing a plasma cutter.

The cheapest option is to convert the mig if possible.
I'm fairly sure you need to be able to seap the polarity of the leads.

Andrew
I bought a TIG welder (Bosswell 180, they don't sell it anymore) a couple of years ago with the hope I could teach myself to TIG Al. Todate, I am no great talent but I can get things to stick together.

Behold my mediocrity here: http://www.aulro.com/afvb/projects-t...f-console.html

A couple of things to keep in mind, apologies if I am telling you stuff you already know. But these are a few things I learnt, probably the hard way.

-You will need pure argon, where as you probably use argon/CO2 mix with the MIG.
-With Aluminium, you need an AC welder, get High Frequency (HF) start in the unit, as scratch and lift start are just not nice.
-Look at the duty cycle, a lot of the 200A welders are less than 50% at full current ( the Magnum is 35%). I killed my Bosswell as I kept pushing the duty cycle. NB the hotter the day, the less actual duty cycle
- I am not a MIG welder but a boiler maker (he does a bit of aircraft stuff) told me that 2-3mm is probably the cut off between TIG and MIG. I certainly find 3mm and above challenging. No, he doesn't use MIG on aircraft.
-When your starting to learn TIG, a foot pedal is just great to have. Once you have the pool under a bit of control then you can do stuff like pulse the trigger with a long down slope etc. I started without, but things really clicked once I got the foot controller. Oddly enough I often don't use it now.
- I found using TIG a bit like using oxy to weld thin steel sheet, although it was 25 years ago that I did gas welding ( I don't believe I was an expert at that either).
- I found this guy to be a great source of info , pretty down to earth type : Welding Tips and Tricks - TIG, MIG, Stick and a pantload of other info
-I had a loan of an everlast 200DX to finish off a project when my Bosswell died and it was just beautiful in comparison , eventually bought one, more money than I probably should spend but what the heck. Here's the site (hopefully I'm not breaking any forum rules )
ACDC Tig Welders For Sale in Australia

Cheers Glen

As mentioned, you can MIG aluminium. 100% argon is required and it's heaps easier to lash out on a spool gun than try and feed some aluminium wires through the MIG torch - the softer wires simply won't push that far. This setup is ideal for thicker material - about 3mm and up.

Google 'Spool Gun' and you'll see what I mean.

Your local orange coloured hire shop may have a spool gun available if you don't want to buy one. . There's also a chance they won't have any idea what you are talking about either...