Tig weld fail

[muddstopper]

Every try to do something you knew wasnt going to work before you even tried. Buddy brought over his aluminum ramps he had broken the end off of wanting me to weld it up. Ramps where greasy and oxidized so bad you couldnt tell what kind of metal it was. I knew this was going to be a challege because I didnt have anything to clean the oil with and my stainless brush wasnt exactly clean either. Well, we wiped and scrubed and wiped and scrubed and ended up with a very dark, instead of shiney, weld area. Against my better judgment, I fired up the tig, hopeing I could chase the crap out of the weld area with the tig torch. Started with low amps and tried to burn out the crap. Didnt work, tried a little more amps, still no use. Turned tig up to he ll fire furnace and couldnt get the metal to fuse. More I tried, the blacker the metal got. I gave up and sent the job down the road. Lesson learned. If its that dirty and you dont have the tools to clean it properly, dont make a mess of it by trying to weld anyway. No picture, no cameras allowed for this job.

 

[Stimw]

Used to have to MIG weld broken aluminum floors in refer semi trailers, that was my worst!
The floors had a coat of animal fat AND once clean enough to weld then the insulation underneath would out-gas from the heat and ruin the weld.

 

[muddstopper]

Nothing like fireing up the torch and watching the metal turn all black and sooty

 

[TMGT]

Worst for me is trash trucks, no matter how clean it is the weld will burn some sort of juice which is putrid.

One job I did that i wasn't sure would work but actually did was repair a trans case in a trash truck, pto shaft came lose and smacked the side of the trans cracking it and causing a leak.

Very little access and trans was so covered in gunk, it worked but wasn't fun and not real pretty.