Aluminum Jon Repair

[bplayer405]

How much flow are you using. 15-20 CFH should be plenty as long as you are not in a strong wind.

Its set just over 30cfh in my garage with no fan. Much less and its very sooty. I haven't tried any higher a setting. Figured I'd get clean welds, but always a bit of soot. Outside corners are the worst though...

 

[Gary Fowler]

The soot is from contaminates and has nothing to do with your Argon flowrate. Actually you can get so much flow that it pulls air into the weld area just like a venturi .
If inside and no fan blowing cut back to 15 CFH. Clean the area with acetone immediately before you weld. Aluminum oxidizes very fast so the cleaning must be done immediately before welding.

 

[bplayer405]

Backed it off to 20 cfh and it did just fine. I realized I'll always have some black soot running 5356 wire due to magnesium in the blend. Thought more cfh would clean it up and saw plenty of vids using 30 cfh while aluminum welding. Good to know I should be fine running half that.

 

[bplayer405]

Just tried 15cfh and no issues. Here's an example of my snail method of sealing up the rivets... I move in a fast spiral to the center.

 

[Yomax4]

The soot is from contaminates and has nothing to do with your Argon flowrate. Actually you can get so much flow that it pulls air into the weld area just like a venturi .
If inside and no fan blowing cut back to 15 CFH. Clean the area with acetone immediately before you weld. Aluminum oxidizes very fast so the cleaning must be done immediately before welding.

Agree 100% no harm backing off the gas until you get porosity and then turn it up a few CFH. No sense wasting gas. Black is a base metal issue. I like your progress o far !

 

[bplayer405]

I am learning the importance of preheating. Welded the 46 rivets I could reach that attach the keel to the boat and had a dozen still leak. Upon close inspection some of the weld did not fully wet-out and connect to the base material. These leaky welds were not preheated. Just enough porosity or a skip to cause a leak. I did preheat around half of the rivets and they don't leak. Grinding these back down to start over won't be much fun. I will preheat when I run them again though. Yes, some of us have to learn the hard way...

 

[Gary Fowler]

If you were using TIG you could preheat with the torch, alas, not possible with MIG. A minute(of less) of preheat saves several minutes of rework. LOL

 

[bplayer405]

I'm understanding that tig is just better at some things. A tig welder is now on my list of equipment to get. Looking pretty hard at the Primeweld Tig 225x. Being close to the end of fishing season and having another boat to use, this project is going on the back burner. Probably won't mess with it again till after hunting season, so I may just have a tig setup ready to roll by then...

 

[Gary Fowler]

For aluminum TIG, you should run on AC with high frequency. I recently saw a video using a Lincoln Tombstone with an attachment called ARC PIG that welded aluminum very well. Only drawback was the $350 price for the ARC PIG. Still much cheaper than buying one of those specialty TIG machines though.

 

[bplayer405]

For aluminum TIG, you should run on AC with high frequency. I recently saw a video using a Lincoln Tombstone with an attachment called ARC PIG that welded aluminum very well. Only drawback was the $350 price for the ARC PIG. Still much cheaper than buying one of those specialty TIG machines though.

An Arc Pig may be a viable option for me. I was given a Lincoln tombstone welder a while back (still don't have in hand and don't know if it works...). I should pick that up and see if that would be a route to take. Unless I can get that boat in the right position to weld the middle of the floor and still use both hands and a foot, scratch start may work fine.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Hey BPlayer405, got any thing else for us on this project. It has been a while since you posted to this thread. Did you finish everything on it yet. I just got a HF spool gun for my Vulcan welder so I am going to try it out soon. May even look at my brother in laws old boat with all the patches on it and see if I can do as good as you are doing with it.

 

[bplayer405]

I have only messed with the rear seating. I removed the rear bench and bracing to see how the mid 1/4 seats would work in the back. They won't work without modification because the boat side angle is different from where the seats were originally located. Leaves a 1" gap between the seat and the boat side. Plus, I don't really like the 1/4 seats in the rear. I'll be losing area for storage and have to change the flooring layout. Guess I had to do it to find that out. So, I reinstalled the bracing and rear bench seat, but ran out of the closed end rivets I'm using and haven't bought more yet. No more welding other than doing a trailer mod (steel) which turned out very well. I haven't went back to fix the leaky floor rivets yet.

Cool to hear you got yourself a spool gun setup. Best thing I've learned is that the grinding wheels that work for concrete also work well for aluminum. They do great for quick cleanup and smoothing on welds that need it. Looking forward to seeing some projects you come up with. My boat project will most likely be put off until after deer season. I now have 3 freezers with 2 to fill. Late winter/early spring is the best time for me to pick this project back up and get it done.

 

[bplayer405]

Some pics of the seating...

 

[Gary Fowler]

Good luck with your hunting, hope you fill both your freezers!

 

[bplayer405]

Thanks. Really hoping to get a turkey this season too. Have a lease where they run around on quite a bit, just haven't seen one with a bow in my hand.

The seating decision was one decision I had to make, I also have to decide on short or long shaft now. I've acquired 2-35hp longshaft OMC outboards. Both electric start. My old outboard is a Mariner 48 that is an awesome powerhouse, but short shaft and doesn't seem to work well on this boat. Acts like it wants to be mounted lower. So, I may be doing some more transom work. Gonna wait till I get the flooring in and add all the weight in the boat and run it again and see how it does. If I go with the long shaft I'll be adding to the transom 4-5" of height. Means reworking the brace and all... Turning into quite the project that has to be done before next fishing season...

 

[Yomax4]

Thanks. Really hoping to get a turkey this season too. Have a lease where they run around on quite a bit, just haven't seen one with a bow in my hand.

The seating decision was one decision I had to make, I also have to decide on short or long shaft now. I've acquired 2-35hp longshaft OMC outboards. Both electric start. My old outboard is a Mariner 48 that is an awesome powerhouse, but short shaft and doesn't seem to work well on this boat. Acts like it wants to be mounted lower. So, I may be doing some more transom work. Gonna wait till I get the flooring in and add all the weight in the boat and run it again and see how it does. If I go with the long shaft I'll be adding to the transom 4-5" of height. Means reworking the brace and all... Turning into quite the project that has to be done before next fishing season...

Our Bow season opens tomorrow. I'm ready. Got big boys on the cams. I'm 10 miles west of LaCrosse WI.

 

[bplayer405]

That's awesome, best of luck to ya! I'm in central IL. No monsters on the cams yet here. Thats ok. Does eat very well!

 

[Gary Fowler]

I am not a deer hunter but if I was, I could set on my patio and kill all I could eat. A couple of weeks ago, I looked out my bathroom window and a buck and 3 does were grazing on my peach and maple trees not 30 feet from my window. I took some photos and everytime the flash went off, they looked my way but didnt move. A. week later about 8am I was on my computer catching up and happened to look up and likely the same deer were out about 50 feet from my patio looking at my nectarine tree leaves. I have a whole pasture full of grass but they prefer trees and rose bush leaves

 

[PILOON]

I'm from aviation background so I'll always lean towards rivets, be it pneumatically set or even 'pop' rivets.
I like PRC (windshield adhesive) or poly B caulking to make good seals.
Shucks Flextra (tm) would glue a patch so well that you'd need a cold chisel to remove it.
Been there. done that!

 

[Gary Fowler]

Got out my spool gun and my Vulcan OmniPro 220 to repair a broken joint on a folding loading ramp. Per Vulcan program 486 IPM wire feed and 18.5 volts was a bit hot. Turned it down to 18 volts and it tied in great even in the inside joint which we couldnt even clean the dirt off very well. You really had to hook 'em to keep from falling thru on the 1/8" thick material but we got it welded up at least from one side. Beer thirty caught us before we finished so welding up the back side is a job for tomorrow. ONLY had two incidents. An acetone soaked rag caught on fire while setting on top of my can of acetone, burned my fingers a bit removing it. My buddies frayed shirt caught fire while he was watching me weld and had to beat him out. Those aluminum sparks go a long way and they are very hot.