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Hi guys, recently bought some aluminum electrodes from U.S. Forge. They tell me on the package to use DC but give no hints as to polarity or amps. I should practice with it some and answer my own question but the stuff is really expensive. Any one using this rod?
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AL welding with SMAW can be a little tricky. There are some differences between welding steel and AL with stick. A good article (which indicates the useage of DCEP for the correct polarity) can be found at:
There is also a good article on DCEN welding of AL with TIG and helium. Very impressive that the hardness profile of the base AL is pretty much maintained with DCEN, while AC tig welding reduces the hardness from that of the original T6 condition.
But you were asking about SMAW and not GTAW, so I'll curtail my rambling.
Hope the article provides the answers to your questions.
-dseman -
You may also want to refer to:
content.lincolnelectric.com/pdfs/products/literature/c810.pdf
which discusses both cast iron and aluminum stick welding.
-dsemanComment
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Thanks dseman. I used reverse polarity on the one rod I burned. The weld looked better than the artical pictures, but in fairness I deposited a lot more material. Not by design, the rate of deposit really took me by surprise. Hope not to use a lot of these rods, bought them to fill cylinder head ports so we can shape ports as they should have been to begin with. I know, tig would do a better job, except I don't think I could get a tig torch and rod in where I need to fill.
Thanks again for the great site, SkipComment
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