Not to bad

 

that looks much better looks like you do have a little cavitation at the termination point i would pause a little longer also those whips still look a little loose but all in all still looks alot better than the one before also keep in mind that what your doing is a balancing act with the filler welds if your bead is to high it takes the grinders longer if your bead is concave in any areas it will show when they grind it , i also used to work production i built semi trailers mostly for the oil fields and some military contracts with some where in the neighbor hood of 1000 welds per trailer quite a few were multi pass and on some the deck plate was welded solid meaning 60 feet of weld just on one item we were expected to kick one out every 15-17 hours with a two man team.....theres allways time for a good weld.

 

I find that by the time I get to the bottom of the weld, the base metal is so hot that it is nearly impossible to keep a convex finish, so I usually spot the bottom before I make the run, or spot it after. I could turn down the wire speed but that makes the start look cold and raised too high. I am supposed to get at least 10 of these frames a day, though I usually get 13 or so. I will probably slow down a touch and get my whips a little closer. Thank you for your help and knowledge.

 

looks good, especially working under strict time and rushing

 

looks great to me. i also aluminum mig weld (building dump trailers for semi's.)

 

in the shop I worked in there was a strict rule to never weld downhill.

 

Mig like tig part 2??

 

4th and 5th pic seem to show craters between the ripples.

I assume you are whipping forward and back. If so, tighten it up would likely fix it.

Nothing wrong with a straight pull.

Dave J.

 

Welding downhill on aluminum???? :nono:

 

Why???

 

On mig downhill in general or just on aluminum?

 

On mild steel with Mig I won't weld down hill on anything thicker than 10-GA.

 

It's not that it is not possible, but rather that it is easy to get a good looking weld with no penetration.

 

those welds look great. welding downhand with al wire is done all the time, your work being an example. the only weld that looks like a straight downhand al weld is the short corner weld on the upper left.

 

To those who say it's taboo to mig aluminum downhill. I have to ask just how much experience do you have on the subject? Have you done a lot of mig aluminum, what kind of tests have you done to back up your advice?

I'll agree that downhill short circuit gmaw on steel is typically a terrible idea but even that depends on the joint configuration. Short circuit steel and pulse aluminum are two totally different situations.

 

X2 with Hertz. He stated material thickness is 1/8 . Downhill not a problem on something that thin. Sure your not going to want to do it on material much thicker. Nice looking welds man.

 

They teach us @ my school to run GMAW aluminum downhill. They also bend test most of them to make sure we are getting under the puddle enough to get good penetration while doing so.

I've only had luck doing vertical up aluminum on thicker material (3/16) in my case.