stick welding aluminum?

[Joe Wilson]

Anybody tried stick welding aluminum? I tried it today and it seemed to turn out ok, but I didn't test it for strength.

[Hobart Expert Rock]

HEY JOE...............HOW THICK OF ALUMINUM, AND DID YOU PRE-HEAT IT.................ALSO WHAT ROD DID YOU USE AND WHAT KIND OF ALUMINUM WERE YOU WELDING ON.............. ALWAYS CURIOUS.....................ROCK................
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[Joe Wilson]

stick welding aluminum reply

The piece of aluminum I welded was a piece off of a four wheeler, I don't even know what the part is used for but it was about 1/4 inch thick or less and the rod was 1/8 inch Forney aluminum electrode bought at Ace Hardware. I used DC+ at about 100 amps. I did not pre-heat the piece. The weld looked pretty good and I did beat on it a little. I ground down some excess weld and didn't see any cracks. I will say that it isn't a pretty weld like you get with a tig, though.

[Hobart Expert Rock]

HEY JOE WILSON........... WAS IT CAST OR MILLED.........ROCK
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[Joe Wilson]

It was a small piece of cast aluminum sort of triangle shaped with two bolt hole ears on the corners. One of the ears had broken off and the person that broke it told me to try to stick it back together and if I tore it up he would buy a new piece. Our company had a tig but they don't want to buy argon for it . I vee'd out the parts first . I am kind of a novice at this and I know that some aluminum can't be welded, but when someone hands you a piece of aluminum with no markings on it it's hard to tell what the alloy is. Joe

[jason]

Hey Joe, one thing to be aware of on aluminum is if it cracks, and you weld it back together, it will most probably crack again unless it is reinforced somehow.

Now I'll try to explain why. Aluminum is such a soft metal that to get any strength out of it it has to be heat treated. When you introduce heat through welding, you are annealing (taking the heat treat back out) of that area. So, if there was enough stress on the part to crack it in its stronger state, there is probably enough stress to crack it again in its weaker state.

Jason
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