Production welding Aluminum

[greywynd]

Hi guys,

I'm looking for advice and recomendations, I have a chance at getting a fab job through a friend/partner of mine. We have a customer looking for 60 frames out of 1/4" and 3/16" aluminum tubing, the last ones they bought were $600 each, but the company doens't have capacity to do this batch. There's a fair bit of welding to do, and I know that using my tig won't cut it, so I'm exploring ideas/options for a welder that would handle this. I'm basically looking at this with the idea that I can make enough (or more) from this one job to pay for the welder from the profits, from my rough guess on pricing from my existing work I don't feel it will be a problem, but there are more numbers to crunch yet.

So.....large amounts of welding 1/4" thick aluminum....obviously we're likely looking at wire feed, what do you guys suggest I look at? I have some ideas, but I'll hold back until I see some responses.

Thanks,
Mark

[MXtras]

Wire feed for thicker sections would be fine, but I still prefer TIG - like a Synchrowave 250 or 300. I have both a Miller TIG and a Miller MIG but if it's aluminum, I TIG it - no question. But that's me.

And this post is me, pimpin' my babies!



Scott

[greywynd]

Scott,

any time i see pics of your shop I mistake it for a hospital operating room for some reason.....maybe someday...alas.

Forgot to add folks, that I'm really only looking at red or blue, they are the best served units locally....in case I have troubles, I don't want to be shipping/driving for hours to get the thing fixed. Past experience has been that the local suppliers are close in price anyway, so I prefer to support them, and in turn I get a lot of little perks that are well worth it IMO.

Mark

[MXtras]

Well - as you know, Blue is famous for their customer service. Call them up and ask someone to come out and review your application and recommend a machine based on your requirements.

They actually offered to buy my MIG back after 18 months when I was not satisfied with it's perfomance on aluminum. Long story - I will leave it at that for now, but it was how I learned that MIG is not too well suited for thinner aluminum - high volume or not.

Scott

[Hotfoot]

"any time i see pics of your shop I mistake it for a hospital operating room for some reason.....maybe someday...alas."

Hey, Greywnd...perhaps you missed the shot with the rest of the equipment in there...

[tomtri]

Haha!! Where's the pic of the defibrillator? I think my heart just stopped.

[Rocky D]

Nice job, Hotfoot...what program did ya use for it?

[Hotfoot]

Originally Posted by Rocky D

Nice job, Hotfoot...what program did ya use for it?

Rocky, I just used my old trusty Microsoft Picture It that i bought back in 1992. I've run it on my last four or five computers, and it still keeps chuggin' along. I like it because its dead simple, does any color match by clicking on it, and, in this case, does cut-outs.

I copied his pic, got another off Google images, cut out his equipment, cut out the operating bed from the other.

I put up the OR pic, slid his equipment cutout into position, ligthly rotated it to align it, pulled it up to size, then placed the cutout of the operating bed back into position, giving it that layered look.

Broccoli did the best one like this in Photoshop (which I have, but have yet to get around to learning and using), where he took one of my skeleton bikes, and had it ridin along in between Fonda and Hopper in Easy Rider...Hey Broc, still got that file? I lost alot of mine (including that one) in a computer tragedy.

[Bern_F150_4X4]

Nice work Hotfoot, think you could add a HF 4x6 bandsaw on the left?. I'd like to see the Easy Rider pic too. Back by popular demand!

[MXtras]

That is awesome! Nice work, Hotfoot!



Scott

[acmemetalfab]

That's really funny. Nicely done!

[Broccoli1]

Here it is

[Zapit]

You could look at the Millermatic 350P or the Lincoln Powermig 350mp. You would want to have the push/pull gun. I know a couple og guys that build aluminum boats and they switched from spoolguns to the Powermig with push/pull and cut the welding time on a boat almost in half--and the welds were better and prettier. Have your LWS get the blue and red rep to come demo them for you. Can't say that eithe is cheap, though.

[Hotfoot]

Originally Posted by Broccoli1

Here it is

Thanks, Broc!!

[DetailerDave]

One of my former employers did quite a bit of production aluminum welding. We ran the push-pull guns with a pulsed-arc power supply. We didn't have any major issues. As far as the brands, we had a mixture of different ones.