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Up Topic Welding Industry / Technical Discussions / Dont throw away that mig aluminum tip!
- - By longshore weldr Date 11-18-2007 16:13
I wanted to post a lil trick I found for getting that Mig (Aluminum) wire out of the copper tip if it burns back through.

First off, I've been using an 0.35 tip for 0.30 wire (no problems) but if you get a burn back I found that you can do this if it's not too bad. Cut a piece of 0.35 Er70S6 "wire for mig welding steel w/gas", (copper looking  wire) about 3/4 of inch long and put your tip in a vise upside down put the wire in the tip and make sure the wire only sticks out about an 1/8 of an inch then hit it with a hammer. A lot of times it takes a few tries but the aluminum should pop out.  Yesterday I went over doing this and I saved about 9 tips, thats about $15 bucks worth.  
Parent - - By TRC (***) Date 11-18-2007 18:37
Also pick ya up some reamers that are like .035 to .040 and clean the used tip with them before lapping them with the tip cleaners. A set of those little drills that most weld supply houses carry come in real handy for cleaning tips. My experiance has been that hard as you try once they burn back they never seem to be worth the trouble of cleaning them. You need to shop around for tip prices, it's been a while since I've bought tips but I paid around $.60 each for a 50 pack. Assuming we're talking about a spool gun I figure two tips per spool. Ted
Parent - - By DaveBoyer (*****) Date 11-19-2007 03:08
Ted: TWO TIPS PER SPOOL??? Maybee I am missing something, but I think I have about 20# of aluminum through the tip on My spoolgun. Mine uses the 1/4" OD tube as opposed to a regular MIG tip.
Parent - - By TRC (***) Date 11-19-2007 10:47
Hey Dave I have a problem with porosity on my 7018 stop/starts as well. I haven't figured it out in 11,680 days of doing this stuff. Please explain how you get through 20 spools of wire on one tip. Also any pointers on porosity free 7018 would be great. Thanks - Ted
Parent - By DaveBoyer (*****) Date 11-20-2007 05:29
TRC: I am no expert on this stuff, I didn't know they were supposed to wear out so I havn't changed it in a long time. What happens to Yours that makes You change them?
Up Topic Welding Industry / Technical Discussions / Dont throw away that mig aluminum tip!

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