I saw this in Harbor Freight and thought it was too good to be true. Aluminium welding with a propane torch, no gases required:
http://www.alumiweld.com/faq.html
I'd really like to make some aluminium cages for my batteries, but don't have access to a TIG welder. If this stuff works, it'd be really really great!
Karen
Many years ago I used something similar (Lumiweld) to make a pitching toe for my baseball spikes. Outlasted my career in fast-pitch softball.
I tried it and had no luck with it, and I know how to weld steel pretty good with a MIG welder. You see people at the hot rod shows giving demos and they make it look easy. I couldn't get it right no matter how I tried.
Karen, is a TechShop near you? They offer access to shop equipment including TIG
In any case .. this does look interesting and could be simple enough ..but.. It seems to me it's more like soldering than welding. Welding the metal pieces are melted and joined directly. They talk about flowing the metal from the rod onto the pieces being joined. That phraseology sounds just like soldering...?
- David Herron, The Long Tail Pipe, davidherron.com, 7gen.com, What is Reiki
I think the trick to making these joints work is the technique they emphasize in their tutorial:
After you melt a puddle of the filler metal onto the joint, use the unmelted tip of the rod to scrape the joint below the puddle surface. You have to get rid of the oxide which will form as soon as you apply a flame to the joint.
Yeah, looking at what it actually does, the name is deceptive -- it should be Alumisold or Alumibraze rather than Alumiweld.
Well, I thought it was too good to be true -- otherwise all the bike freaks I know would have been using it instead of getting TIG/MIG welders. I'll have to check out the Tech Shop, I didn't know about them. I'm also hoping that I can convince one of the guys in the New England Electric Auto Association to teach me how to arc weld.
Karen
Working on a Piaggio Boxer (mo-ped) EV conversion: http://gpsy.com/ev