TIG Welding 2024 Aluminum ("unweldable" alloy)

[everlastsupport]

Yep read that stuff years ago, 2024, however is a borderline alloy, difficult but can be done as you yourself have shown, 7075 is on the other hand is on the other end of the doable scale. BUT even that one can be tricked with things like DURAFIX which is sort of a low temp solder method.

http://durafix.com/

I have a knock-off of durafix. Have not tried the stuff yet ($52 for 1lbs). Gave a few two a friend to try as he had a project to use them on. The if used right, it is supposed to work well.

I have tried Aluminators and gave them away (was not impressed).

Also guy, these are O/A (gas) solutions, not for TIG, but they do work. I have seen a live demo, and I bet they guy had done it 100,000 times before, looked so easy.

[jakeru]

I have used the zinc-aluminum rods to braize aluminum together with oxy-acetylene before I got my TIG setup. It is actually kind of neat, you can braze some joints that you could never weld, like join the large surfaces of two pieces of plate together. I like Geezer's idea of using it to join 7xxx series aluminum together because, well that's got zinc in it too.

Their is no inherent reason that the braizing rod should cost a lot however; its not like silver solder, where the scrap/free market prices of a key ingredient (the silver) costs a lot in "scrap value". It's only composed of Zinc and Aluminum I believe, neither of which cost very much in scrap value. The manufacturing cost should be low.

And indeed, if you don't get hung up on brand names, you can shop around and find essentially the same product for much less. Here is the same basic product, (zinc-aluminum brazing rod melting at around 800F,) sold as "Welco 52" in 1/8" rod form for $10 / lb:
http://weldingsupply.securesites.com...52-60||1|510||