Spotwelding aluminum

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Hi Guys,
i was experimenting with my 220 joyal benchtop spotwelder with some 1/16 aluminum.
I got the best welds when i took 2 pieces of 1/16 " steel and put one one each side of the aluminum under the electrode.
Works like a charm, only spotwelds the aluminum together and not the steel to aluminum.
Jon
 
Interesting...What happened when you tried spotting the aluminum direct? I've never tried spot welding aluminum, so I'm curious. When cleaning the aluminum to spot weld, use only a stainless steel wire brush and mark it for "for aluminum only", so as not to contaminate the weld area with other crap. Then wipe the weld area with acetone for a real good clean, this will remove the oxidation and oils that might be on the weld area. Aluminum oxidizes fairly quickly, so clean as much as you can spot weld at one sitting. Anything left overnight should be cleaned again. The methods given are for tig welding aluminum, but should also work well for spot welding.
 
Nothing happened at all. It was wierd, and unexpected, but until I put those 2 pieces of steel, worked like a charm.

Jon
 
Are the welds truly fused? I would love to see a sample of the result because I tend to think that the metal is probably not completely fused and would yield a weak weld that will fail if placed in sheer. Ive actually never even heard of spot welding alli like your doing either. Most of the time Alli is tigged with AC and high frequency. Could you possibly cut through the middle of a weld and get a good close up? Very interesting concept though.

Bob
 
I will try to cut it, but have limited cutting tools , but i tried to bend it and pull it apart with no success, seems strong.
Jon
 
may want to use a couple scraps of stainless instead of reg steel for the same reasons that you use a stainless brush when doing tig....the spotwelds themselves will be plenty strong but theres no reason to risk iron or iron oxide inclusions and be sure and use more spot welds then you would for an identical steel peice..aluminum is far more prone to cracking around the HAZ then steel especially if its 6061 which seems to be the most common aluminum sheet found in most shops.One of the reasons that a lot of body shops and custom sheet metal places that do a lot of work with aluminum have started to go back to the old school way of welding it with flux and an oxy/acetylene rig...it takes more skill and more time but it leaves the joint and the surrounding metal less prone to cracking then a tig torch especialy if the area is to be further worked.
 
the aluminum absorbs all the heat from the steel
 
There is a demo of this on youtube.

[video=youtube_share;gcgC3V3mkcw]http://youtu.be/gcgC3V3mkcw[/video]
 
A couple weeks ago, a neighbor down the street built a spot welder very similar to the one I built (from a microwave transformer). It runs on 125v normal US current, not 220V like they say you need in the video. He did some experiments with sandwiching aluminum between ferrous and said he could spot weld. If I have time this weekend I might try it, but my spot welder needs some tuning up first.
 
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