Best methods/cleaners to use for cleaning prior to weld

By Samurai Date 08-11-2015 13:51

What do you all suggest to use to clean parts & filler rods (alum. & stainless steel) prior to welding? We have been using MEK as that's one of the cleaners that is approved by all of our customers. The other is isopropyl alcohol. Both I understand are flammable & the fumes aren't too nice either. We started using MEK because we had it already and alot of our other bonding processes require MEK. The higher ups want me to find something safe, non-toxic, non-flammable, and something that is approved for use by all of our customers... is there such a thing?! If no such thing exists & I have to keep using MEK or alcohol, what are your suggestions for use? The higher ups think we need a special cleaning booth that is ventilated, and it must be far away from the weld shop.. because at any moment the sparks from the welding could blow the place up! (we Tig weld, sparks are few & far between, if any at all). Currently, they are making the welder walk about 200ft round trip to wipe a part off in a "safe" area... they are killing production time by doing this. It's not like the welder had the MEK next to his torch. He was technically outside of his work space at a work bench where we stage the parts for welding. Plus there is an overhead fan above the bench.

I'm new to welding & got this whole mess dumped on me a few months ago. I'm literally learning on the run. So any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks

By TimGary (****)

Date 08-11-2015 17:26

In a similar situation, we used these containers to be able to use alcohol cleaning rags in the weld cell, along with a lot of common sense fire prevention. It worked very well.

http://www.justritemfg.com/products/safety-cans-and-containers/plunger-and-dispensing-cans/

Tim

By 803056

Date 08-11-2015 21:21

That is exactly what I was thinking of suggesting Tim. Maybe a dedicated cleaning station adjacent to the welding areas would suffice and placate the safety people.

I have one aerospace company that uses "Windex" for their final cleaning just prior to welding.

Al

By Samurai Date 08-12-2015 23:49

Thank you for the responses. I was hoping I'd hear somebody say a cleaning area outside or next to the weld area would be ok.. I'm more of a common sense type person, and how I had this set up should have been ok.. but I left for vacation for a few days and the bosses decided they needed to get more involved (aka stir stuff up). Maybe just more signs and some more fancy divider curtains will put their minds to ease about blowing the place up.

Now, their other concern is air quality. Which I'd planned on getting into more, but I gotta take things one step at a time here.. It was a major mess when I got assigned to this.. and their top priority was getting to a point where we can weld for our non-aerospace customers asap. Anyways, any tips/pointers for going about testing air quality? I don't know where to start yet. I just got the ANSI Z49 spec not too long ago.

By Stringer (***)

Date 08-17-2015 02:47

I had never seen this device. I have just ordered one, as our shop guys pour laquer thinner from a 5 gallon drum on to thrift store rags pretty much hourly. We are so disfunctional sometimes. Thanks very much for the tip.

By Weldconsultant (*)

Date 09-05-2015 13:26

All of these cleaning chemicals will stir up some concerns. Best thing to do is to get the parts etched and cleaned offsite; there are vendors who do that for living. Once on-site, all you need to do for aluminum parts is to use a stainless steel bristle wire brush and blow off the dust with dry air, then weld.

If you must use a chemical on-site, MEK is no-no these days; alcohol wipe is probably the least harmful.

Girish
http://www.welding-consultant.com/