AlumiWeld - easy Aluminum weldiing

[Shawn]

http://www.alumiweld.com/index.html - I saw this product on youtube the other day and thought I would give it a try. It works extremely well and is simple enough to use so I thought I would bring it up hear. The first thing I did was poke a hole in the bottom of a beer can and then repaired it. The repair was hardly noticeable and much harder than the original aluminum. I then tried to join two pieces of aluminum together, I wasn't able to get the thicker pieces of aluminum hot enough with my small torch to get the alumiweld stick to flow. Then I realized that holding the two pieces in my vise was probably acting like a heat sink. I put the pieces onto the bottom of a ceramic pot and tried again. The parts heated up quickly and the joint was easy to weld. The 1/8th inch aluminum pieces were weaker than the joint and bent considerable when I tried to break them apart. There are probably not to many applications where this product will prove useful but it's another tool in the tool chest. Two alumiweld sticks cost me $5.00 and a small propane torch runs around $20.00.

[Matt Olieman]

Interesting Shawn. Could you provide us with the link for the YouTube video?

Matt Olieman

[Shawn]

Sure thing Matt, there are a number of video's showing the product in use but this is the first one that caught my attention. It does take a bit of practice but it's not nearly as difficult as typical welding. This fellow makes it look harder than it actually is. The key is to heat the aluminum and not the rod. The rod will flow easily if heated by the torch but won't bond to the aluminum if it hasn't reached the proper temperature.

http://youtu.be/CJ42scaWFnw

[Matt Olieman]

Excellent!!!

Matt Olieman

[Stijn]

Hi,

I saw this on youtube too, never gave it a shout though.

But it's a great and very affordable way of welding, if you use a small hand held torch,...... not the industrial set he's got:

Could be a very usefull when building a overhead frame



Stijn

[Shawn]

The only problem is that if the joints are two close together each time you heat the aluminum the surrounding joints will melt. This wouldn't be a problem if the whole overhead was clamped and welded at once but adding parts to an existing piece might get tricky. One of the first things I thought about when trying this product was this article http://www.mycockpit.org/forums/cont...ing-Tee-Joints by Mike Powell. Apparently alumiweld can be used to weld galvanized steel which is great because galvanized pipe is pretty cheap and easy to source, perfect cockpit building material.

I might have mistaken EMT (electrical metal conduit) with GMT (Galvanized metal conduit) I'm going to stop by the hardware store on the way home tonight and pick up some EMT and have a go at welding it. I was thinking about making a DC3 style yoke with EMT but decided against it because it couldn't be welded, hopefully this alumiweld works.