welded cast alum. with fluxcore

[Millright52]

That's it.

[bayweld]

That's it.

That is not welded...

[walker]

Sounds like you had some electroplated steel to me.......of course my opinion and .75 will get ya a cup of coffee

Thats it then, I'm taking your opinion with me to Starbucks tomorrow. What an excellent deal that will be!

[Synchroman]

I've never heard of aluminum fluxcore for MIG welding, but I have seen aluminum stick welding. Many years ago, I had a left crankcase from my Harley Knucklehead with a broken lug on a motor mount. I took it to a welding shop and watched the welder do a beautiful job with a gas torch, aluminum rod and some flux in a can.

I noticed that it was difficult to tell what temperature the metal was since as we all know, aluminum doesn't change color like ferrous metals will. The fellow knew what he was doing however, since he quickly did a wonderful job. Once the flux was removed, it left a nice clean weld. He left me enough extra so that I could file it back into shape and then drill a new 3/8" hole for the bolt. When I got through, it looked like new. I remember he only charged me $5.00. It would be a little more now, I'm sure.

The problem with gas welding aluminum is that the range between when it's ready to weld and when it melts and hits the floor is not very broad. On the good side, you provide your own preheat with the torch.

A TIG welder is a much better way to go. I have gotten to the point where I can do a good weld with my Miller 200 Syncrowave, which is all the machine a hobbiest such as myself would need. The only other machine I would want would be a Miller inverter version and that's out of budget.

As to the original poster's weld, that looks like some other alloy. It's hard to tell. He should get an "A" for effort, though.

[welding insp.48]

the welding of aluminum with flux core is not normal.
the reason is the low melting point of alumimnum. the flux core wire haveing a power inside ,requires more heat to operate.
gas (argon) is normaly used with the process. this provides good coverage of the weld pool.
tig on a.c.h.f is very good but slower to weld with. however on thin metals like is great. you can use stick rods for aluminum,but outside of a brand called sodel,i don't like them.
with the new types of welding process and how to weld them i maybe wrong? as far as i know the flux core is not use.

[Texas113]

Just saw this post and have to say wow. They made a toy welder that would leave a bead on the toy trucks with some type of hardening silly putty rods. The trucks would crash and you weld them back together. Perhaps they sold that in a larger scale..... Sorry I had to say that. If you ever see this try and post a pic.

[tackit]

I'm thinking the only possible thing that could have taken place is the heat from the flux core melted the aluminum enough to get fusion of both pieces of the cleat. I wouldn't risk my life or limbs on that cleat.

[Forger]

After reading and seeing this post I am convinced that this country should be more concerned about Welder Laws instead of Gun Laws,and I am not gun laws!Sorry Dude but you made about three mistakes on this,Welding that cleat,talking about it and posting the picture but as I am a newbe to this post,I do have hope that the joke is on us.If you really want to test it,put it in a gas forge for six hours if the weld is still there you'll be good to go.