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Aluminum Welder in London, Ontario


JW Portable Welding & Repair, aluminum welder capabilities, aluminum cast welding, aluminum handrail welding

JW Portable Welding & Repairs, mobile aluminum welder in London, Ontario offers stick welding aluminum, mig welding aluminum, and Tig welding aluminum for welding of aluminum railings, cast and frames. We offer aluminum welder service in 3 basic setups in Southern Ontario:

  1. mobile welding with stick welding aluminum
  2. portable welding with Mig and Tig
  3. in shop welding with Mig and Tig

Generally speaking, we have 3 choices of technologies for aluminum welding in London:  stick, GTAW (Tig) and GMAW (Mig). Please contact us for your next project.

Certainly, each technology has its advantages and disadvantages and not all technologies are available in mobile aluminum welder setup. Or if they are available, they face severe restrictions.

There are basically four detrimental factors affecting aluminum welding:

  1. Thickness of material
  2. Alloy specification
  3. Wind
  4. Welding machine parameters

And, each detrimental factor could restrain the welding setup making it impractical. Moreover, combination of factors could do the same. Welding thin aluminum and wind serves as an excellent detrimental factor. Additionally, judging from experience, separate detrimental factors affect also specific welding technology used in particular setup. Lack of certain alloys in spools makes Mig technology less popular for certain aluminum elements.

The mobile setup for aluminum welder in London.

Most mobile welding projects take place in open air. They take place  outside of welding shop and outside of warehouse or production facilities. The open air environment could be challenging due to variety of reasons. Good aluminum welds require gas shield therefore windy and wet conditions prohibit the extensive use of Tig or Mig technologies.

The blowing wind removes occasionally the shielded gas causing major porosity problems that weakens. When it happens the welder notice the very black and rather sooty looking weld. With unexpected changes of wind direction the porosity make all shielded techniques, Tig and Mig, impractical for welding aluminum.

Wet environment makes also any welding impossible or at least very difficult. Additionally, in case of aluminum the preheat that is so useful for drying steel and stainless in wet environment, is rather challenging. Especially, for relatively thin aluminum elements the preheat can increase the metal temperature too much. Consequently welder has to wait to cool down the aluminum and unfortunately with cooling down metal temperature the moisture is coming too.

Mobile aluminum welder in London uses tent or umbrella

Definitely, mobile welder can utilize welding tents or welding umbrella to improve the welding conditions.  And, shield the welding spot from wind. Unfortunately, the use of tent or umbrella is not often possible due to severity of wind and access restrain to the welding spot. Since budgetary constraints play a major role in mobile welding, spending time on auxiliary activities could be difficult to justify for many clients. These clients simply do not understand the necessary conditions for successful, and strong aluminum weld.

Welding stick (S.M.A.W) aluminum on bridge in very windy conditions. London Ontario 2017
JW Portable Welding & Repairs, welding stick (S.M.A.W) aluminum on bridge in very windy Conditions. London, Ontario 2017

For instance, welding aluminum handrail on bridges is extremely difficult due to windy conditions. We have tried using umbrellas but the wind have damaged them in the first day. Then, we have tried our welding tent but even with the tent setup we have faced difficulties. We have stabilized  the tent with rocks but still it almost got blown out of bridge a few times. Moreover, we had to relocate often to reach another spot in the long handrail. Therefore, the tent setup was taking too long to relocate. Finely, we have stabilized our tent by two helpers holding it. In meantime, the welder has performed the repairs.

Most importantly however, the tent setup did not allow to put the welded piece to the tent in order to protect it from the wind and create a protection of shielded gas during welding. This is clearly visible on the picture above.

Stick welding (S.M.A.W.), a most preferred for mobile aluminum welder in London

In windy conditions only aluminum welding with stick (S.M.A.W) is possible. Although this stick technology is the best for windy conditions but unfortunately weld quality is not as good as with other two technologies. Moreover, the quality of aluminum stick rods varies significantly in North America and these quality differences affect welder’s performance and quality of weld. Among 9 tested by us welding rods from different manufacturers, only one has met our requirements.

5 Challenges of stick welding aluminum

Stick welding of elements made from aluminum is not an easy task due to lack of weld visibility. Simply put the welder does not see what he/she is doing. Lack of visibility creates very significant problems for welders since they do not know how to correct the movement of the aluminum rod to improve the weld.

Secondly the burning through the material happens more often than in steel welding. Therefore welding at higher amperage within recommended by manufacturer welding ampere range, not necessary brings better results.

Thirdly any waving or slowing down techniques for reduction of heat or increase of heat cause rather unexpected bad results. In my opinion relaying on good machine setup and correct joint preparation brings the biggest improvements in quality of aluminum weld. Instead of waving or stopping, I would rather recommend increased speed.

Fourth. A welder has to also consider rod’s diameter since the rod below 1/8 inch easily bends. Obviously, it is difficult to strike an arc with bent rod and then run a bid with and bent soft rod. Aluminum rods generally respond very well to initial strike, but unfortunately they do not respond well to re-striking with the same rod.

Fifth. In addition, these stick rods are very sensitive to position changes which severely affect quality of welding in vertical and overhead positions. Moreover, their coating is extremely sensitive to moisture therefore a portable oven when welding aluminum in open air.

A few words about detrimental factors

In reality, mobile welder’s projects usually relate up to 1/8 inch thick aluminum used in construction, trailers frames, railing and handrails and in general maintenance. And burning through this thin material with the hot rod happens often for unexperienced welder.

The role of adjusting your welding consumable to the welding alloy is diminished due to lack of different varieties of aluminum rods. Practically only two kinds of aluminum rods are available 3xxx and 4xxx. The softer 3xxx aluminum rod makes a better paddle and the weld looks better. But, unfortunately does not provide the strong weld. The 4xxx aluminum rod generates stronger weld but only very experienced welders use it.

The ordinary welding machines with DC and/or AC are suitable for these stick aluminum rods and therefore old self-propelled welding machines will work just fine.

The economical factors limit the technological progress for mobile aluminum welder in London

With the technological progress mobile welder has a choice of attachments to the self-propelled welding machine as long as this machine is able to provide connection or is able to provide alternative current. Unfortunately, in my opinion due to budgetary constrains of mobile welding, I do not think the use of Tig or Mig technologies provides valuable options.

The Mig attachment is rather expensive and has thickness limitation of 3/8 inch for plates. The Tig technology would provide a valuable option for mobile welder as long as the self-propelled welding machine generates alternative current, but unfortunately most older models do not have the AC option. Additionally, lack of water cooling will force use of large Tig guns with large diameter tungsten that could complicate the welding of rather thin elements.

Portable setup for aluminum welder in London

Many welding professionals consider portable welding as part of mobile welding. In my opinion, however, portable welding forms a completely different technological and setup operation. Portable welder’s welding machines connect to client’s power source and they have to be light enough for a one person to unload them quickly from the trailer. In fact, the trailer provides the mobility to portable welders, however these welders still use portable welding machines in clients’ facilities.

As mentioned above the portable welding machine has to be connected to the client’s power source and since clients have multiple different receptacles for different currents, sometimes we face problems. Therefore the portable welder must have adapters to the client’s receptacles. Additionally, portable welder must make sure that client’s current meets the welding machine manufacturer’s recommendation.

Tig and Mig technologies in portable welding

In portable welder’s setup Tig and Mig technologies rule the game for aluminum welder. The welding process takes place in shop, warehouse, or production plant. Therefore, portable welder is able to implement all shielded gas technologies. The option to use a shielded gas in aluminum welding increases the quality of weld in aluminum.

However, comparing the Tig and Mig machines used by portable welder to same machines in the shop, you will find that not only they are lighter, less sophisticated and most importantly they do not generate enough power to weld thick aluminum. At this moment I am talking about aluminum plates thicker than 1 – 1/2 inch.

Mig portable welder for aluminum

The Mig portable welder with push-pull gun or preferably with a spool gun becomes the preferable setup. Traditionally, wire’s alloy 4043 or 5356 are most popular in the industry. However, if necessary, most complicated alloys are available in wire forms to fit the welded material better.  These specialty wires are very useful to weld casts or molds since their properties match the welding material’s properties.

JW Portable Welding & Repair setup of portable Mig welding machine for welding aluminum with a spool gun. London, Ontario,2020
JW Portable Welding & Repair setup of portable Mig welding machine for welding aluminum with 25 feet lead spool gun. The machine  connects to client’s power outlet. we have isolated the workplace from the public by tarps. London, Ontario, 2020

The availability of 25feet or 50feet lead to the spool gun provides the distance advantage over the 12.5 feet lead of push-pull gun. Aluminum projects are usually rather large and spacious therefore a longer lead makes a huge difference. Additionally, these spool guns are very comfortable for welding and they do not cause the bird nest so characteristic for push-pull gun. It is worth mentioning that bird nest formation increases with lower diameter of aluminum wire and with utilization of softer aluminum such as 3xxx

The Mig technology with a spool gun is our preferred technology for repair of aluminum molds and welding spacious projects from aluminum.

Here are additional comments by Miller regarding this topic

Tig portable welder for aluminum

Although Tig technology is available in portable form, the water-cooling aspect makes it heavier. As explained above due to physical properties of aluminum the water cooling is rather important. Moreover, very thick aluminum requires powerful (500 A) welding machines which are very heavy therefore these heavy machines would rather suite the welding shop operation.

The medium size Tig water cooling machines provide sufficient support for specific needs of portable welder up to probably ½ inch. The quality of weld is excellent and the setup adjust very well to different shapes and sizes of aluminum cast. The presence of pedal in the welding machine allows to adjust the heat during welding which is paramount for welding aluminum.

Tig guns for aluminum welder

Point often overlook is the size of a Tig gun to weld aluminum. The Tig guns to weld steel are generally much smaller than Tig guns to weld aluminum. There is a reason for a large size of the Tig gun to weld aluminum. This Tig gun must accommodate much larger tungsten and must sustain greater heat. Please remember Tig guns to weld aluminum usually operate at higher amperage in comparison to Tig guns for welding steel.

I highly recommend using temp. guns to monitor the temperature of welding materials. This is extremely important for thin walled aluminum plates as well as thin walled Italian casts. These materials accumulate temperature very quickly and before you know it, you can cause irreversible damages. With this in mind, taking breaks and adjustment of welding parameters reduces the risk of damages due to overheating.

In general, we prefer Tig welding as our preferred technology for repair all aluminum casts, but to repair aluminum molds we usually use Mig.

In – shop setup for aluminum

Generally speaking, the in-shop setup of aluminum welder is similar to portable setup but involves stationary heavy machines. These machines are not only heavier and more powerful but also more sophisticated. They are also much, much more expensive.