Pre-Heating Aluminum for Welding

by Steve (Slagg)
(Carson City, NV USA)

Sometimes when welding aluminum, thick to thin, it helps to pre-heat, or for that matter, any heavy thickness of aluminum, to make the process much easier. A trick I use so I don't get it to hot, and I don't have any way of monitoring temp., is I use an oxy acetylene torch outfit and just light off the acetylene and blacken the area with soot. Then with the flame set back with oxy for heating, evenly heat area until the soot disappears, and weld away. I think that gets it right around 1000 deg. but not hot enough to melt it. With thick to thin concentrate most of the heat on the thickest material.

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