How to TIG weld aluminum beverage cans together--- make money online

I show how to weld aluminum cans together with a cheap import TIG welder.  I am not a professional welder, so some of my advice may be unconventional or even wrong, but these methods work well for me.  With a 3/32" electrode and large gas lens, I don't have to change the torch setup for nearly any kind of common welding.  Let me know if you have any questions or would like me to make more welding videos.

Some things that I have learned:

Don't use pure tungsten electrodes.  The new rare-earth blends work very well on nearly all metals.

Sharpen the electrode to a very fine point for low-current welding, and sharpen it like a pencil for higher (eg over 100A) welding.

Keep the electrode balance control electrode negative ("weld") and only shift toward electrode positive ("clean") when absolutely necessary.

The welder's pulse feature turned out to be not as useful as I originally thought.  It just seems to complicate things.  It's definitely possible to make great welds without it.

Use fat electrodes. Some people claim that using an electrode that is "too large" for the weld current will cause the arc to wander.  Nope.  Just grind it to a sharp point.  Thin electrodes 1/16" and .040" overheat much too easily, and provide no apparent benefit.  .040" electrodes are very frustrating.

Use thin filler rod.  It's much easier to feed thin rod quickly than feed fat rod slowly.  As I mentioned in the video, it's easier to sneak a thin filler rod into the puddle while keeping the torch close to the surface.

hey everyone I thought I'd show you how

I weld aluminum so today I'm going to

try welding you

kans together is a bit of a challenge

and I'll probably mess up terribly on

camera but I have done this before

successfully so let me show you first

how I set up the torch so here's the

torch setup that I like to use it's a

large gas lens and I know some of you're

thinking oh that's ridiculous you don't

need that but I'll show you why I

particularly like this in a minute it's

mostly just to hang on to it because I

hold the torch very close to the tip and

I also do stainless steel welding I

always had problems with the stainless

steel oxidizing and these large gas

lenses really help so I just leave it on

the torch all the time so it's set up

with a little adapter and so I'll put in

the call at first and then screw in the

gas lens I also like using a really

thick electrode this is a 3/32

rare-earth electrode I think it's a

blend I got this from arc zone or

something and they just call it a rare

earth blend or something like that

so put that on and this is a it doesn't

even have the size on there but you can

see it's pretty big it's like a 3/4 inch

large gas lens there this all fits

together and one of the other nice

things about these large gas lenses is

that the electrodes stick out can be

quite far because this is going to make

a nice huge cone of get of gas out here

and you can get this thing way out there

almost like that even so if you're

welding into a corner this is how I hold

the torch by the way too I'll show you

in a minute but I grab it right here and

if you're welding into a corner you can

really get that electrode sticking out

far and it's easy to see what's going on

okay so let's check out the machine

setup

okay the machine is a really low cost

200 amp ac/dc inverter machine and I got

this off of ebay awhile back and picked

it up locally from a guy in San Mateo I

mean it was a business and importer and

I currently have it set up to do AC auto

gas so that when I step on the pedal the

gas will star

a TIG welding no pulse I'll talk about

the pulse later which actually turned

out to be not nearly as useful as I

thought no down slope and up slopes so

as soon as I step on the pedal I get

exactly the amount of current relative

to that pedal position and clean with

area this determines how how much of the

cycle the electrode is positive versus

negative I usually keep this almost all

the way over into the the weld as

opposed to clean so in this machine only

goes from about 20% to 80% and I would

almost prefer to go even further

most of the metal that I weld is pretty

clean and it really doesn't need much

cleaning action so I usually keep that

one pretty far over you can change the

pulse frequency with this machine but

you can't change the the AC cycle which

i think is 60 so this this control

doesn't do anything unless we're using

the the pulse feature the arc force is

also a silly setting this is only good

for a stick welding but if you turn this

knob up and you're TIG welding the

machine will behave strangely it will

actually put out too much current when

you initiate the arc and so always keep

this down unless you're doing stick

welding I've got a pedal control there

and there's a knob on the back of the

pedal which determines how much current

you get when the pedal is floored

so confusingly the knob on the front of

the machine actually doesn't do anything

when you're using the pedal it's I've

tried turning it up and down and it

makes no difference so when the pedal is

plugged in you set the maximum current

with that knob that's on the front and

since I'm going to be welding aluminum

cans I really don't need that much

current so I've only set it to maybe 25%

full-scale so when the pedal is floored

I'll have 50 amps and it'll taper down

almost to zero like a few amps when I

just barely get on the pedal I'm using

pure argon and this is the stock

regulator that came with that import

welder and it is just this part of it is

just a pressure regulator and I think it

came with this flow regulator originally

and I added these two flow regulators

through

manifold and this is pretty helpful

because a lot of times you want purge

gas for the back of the weld and then

you also want purge gas for some other

part of the work that might be heating

up like you're doing a tea joint you

want purge gas for the back of the tea

the underside of the tea and then the

weld gas from from the part that you're

actually welding so it's been very

useful to have three flow regulators I

also keep in mind that this one is

calibrated in litres per minute not

cubic feet per hour so I usually set

this for about five to ten liters per

minute which should be 10 to 20 cubic

feet an hour double-check that I'm not

sure off the top of my head but we can

test this by pushing the gas test valve

on the welder so a gas is flowing out

and you can just verify that there's it

was the appropriate flow and use the

knob to adjust it

I usually weld on my table saw table

it's heavy cast-iron and I've got the

grounding clamp on the far side there

and for something like this that's low

current you know just having the parts

lay on the table is good enough I guess

if I were doing really high current

welding I would make a better effort to

ground the parts specifically so what

I'm going to do here is tack those cans

together Oh first let me show you the

prep so to prep aluminum parts I've got

a stainless steel brush that's only for

aluminum I don't use this on anything

other than cleaning aluminum prior to

welding so what I'm going to do is

scratch these up really well to make

sure there's no oxide coating and these

cans probably have another you know

lacquer weird coating or something on

there do that and then I do not use

acetone or paper towels anymore because

after scratching this up if you get in

there with a paper towel and acetone

there's a good chance you'll leave

fragments of paper towel in there and

those will create a problem for the weld

so just scratch it up really well and

and call it and sometimes if I'm feeling

really picky y'all clean the rod with

with a wife of acetone since this is

smooth and it won't catch particles of

paper towel it's not I don't I don't

think it's that critical

okay I think I fixed the machine finally

it's been a day or two since I started

this video the first problem was that

this riser card here sticking off the

board had a bad solder joint typical in

cheap electronics that they just put too

much weight on that solder joint and

eventually broke free but as with all

good problems this one was compound so

in addition to that this machine has a

spark gap I know it's hard to see inside

there and when I step on the pedal the

spark gap lights up sorry you're not

able to see that there it is and that

spark gap had become too large so

instead of a nice high audio frequency

or you know some tens of kilohertz or

something I was only getting a spark

every you know a few times a second or

something so the torch wouldn't light so

I got it all straightened out and I'm

gonna give the cans another shot so here

we go okay so I've got the cans set up

on my welding table and first I'm just

going to describe what I'm going to do

and then I'm going to change the camera

shutter so hopefully you'll be able to

see this with the art going so one thing

to keep in mind with TIG welding is that

the direction of the torch has a very

big impact on where the heat is going to

go so I'm going to start by tacking

these cans together and the way to do

that is to initiate a puddle on one can

so I want the torch to be aiming pretty

much at one can first and I'm going to

get it really close get the electrode as

close as possible to the base metal and

as soon as the aluminum turns shiny that

is one that you want you want to add

filler rod so I'll describe this as I'm

welding and it will make a little bit

more sense but if I wanted to actually

weld these cans after I've already got a

tack weld in place I would want the

torch pretty even aiming like this so

that the heat is distributed right on

the joint but to get started if I if I

had the torch aimed like this it would

be very difficult to get a tax started

because the arc would kind of wander

around in the crack down there and for

welding something as thin as these cans

that's going to be a problem another

little hint when doing low-power welding

using thin rod is quite helpful if I had

a really fat fill rod like this eighth

inch look at how difficult it is to get

the rod into the puddle so this

electrode needs to stay close to the

surface in order to get a tight arc and

control where the current is going and

so if I'm welding like this as soon as

the puddle as soon as the base metal

starts to liquefy it's very difficult to

physically get the weld rod into the

puddle because it's just so big so using

a thinner rod you can sort of sneak into

the into the puddle and keep the

electrode close probably the biggest

trick with TIG welding is just keeping

the electrode as close as possible to

the work without actually dipping in if

you dip in and you're doing a good weld

I mean you really care about the weld

you really have to re grind the tungsten

all the books say it and they're

actually right on this case if you have

a contaminated tungsten you're almost

guaranteed to spoil the weld if you're

just hacking you know steel together and

you don't care maybe it won't matter but

regrinding you know especially for

aluminum regrinding really is necessary

okay

so I'm going to put on some gloves and

try this weld I should ask the the I'm

shooting this with a really bright light

over the top of the weld table the idea

being that you'll be able to see the

base metal and the arc almost at the

same time I don't know how well that's

exactly working out because I can't keep

track of the camera and keep track of

all this welding stuff at the same time

so we'll see how that goes

try the same thing here just about turn

shiny put a little bit of the rod in now

I'm going to redirect the torch so that

it's aiming at the other can baseball

shiny put in some rod

a little bit more heat let it back up so

so far so good we'll do three or four

tacks and that way if I do four tax

always have three solid ones when I'm

finishing the weld and going all the way

around same deal

start with the can towards me turn the

torch towards the other can oops that

was a touch and you can see what happens

see I just spoiled myself so if you can

see that on the camera the tip of the

tungsten is covered with aluminum that's

what I get for for dipping the tongue

for dipping the tungsten so I'm going to

regrind that wire brush the base metal

and try to fix it

okay so we got the tack welds in and now

I'm going to stitch weld it meaning I'm

going to weld from here maybe halfway

between these tacks and then weld from

the next tack rotate the cans and rotate

from the next tack halfway to the next

tack and go sort of halfway around so

what's what that does is it spreads out

the heat so if I tried to weld from here

to here in one pass

there's a good chance that so much heat

would accumulate in this area that we

would have a problem with the cans

overheating and I don't know maybe I'll

try it and kind of see how it's going as

I'm going along but another trick is

that after putting in the tacks there's

a little bit of oxidation and junk that

kind of accumulated from starting and

stopping the arc and there wasn't shield

gas present so I like to give it another

little brush with the stainless steel

brush to make sure that we're as clean

as possible

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