Thought i'd share a few pics from the shop, one of my guys is out for a few days for his daughters surgery so i jumped in and built a rear header this morning, i weld steel for the most part but still do a bit of alum. mig from time to time, ran some scrap before i welded this one up since the main tubes are pretty thin and easy to blow through. Most people look at me like i'm stupid when i tell them i can mig aluminum. I just have to stay on my game since i'm the head of welding operations for the grain/gooseneck trailer lines with my company.

Machine is a lincoln powersource under a cobramatic feeder with a 20' lead and python gun, i use this machine anywhere i go in the shop to do aluminum, cause its setup so damn nice.

Enjoy

 

and the finished header 1st pic, this will get a roll up door, the second pic is what it looks like installed on a trailer except that one takes a sliding door.

 

Some sweet welds. It is like artwork.

 

I used to weld aluminum for signs for a living & I've gotta say...DAMN NICE WORK! Mine were never that pretty, but mine were never visible, so there wasn't any care about anything but function.

 

those are some sweet welds, a little larger than what a tig would do, but i can honestly say i havent ever seen a aluminum mig job that looked anywhere near that good. You do nice work.

 

very nice. I can appreciate the art there with a mig.
I use to have a milletmatic 250 mig machine with a prince xl aluminum 1lb spool gun.

 

Excellent looking MIG welds!

What pattern are you using to move the pool? Looks like stacked triangles?

 

Thanks guys, i've never welded with a spool gun, always been curious how they run, as for the pattern its somewhat of a modified whip and pause i would call it, any visible welds we want oscilated for that nice look, the stuff no one will ever see like crossmembers under the deck etc are generally dragged.
These are pretty nice because the hinges and those corner plates are alot thicker than the main tubes, so you favor that and let it lay in, the machine setup the way i have it is great for telling you when its time to pull out of your puddle and move, starts to crackle just a bit somewhat of the sound of a steel mig, move forward and back into your puddle again, i've found listening and moving the gun to the welding really produces a great looking bead, in the 5 years i've been there 3.5 of which all i did was build those headers i have yet to have one come back on a factory warranty for cracked welds, had a few get torn up from some black angus bulls gettin pissed off awhile back but the trailer went to one of our repair facilities and the pics were brutal they had actually split that big tube on the right in half from kicking it. Maybe one of these mornings i'll see if i can get my partner to take a short video of how i run em

 

WOW . .

 

well crap i was gonna show yall some vert down pics i have and they say invalid files, oh well they were camera phone pics anyways

 

ya wanta email em to me I'll host em for ya.

 

I work in a diesel shop and the Sara Lee feed trailers that come in don't have welds that look that good. Good job and nice welds. I wish I could weld like that!

 

Heres one of a proto part i put together, this door is generally steel this was a proto aluminum and much lighter door, the gear racks are steel bolted from the top side, the big plate is 3/8" alum and the flat bar is 3/4" First one we build engineering wanted the flat bar heated to help with penetration, i fought that one and sure enough when it came time to weld it the heat brought moisture out of the pores of the aluminum and just made the welding pretty marginal, this one was put together with my way of doing, cut a 45* bevel 3" long where each weld was place, penetration was amazing and door came out great, this sat in the owners office for a few days until i got its match made and now they are in a trailer heading for kansas for field testing. Wish the pic had come out better, took it with the phone

Bonebreak, thanks alot, who's trailers are they?

 

This is what i'm running 90% of the time, i've got 2 feeder booms on the jig for the steel frame and running around 3.5 33lbs spools of .035 lincoln L-56 a week on each boom, speeding back up here in 6 weeks and will run 5 spools per boom per week.....thats alot of wire if your doing the math

 

Sara Lee. They make bread and other stuff. I live in IA and they have a farm division here also. I'll have to take a picture of one of their feed trailers and post it on here. It's just a cylinder shaped aluminum trailer with an auger on the back. They go to turkey farms and deliver turkey feed. From looking at the picture of the finished trailer that you posted earlier, I've worked on one that looks the exact same.