Welding .050 Aluminum

Date 08-02-2010 00:28

I have someone interested in paying me piece work to weld 24" long butt welds on .050 aluminum for down spouts. I know that the rule is 1a/.001 thickness and that it will warp easily. I have heard that when welding thin aluminum that you should not ball your tungsten but you should sharpen it to a blunt tip. I plan a spreading out my welds and skipping back and forth for heat control but what would be a fair price for welding these joints? I will be working at their shop using their equipment and their material with 1 hours travel time to and from.

By yorkiepap (***)

Date 08-02-2010 11:36

Hey 47H,
I find it hard to contemplate any company doing production welding on items such as this with TIG. MIG with a spoolgun would be the proper approach for quantity welding on repetitive aluminum items. I never heard of any company who wasn't concerned with the profitability of production runs. Time is money & the less manhours engaged means the profit margin is greater.....simple math.

Denny

By 47Harley (*)

Date 08-02-2010 13:07

I would agree with you but the equipment they have is a TIG welder. TIG is going to put a lot of heat into it and it is going to want to distort easily. I talk to the shop foreman this morning and was asking him about what they think is a fair price to have these welded and his response was,"the owner of the company wants me to sit down and try to learn to make these welds on my own. Do you have any tips on how to weld these?" My response was "yes sir I do, the very first step you need to take is to hire someone who can weld." He said he would call back in a couple of days after he tried his hand at it so we will see how it works out for him.

By Tommyjoking (****)

Date 08-03-2010 00:31

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Well the tungsten thing will depend on the kind of tungsten and the type of tig welder. Ceriated tungsten will not degrade so easily..Try a 3/16 for starters. Yep this stuff will warp.....best case scenario is skip welding like you said. Jigging the joints down to something solid with a heavy flatbar on top next to the joint will probably be your best bet for keeping warpage to a minimum. Copper works a bit better then steel for backing it up it will help suck the heat away...

Far as bidding it...well that is up to you.

By DaveBoyer (*****)

Date 08-03-2010 02:24

I agree with Denny. It will probably cost more to do in house with TIG than it would to send it out to somebody who will MIG them.

By Tommyjoking (****)

Date 08-03-2010 02:55

That is true.....from a production standpoint it is ridiculous to weld this GTAW. If it was a critical application maybe a different story...but it is not. Charge them a fee for being a weld consultant and set them up with a job shop to do the work for them via GMAW.