TIG welding copper?

[SeanSpencer]

Anyone have any experience welding copper? I believe we are using 110 copper, long machined sections with about 1/4" walls. I have seen that sometimes helium is preferred over argon, but didn't know how well it works in general given the high heat conduction there. Any anecdotes, advice appreciated. I am a novice welder but we have a couple people to turn to with more experience.

Thanks.__________________________
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[Markswelding]

Yes it works, I've done it with both helium or argon.
You need more power
I use to do old copper electrodes restored for reuse build up that was with a miller synchrowave 350-400-500 amps.
I've also done some copper water pipe on machine coils where I work now to hardface rolls with a magnetic type induction
We call it a 60cycle machine. 1 of the welds were broke lose because of hose strain stress??? But I took it ground out the old fillet weld and redid, (even with junk it worked) some old orange miller box had a little leak but that was resolved with a little cleaning and a zap.
Good luck, I liked doing it

[SundownIII]

Could someone please translate this response.

[Donald Branscom]

I just TIG weld the copper with silicon bronze. Argon 100%

[wronghand]

I have done it using stripped housewire for filler. Same set up as mild steel but you need to run about 30% hotter than you would with steel. So for 1/4" wall I would read that as being close to 300 amps, maybe 325. I hear that silicon bronze filler works well.

[Donald Branscom]

I have done it using stripped housewire for filler. Same set up as mild steel but you need to run about 30% hotter than you would with steel. So for 1/4" wall I would read that as being close to 300 amps, maybe 325. I hear that silicon bronze filler works well.

Stripped house wire for filler....interesting.

[b-footn]

Could someone please translate this response.

(Could Someone) : a question asking for more knowledge

(please) : a polite way of asking a question

(translate) : trying to understand a statement

(this responce) : a statement from a forum member

[SundownIII]

B-footn,

Yepper, you got me.

Should have stated, "Could someone please translate posting #2"

To the OP

Yes, copper can be welded.

As you noted, due to the high thermal conductivity of the metal, high amps are required. In some cases, the addition of Helium to the Argon may help.

For a detailed discussion of welding copper and the copper based alloys, you may want to check out Chapter 10 of Lincoln's Procedure Handbook of Arc Welding.

It will show that the preferred filler for copper, using the GTAW process, is ERCuSi-A or ERCuSn-A for strength and ERCu for conductivity. Significant preheat is also recommended.

I have welded copper with deoxidized copper rod and silicon bronze rod with equally good results.

[yorkiepap]

Hey Donald Branscom,
Yes, copper house wire will TIG weld quite nicely as its 99% pure copper & it's deoxidized copper. I do a bit of thin copper tubing welding for a customer who uses a lot of copper tubing for his artistic taxidermy mounts. Since I had a box of 12"-24" cutoff pieces of #10 copper wire from where I worked that was headed to the dumpster, I just stripped the insulation off, wiped it with a dampened acetone rag & used it. Excellent filler.....

Denny